In the capital of Texas sprouts a lender solely focused on active duty and vets
LendFriend Home Loans, a mortgage lender based in Austin, Texas, has launched LendHero, a dedicated affiliate designed to help veterans and active-duty military members navigate the homebuying process.
Working alongside the veteran services experts of VA Claims Insider, LendHero is poised to provide the veteran community with a customer-focused mortgage lending experience, LendFriend’s president, Eric Bernstein (pictured), told Mortgage Professional America.
“It’s a bit of a passion project in the sense that I got my career started just assisting veterans and active-duty members,” Bernstein said, noting how now it’s “coming back full circle.”
He extolled the work of joint venture partner VA Claims Insider, an Austin-based upstart that helps between 1,000 and 1,500 military veterans a month increase their disability rating on which their income from the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is derived.
“By the time they are done, they would think ‘how can we help them more?’ ‘How can we extend this client relationship?’ Mortgage was kind of a natural,” Bernstein said. “They interviewed a couple of different banks and lenders and decided to partner with us because of our past experiences and my past being an expert with VA loans. What we try to do is assist their current clients to get preapproved and understand what it would take to buy a home in the current market conditions.”
To make the joint venture work, LendHero will combine LendFriend’s reputation for customer service and deep lending expertise with VA Claims Insider’s years of experience working with veterans to establish and improve their disability ratings, Bernstein explained. LendHero will work directly with the veteran and military community to provide guidance, support and exceptional customer service to help find and finance their dream homes, he added.
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Due to special qualifying and appraisal rules for VA loans, Bernstein noted, veterans are likely losing bidding wars to offers using conventional or all-cash financing options in today’s real estate market. Those veterans that are able to buy their home with a VA are, unfortunately, paying high origination fees and receiving lackluster service, he added.
Enter LendHero, keen on bringing a new approach to the VA loan market.
“LendHero is the culmination of the years of work VA Claims Insider and LendFriend have put into supporting military families,” Josh Leggett, chief corporate development officer at VA Claims Insider and branch manager of LendHero, said in a prepared statement. “VA Claims Insider has a proven reputation for helping veterans navigate claims and improving their disability ratings through the VA. Once they take that step, many veterans naturally want to achieve the same dream everyone else wants: owning their own home. LendHero is the natural evolution of our mission to support veterans when they come home. We’re incredibly proud to partner with LendFriend to prioritize veterans in our community.”
VA Claims Insider is an Austin-based education and consulting company built on empowering veterans to navigate their benefits, according to information found on their website. VA Claims Insider’s primary function is to assist veterans in applying for and improving their disability ratings from the VA. Under their guidance, more than 20,000 veterans have increased their disability ratings, with an average rating increase of 30%, helping those who served access millions of additional dollars, according to the website.
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Bernstein noted that one of the tasks in operating the joint venture is centered on education: “That’s one of the missions as well, to re-educate not only consumers but realtors,” he said. “There’s a big stigma in the market from prior to 2015 that sellers had to take more risk and more costs associated with a VA loan compared to conventional or other financing options. Nowadays, that really doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, the biggest thing is education. A lot of listing agents out there still believe the seller is going to be far worse off when it comes to costs by accepting a VA loan – which isn’t the case anymore. There’s no more seller-required closing costs to be picked up on a VA loan.”
LendHero will initially launch in Texas and Florida, with plans to expand to serve veterans across the United States.
