Pull the Certificate of Eligibility first, before anyone gets attached to a house. The COE is the document that proves the veteran's eligibility and available entitlement, and lenders pull it through the VA's systems. Most of the time it comes back almost instantly online; when it does not, the borrower submits a DD214 and it typically takes a few business days. We make this step non-negotiable because we see it go wrong: a borrower assumes they qualify, and only late in the process does it surface that records were misfiled or that reserve service missed the time threshold. And a VA purchase has no clean fallback mid-deal. If eligibility falls through while you are under contract, switching to FHA means a required minimum down payment and mortgage insurance, which rewrites the affordability math the borrower planned around. We confirm the current FHA requirements whenever that comparison comes up, since those figures change over time. One footnote: this applies to purchases. A streamline refinance (IRRRL) of an existing VA loan does not need a fresh COE, because the existing VA loan already establishes eligibility. Pull the COE first, and the rest of the VA process is straightforward.