USAA Federal Savings Bank advertises "Guaranteed" close dates on their mortgage loans: The guarantee means that they will simply pay $500 towards your closing costs if they miss your closing date. The problem: This "guarantee" DOES NOT apply to VA loans.

Please be aware that there is an asterick by "Guaranteed" on their website and either the loan originators are unaware or are not willing to mention this fact when financing a VA loan. It appears that they will focus on completing a conventional loan on-time (foresaking VA loans) in order to avoid paying the fee, but they are apparently routinely missing the dates for VA loans.

The realtor for my recent home purchase expressed serious reservations when she heard that I was using USAA for my VA loan. She mentioned they had several clients miss their close dates over the last 6 months when going through USAA. As this was my third VA loan through USAA, I dismissed her concerns and proceeded with the company I had been loyal to for over 20 years. USAA was given over 6 weeks to finish the loan process, but ended up missing the close dates by over 2 weeks. On the day before the original close date, they did not make it clear that they were not going to close on time, and this resulted in me unnecessarily traveling a significant distance and a prolonged hotel stay in order to sign documents that took USAA another two weeks to complete. This missed date required my sellers to agree to a 30-day extention on the close date, and would have allow them to back out of the deal altogether. Luckily, the sellers reluctantly agreed to the extention.

This is absolutely obsurd that USAA, a company originally designed for servicemembers. has completely forgone their original intent to cater to military servicemembers and their families. Though I have been an extremely loyal USAA member for over 20 years, I would greatly advise those needing a VA loan to seek out other opportunites at this time. They are admittingly overwhelmed with mortgage loans at this time, and will not guarantee close dates for VA loans.

Please be aware, and weigh these concerns before proceeding with VA loans through USAA.