So I went to a VA Sem­i­nar, hosted by Mil­i­tary Home Pro­grams, the other day to re-up my knowl­edge on VA home loans. Andrew Paul and Ken Bates did a won­der­ful job detail­ing the require­ments and the ben­e­fits of VA home loans.

VA financ­ing is an extremely use­ful tool for mil­i­tary mem­bers, past and present. It can save them a lot of money. I will touch upon the main points that Andrew and Ken brought up dur­ing the sem­i­nar to give an overview of the VA loan program.

More than 29 mil­lion vet­er­ans and ser­vice per­son­nel are eli­gi­ble for VA financing.

A VA loan is a loan gau­ran­teed by the United States Depart­ment of Vet­eran Affairs. This gau­ranty pro­tects the lender against loss if pay­ments are not made, allow­ing lenders to give more favor­able terms to the veterans.

How­ever, the max­i­mum VA loan gau­ran­tee varies by county. In San Diego County, the max­i­mum VA loan amount is $537,500 with zero down, with a VA Jumbo loan that can go up to $1,500,000.

Eli­gi­bilty for VA loans basi­cally applies to any­one that has com­pleted mil­i­tary ser­vice. This eli­gi­bil­ity does not expire, mean­ing that wid­ows can uti­lize the eli­gi­bil­ity of their spouses, and that the VA loan is re-usable. To be eli­gi­ble, Active Duty mem­bers need a min­i­mum of 90 con­tin­u­ous days or 181 dur­ing peace­time and Active Reserve or National Guard need 6 years in selected reserves.

Active Duty mem­bers need a min­i­mum of 90 con­tin­u­ous days or 181 dur­ing peace­time and Active Reserve or National Guard need 6 years in selected reserves.

Here is a list of ben­e­fits of VA loans:

• Fixed Loan (Inter­est rate stays the same through­out the loan).
• Zero Down (You can get the loan with no money down).
• No Mort­gage Insur­ance (PMI).
• No Pre-Payment Penalties.

Here is a list of VA home loan requirements:

• Prop­erty must be owner occu­pied – no investments/2nd homes.
• They will look at your last 2 years pay­ment his­tory for credit issues.
• Credit scores need to be “good enough.”
• MHP will work with credit scores as low as 620.
• No Reserves Required.
• Pay­ment of Fund­ing Fee.

Fund­ing Fee % Based on Down Payment

If you are dis­abled due to a service-related injury (and are receiv­ing mil­i­tary dis­abil­ity pay cur­rently), your fund­ing fee is waived and you pay noth­ing any­time you use a VA loan, no mat­ter what your down pay­ment is.

Here are a cou­ple of exam­ples from Andrew & Ken at Mil­i­tary Home Pro­grams:

Ale­sha W. (Sin­gle Mom, Closed on 4/21/08 for $237,000)

It was bet­ter for her to own her own home and live off base!

Greg & Mary P. (Closed on 2/03/09 for $1,375,500 pur­chase price)

The loan was for $957,500! and they saved nearly $1,000/month over a reg­u­lar Jumbo loan.

So as you can see, if you are eli­gi­ble for a VA loan, you would be wise to take advan­tage of it. These are just a few among many exam­ples where VA financ­ing saved buy­ers a lot of money.

Hope­fully this gave you a bet­ter insight to what VA financ­ing is and what you need to uti­lize it. If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns feel free to con­tact me and I will be glad to help.

Thanks again to Andrew Paul and Ken Bates down at Mil­i­tary Home Pro­grams. They did an excel­lent job on the sem­i­nar, but more impor­tantly, they do a very thor­ough and effi­cient job when deal­ing with VA loans. You can also check them out on Face­book.

Photo by Bev­erly & Pack.

Damon Bas­sett & Amber Mad­sen cozy up in their home at 161 I Avenue. Damon (10 year Coro­n­ado res­i­dent) and Amber have lived there for a year and a half now.

“We love to bike around the island and down­town San Diego. And in our spare time, we love to do hot yoga.”

What They Like About Their Location

Damon: I love the quiet street and that we are between two parks. Bayview Park is amaz­ing, espe­cially at night to view the Down­town Sky­line.

Amber: I love being close to Bayview Park and the Land­ing. “No hus­tle and bus­tle of the vil­lage, almost has a country-style feel to it.”

Their Favorite Place to Eat on the Island

Damon: Swaddee’s Thai Restaurant.

Amber: Chez Loma.

Their Favorite Thing About Coronado

Damon: “I love being around the ocean and the water.” (He’s a water­man!) Damon is a Senior Life­guard for the Coro­n­ado Lifeguards.

