Between Two Doors

If you're a Veteran thinking about buying a home, you may have heard someone mention your  Certificate of Eligibility , commonly called a  COE . But what exactly is it? And why does it matter? As a fellow Veteran and VA Loan Specialist, the COE is one of the first things I want to review when helping another Veteran explore buying or refinancing a home. That's because your COE can tell us quite a bit about the VA Home Loan Benefit you've earned. What Is a VA Certificate of Eligibility? Your COE helps establish to a VA-approved lender that you meet the applicable military-service requirements for the VA Home Loan Benefit. But that's not the only useful information it contains. Depending on your circumstances, the COE can help us understand: Your VA home-loan eligibility Your available entitlement Previous entitlement that may already be in use Your VA funding-fee exemption status And, in certain cases, your monthly service-connected disability compensation That last one ...

If you own a business, here's a question that may make you a little uncomfortable: Do you really know what your numbers are telling you? Not how much money is sitting in your checking account today. Not how much revenue you brought in last month. Do you know what your business is actually earning, where the money is going, what expenses are quietly eating into your profits—and what those numbers might look like to a mortgage lender? On this episode of  Between Two Doors , I sat down with  Kasi Taylor, founder of Boring Bookkeeping , to talk about something that may not sound exciting but can have an enormous impact on entrepreneurs, Realtors and self-employed homebuyers: Clean, organized books. And as Kasi likes to say, bookkeeping really should be boring. “If it fills you with anxiety, or there's something exciting happening in your books, it means something's not aligning.” That's a pretty good definition of successful bookkeeping. From Teacher to Entrepreneur to “The...

A motorcycle can tell you a lot about a person. For some people, it represents speed. For others, it represents adventure. For  Randy Akins , better known as  The Riding Realtor , it represents freedom, reflection, and a chance to slow down enough to appreciate the road. Randy does not simply pose beside his motorcycle for marketing photos. He incorporates riding into his real estate business. He rides to closings, carries his drone in his saddlebags, and uses the motorcycle to reach properties throughout the country roads of North Texas. For him, riding also provides time to clear his head, pray, reflect, and take in the scenery.  That combination of motorcycles and real estate made Randy a natural guest for the  Between Two Doors  podcast. But as our conversation unfolded, I discovered that Randy’s story is about much more than Harleys and houses. It is a story about military service, keeping your word, helping families, embracing country living, and finding w...