San Antonio has one of the largest veteran and active-duty populations in the country, and the VA loan is the single best mortgage product available to any of them. If you have full entitlement there is no county loan limit at all — the cap is what you can afford, not what the VA allows.
This is the most persistently out-of-date fact on the internet. Since January 1, 2020, under the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, the VA has not imposed a county loan limit on borrowers with full entitlement. You will still find San Antonio pages quoting a VA limit of $557,750, because they have copied the FHA number or an old conforming figure. It does not apply to you.
What actually constrains the loan size is your income, your credit and the individual lender's appetite. I have lenders who will go well past a million on a zero-down VA purchase for the right file. The VA's guaranty is what is capped, not your loan.
| Your entitlement | Loan limit applies? | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Full — never used, or fully restored after selling | No limit | Zero down on any loan amount a lender will approve. |
| Partial — you still have an active VA loan elsewhere | Yes | The Bexar County conforming figure caps the guaranty, so you may need a down payment on the portion above it. |
| Reduced — a prior VA loan was foreclosed or short sold | Yes | Same as partial. Entitlement can often be restored; worth checking rather than assuming. |
If you are PCSing into Joint Base San Antonio and still own a home at your last duty station, you are almost certainly in the partial-entitlement column — and you can still very often buy here with little or nothing down. That calculation is worth doing properly before you decide you cannot afford to keep the first house.
There is no monthly mortgage insurance on a VA loan, ever. What there is instead is a one-time funding fee, normally financed into the loan rather than paid at closing. It is what keeps the program running without taxpayer subsidy.
| Down payment | First use | Subsequent use |
|---|---|---|
| None, or under 5% | 2.15% | 3.30% |
| 5% to 9.99% | 1.50% | 1.50% |
| 10% or more | 1.25% | 1.25% |
Now the part that matters most in a city like this one: the funding fee is waived entirely if you receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability, if you are entitled to receive it but are drawing retirement or active-duty pay instead, if you are an active-duty Purple Heart recipient, or if you are a surviving spouse of a service member who died in service or from a service-connected cause.
On a $350,000 zero-down purchase that waiver is about $7,525 that simply never goes onto your balance. If your rating came through after you closed a previous VA loan, you may be owed a refund of a fee you already paid. That happens more often than you would think and nobody chases it for you.
Texas has no state income tax and correspondingly high property taxes — in Bexar County the all-in rate lands around 2% of assessed value. On a $350,000 home that is roughly $580 a month of escrow before you have paid a cent of principal. It is the single biggest reason San Antonio buyers qualify for less than they expect.
Disabled veterans get relief from it, and because escrow is part of your debt-to-income ratio, that relief directly increases how much house you can be approved for.
| VA disability rating | Texas homestead exemption |
|---|---|
| 100%, or individually unemployable | Total exemption on the residence homestead — no property tax at all |
| 70% to 99% | $12,000 off assessed value |
| 50% to 69% | $10,000 off assessed value |
| 30% to 49% | $7,500 off assessed value |
| 10% to 29% | $5,000 off assessed value |
Surviving spouses of service members killed in action, and surviving spouses of 100% disabled veterans who have not remarried, can also qualify for the total exemption. These are Texas Tax Code provisions administered by the Bexar Appraisal District, and you have to apply — they are not granted automatically when you close.
This matters at the underwriting stage, not just later. A 100%-rated veteran buying in Bexar County should be qualified with the exempt tax figure, not the standard one. Get that wrong and you are told you can afford roughly $100,000 less house than you actually can. I have seen files priced the lazy way more than once.
Separate from the federal VA benefit, Texas runs its own veteran lending through the Veterans Land Board. It is funded by state bonds, which is why the rates can sit below the open market, and it is available only to Texas veterans buying Texas property as a primary residence.
| VLB program | What it does |
|---|---|
| Veterans Housing Assistance Program | A below-market home loan for a Texas primary residence, which can be layered with VA financing. |
| Land Loan | Finance a tract of Texas land — the only program of its kind in the country, and genuinely useful out toward the Hill Country. |
| Home Improvement Loan | Finance repairs and upgrades to a home you already own. |
Veterans with a VA disability rating of 30% or more receive an additional rate discount on VLB loans. Whether the VLB route or a straight VA loan prices better depends on the week — bond-backed rates move on a different schedule to mortgage-backed ones, so sometimes it is a clear win and sometimes it is not. I quote both.
VA underwriting works differently from everything else, and in a way that generally favors the borrower. Alongside debt-to-income, the VA applies a residual income test: after your mortgage, taxes, insurance, debts and an allowance for maintenance and utilities, how much actual cash is left each month for your household?
Texas sits in the VA's South region. For a family of four on a loan of $80,000 or more, the requirement is $1,003 a month left over, scaling up or down with household size. Clear it comfortably and the VA permits a debt-to-income ratio well above 41% — approvals in the high 50s happen regularly on strong residual income, which no conventional lender would entertain.
A few other things that come up constantly on San Antonio files:
| Situation | How the VA treats it |
|---|---|
| Active duty at JBSA | Basic Allowance for Housing counts as qualifying income, and it is untaxed, so it is grossed up. That is a meaningful boost. |
| Credit score | The VA sets no minimum at all. Individual lenders do, usually 580 to 620 — and that number varies enough between lenders to be worth shopping. |
| Two to four units | Allowed, as long as you occupy one. Zero down on a fourplex is the strongest wealth-building move available to any veteran in this city. |
| Seller and lender credits | The seller can pay all your closing costs plus up to 4% of the price in concessions. Combined with zero down, a VA purchase can genuinely close for almost nothing out of pocket. |
| Condos | The project must be on the VA's approved list. Plenty of San Antonio complexes are not, and finding out late kills contracts. Check before you offer. |
The VA appraisal also carries Minimum Property Requirements — safety, soundness, sanitation. Older stock inside Loop 410 sometimes trips them on roof life, peeling paint on pre-1978 homes, or electrical. It is usually fixable, but it needs to be seen coming rather than discovered three days before closing.
Full or partial entitlement, funding fee exempt or not, VA versus Texas Vet pricing — a short call answers all of it. No credit pull to start.
Want the national rules rather than the San Antonio version? Read the complete VA loan guide.