Amber: “I love the small town charm of Coro­n­ado. Know­ing peo­ple wher­ever you go.”

The 40th Annual Coro­n­ado Opti­mist Sports Fiesta is com­ing up on July 30th & 31st!

There will be a 10K run, a 1-Mile rough water swim, and the Triathlon. All the events will start and fin­ish at Sun­set Park in Coro­n­ado. Entrants will all receive a 40th Annual Sports Fiesta t-shirt for their efforts.

10K Run: The 10K run will start at 7am on July 30th. It is a 10,000 meter run over a flat, fast course on paved streets on NAS North Island. You can start check­ing in at 6am. End of day of race reg­is­tra­tion is 6:45am. Wheel­chair entrants are wel­come and will have a sep­a­rate cat­e­gory provided.

1-Mile Swim: The 1-Mile rough water swim starts at 11am on July 30th. The course will con­sist of three buoys mak­ing up the course off of Coronado’s North Beach. Check-in starts at 10am and day of race reg­is­tra­tion ends at 1045am.

Triathlon: The Triathlon starts at 730am on July 31st. It con­sists of a 400-yard ocean swim, 1-Mile beach run, and a 4-Mile bik­ing sec­tion. The swim­ming & run­ning sec­tions are at Coro­n­ado North Beach and the bik­ing sec­tion is on NAS North Island streets. HELMETS ARE REQUIRED for bik­ing sec­tion. Check-in starts at 630am and day of race reg­is­tra­tion ends at 715am. IMPORTANT — Triathlon is lim­ited to first 300 entrants.

Good luck to all of you who will be com­pet­ing in the 40th Annual Coro­n­ado Opti­mist Club Sports Fiesta. Even if you are not, come out and cheer those you know on. For more infor­ma­tion you can check out the Opti­mist Club of Coro­n­ado Web­site.

Also, here is a link to the Entry Form for the Sports Fiesta. This also has the map of the races and more infor­ma­tion about each event.

Spe­cial thanks to the Opti­mist Club of Coro­n­ado (Fea­tured Pic­ture) for host­ing the Sports Fiesta for 40 years now and for all they have done for the City of Coronado.

Fea­tured Photo by: Opti­mist Club of Coro­n­ado.

Sec­ondary Photo by: rickz .

The Coro­n­ado Fire Depart­ment is hav­ing its Annual Spaghetti Din­ner on July 17th, from 4pm — 7pm.

All pro­ceeds will go to ben­e­fit the Burn Insti­tute of San Diego. Din­ner is $10 for adults and $5 for chil­dren 12 & under. There will also be a raf­fle and silent auc­tion filled with great prizes for local Coro­n­ado businesses.

You can either eat in the Fire Sta­tion (MAP), or you can grab a plate to go and walk up to Spreck­els Park to enjoy Stars on the Water at con­cert in the park.

They raised $9,000 last year. let’s try and push for more this year. Hope to see you there!

Photo by: N i c o_.

Wow, it is start­ing to get really hot these days! Sum­mer is finally here.

What bet­ter way to cool off than to head down to the Coro­n­ado Com­mu­nity Cen­ter for the Water Car­ni­val. MAP.

The Car­ni­val is this Sat­ur­day, July 9th, from 1230pm — 4pm. There will be games, con­tests, enter­tain­ment and just a whole lot of fun at the pool.

It costs only $4 for chil­dren and $5 for adults to get in. Tick­ets to play the car­ni­val games (Fish­ing Hole, Duck Pond, Trea­sure Chest & more) are only 50c each. There will also be food and bev­er­ages for sale as well.

Don’t for­get to wear your sunscreen!

Photo by: Coro­n­ado Com­mu­nity Cen­ter.

Mon­day, July 4th will be one busy day, espe­cially if you get stuck sav­ing your family’s parade spot! Below is a sched­ule of events for Inde­pen­dence Day.

“The Big Bay Boom July 4th Fire­works Show is back for its eleventh year, promis­ing another spec­tac­u­lar dis­play over San Diego Bay.”

5:00am — Get up early to save a spot for you, your friends, and your fam­ily. Note: You can­not setup before 5:00am!

7:00am — Inde­pen­dence Day 15K Run — 5K Run/Walk. See pre­vi­ous post for more info.

8:00am — 4:00pm — Art in the Park (Direc­tions).

10:00am — 63rd Annual Coro­n­ado Inde­pen­dence Day Parade! (Map) of Parade Route. The theme this year is “An Amer­i­can Pageant.”

4:00pm — Con­cert in the Park at Spreck­els Park. The Coro­n­ado Com­mu­nity Con­cert Band will be playing.

