Veterans Can Only Afford 21.8% of U.S. Home Listings Using VA Loans, Down from 53% in 2015

Despite the VA home loan program's zero-down-payment benefit, only 21.8% of U.S. home listings are affordable to the typical veteran using a VA loan in 2025, compared to 53% in 2015 -- a 59% decline in purchasing power over a decade. The median U.S. home price has roughly doubled since 2015 while typical veteran household income increased by only 48% over the same period. More than 58,000 veterans did not use their VA home loan benefit in 2024, representing $28 billion in unclaimed loan volume. VA loan usage is disproportionately low in high-cost metros like San Jose, CA; Naples, FL; and Barnstable Town, MA, where the gap between veteran incomes and home prices is most extreme. While 90% of VA loan users make no down payment, this results in larger loan balances and higher monthly costs that compound affordability challenges. Why it matters: Veterans returning from service cannot afford homes in the communities where they served or where their families live, so they are pushed into rental markets where they build no equity despite earning a housing benefit, so the wealth gap between veteran and civilian homeowners widens over time, so veterans' long-term financial security and retirement stability is undermined, so one of the most significant post-service benefits Congress has provided becomes functionally inaccessible to the majority of veterans in most U.S. housing markets. The structural root cause is that the VA home loan program's design -- zero down payment with no loan limit for eligible veterans -- addresses the barrier of upfront capital but does nothing about the barrier of monthly debt-to-income ratios in a housing market where prices have doubled relative to military and post-military wages, rendering the benefit structurally misaligned with the actual affordability crisis.