“The impec­ca­bly chore­o­graphed dis­play will last approx­i­mately 17 minutes.”

9:00pm — Fire­works over the Bay. For more infor­ma­tion check out Big Bay Boom 2011. 105.7 The Wal­rus will be pro­vid­ing the music dur­ing the fire­works show.

Have a won­der­ful and safe 4th of July! Hope to see you out and about!

Fea­tured Photo: Nathan Rupert.

Sec­ondary Photo: Myles Grant.

On the 3rd of July, meet up at Star Park in Coro­n­ado for Cir­cum­nav­i­ga­tion 2011, the sec­ond install­ment of Orange & Park’s annual bik­ing event.

The ride around the island begins at 6:30 PM. Like last year, peo­ple will be trav­el­ing at a leisurely pace in a counter-clockwise direc­tion around Coro­n­ado Island, start­ing at Star Park and end­ing there as well.

Bring the whole fam­ily and kick off the Inde­pen­dence Day fes­tiv­i­ties with a lit­tle recre­ational exer­cise. Hope to see you there!

Check it out on their Face­book Page as well.

Pho­tos by: Orange & Park.

The race takes place on Mon­day, July 4th and starts at 7am. You can either race in the 5K Run/Walk or the 15K Run.

“Holds over 20 Nation­ally ranked 15K times!!!”

You can reg­is­ter online HERE or at Tide­lands Park on the day of the race at 5:30am.

The run starts in Tide­lands Park, goes under the bridge by way of the bike path, wraps around the Coro­n­ado Golf Course & the Naval Amphibi­ous Base, and back, fin­ish­ing at Tidelands.

All par­tic­i­pants will receive a com­mem­o­ra­tive t-shirt and will be entered into free draw­ings for prizes (must be present to win).

For more infor­ma­tion, check out the Race Web­site.

Below is a map of the race.

Fea­tured Photo: hoteldel­coro­n­ado.

Sec­ondary Photo: Kathy Loper.

This Sat­ur­day and Sun­day (25th & 26th) is the 3rd Annual San Diego Spir­its Festival.

“The Fes­ti­val is a 2-day cel­e­bra­tion of spir­its, cock­tails, and local culture.”

The Spir­its Fes­ti­val will be held at the Port Pavil­ion on Broad­way Pier, right on the beau­ti­ful San Diego Bay. There will be cock­tail com­pe­ti­tions, 2 days of Grand Tast­ings, musi­cal enter­tain­ment, VIP par­ties, art exhibits, a silent auc­tion and other surprises.

Ticket prices run from $60 — $150, depend­ing if you want the reg­u­lar day pass or the VIP day pass. You must be 21+ years old to attend.

For more infor­ma­tion on the San Diego Spir­its Fes­ti­val, check out Its Web­site.

Fea­tured Photo: Natasha Edwards.

Sec­ondary Photo: Port of San Diego.

Finally, after 10 long years, the Coro­n­ado Vil­lage The­atre is set to open on June 24th, 2011. The first movie? — Dis­ney — Pixars’ “Cars 2″ will be shown at 12:01 am on the 24th.

“All audi­to­ri­ums are equipped with state-of-the-art Sony Dig­i­tal Cin­ema and Dolby Dig­i­tal Sound and two of the three the­atres will offer 3-D uti­liz­ing RealD.”

The open­ing of the the­atre is all thanks to Vin­tage Cin­e­mas and its owner Lance Alspaugh. Vin­tage Cin­e­mas oper­ates and restores clas­sic movie the­atres in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. They were the ones who did all the behind-the-scenes work to make the open­ing finally possible.

I, for one, am very happy to hear this news. As a kid, I had so much fun going to watch movies and pig out on candy (if you were sneaky enough, the candy that you brought in! : ) ) and pop­corn at the Vil­lage The­atre. It is nice to know that the chil­dren of Coro­n­ado will now have the same movie expe­ri­ences that many of us have had.

The orig­i­nal the­atre had only the one big screen and held about 600 peo­ple. Now, how­ever, two more smaller screens have been added to the main the­atre. The main sec­tion will seat about 215 peo­ple, while the newly added smaller screen­ing rooms will seat about 45 each.

Coro­n­ado Vil­lage The­atre is located at 820 Orange Avenue. Again, it opens at 12:01 am on June 24th. I can­not wait to watch a movie in the new Vil­lage The­atre. I hope to see you there.

For more infor­ma­tion, check out Vin­tage Cin­e­mas or call 619.437.6161.

Direc­tions to Vil­lage The­atre.