Which loan is right for you?
Choosing the right loan for the situation.
You are close to buying, and the loan names are stacking up: conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, jumbo, construction, and a few with Utah in front of them. This hub sorts them by the one thing that decides it, your situation.
Own a home now and buying the next one? The financing side of that move lives at selling to buy.
On this page
What decides the loan
The loan is an answer, not a starting point.
Every mortgage is built for a situation. Conventional is the default for a primary home with solid credit. FHA forgives more on credit and asks for less cash down. VA and USDA can require no down payment for buyers who qualify. Jumbo picks up where the county loan limit stops. A construction loan pays for a build in stages. Investor loans, DSCR among them, care about the rent. Utah Housing runs its own programs by name. Settle the situation first, and the loan usually picks itself.
Choosing in the other order is what goes wrong: a buyer picks a program name from a friend, then the home is a condo the program will not approve, and the loan changes while the contract clock runs. So this hub is a path, not a menu, with no rates, terms, or dollar figures on purpose. Those come from a pre-approval.
What you control
How you will use the home, where the down payment comes from, the property you pick, and your honesty about credit and timeline.
What the program controls
Eligibility, the county loan limit, what the property has to be, and the insurance or fees each loan carries.
Where I come in
Sorting the loan types that fit, ruling out the rest, and pointing you to a real pre-approval on the right one.
The path, in order
Seven questions, in the right order.
Each answer rules some programs in and others out, so the order matters. Here is the sequence I run with every buyer.
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Settle how you will use the home
Primary residence, second home, or investment. Occupancy decides which programs are open to you and whether rent counts, as it does on a DSCR loan. Investor financing.
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Get the honest read on your credit
A lender reads the middle score, the history behind it, and your income and debts together, self-employed income included. Some loan types forgive more than others. Credit and buying a home.
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Know where the down payment comes from
Savings, a documented gift, an assistance program, or equity from a sale. The source shapes the loan, and programs treat a gift or a second loan differently. Gift funds, explained.
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Match the loan to the property
A condo, acreage with a well, a manufactured home, or a bare lot each narrows the field. A VA purchase adds the VA appraisal and its property standards. Construction loans.
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Weigh the loan types side by side
Conventional against FHA, VA or USDA if eligible, jumbo above the county limit, and the Utah Housing programs that sit on top. A lender runs the numbers for each. Low-down-payment options.
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Get pre-approved on the loan you chose
A real pre-approval is program-specific: a lender reviews your income, credit, and savings, so the number you shop with has already been checked against that loan's rules. How pre-approval works.
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Keep the loan steady to closing
No new debt, no job changes, no moving money without asking first. The loan you chose stays the loan you close, and your financing deadline holds. The mortgage process.
The loan follows the situation
Pick the situation, then the loan.
The loan follows the situation, never the other way around. Five things decide it. How you will use the home: a primary residence opens every door, a second home fewer, an investment property a different set. Your credit picture: the history, income, and debts a lender reads together, which is why FHA and the Utah Housing Score program exist alongside conventional. Where the down payment comes from: savings, a family gift with a paper trail, an assistance second loan, or equity from a sale, and each program has its own rules on which it takes.
The property itself: a condo needs a project the program approves, acreage and a well change what an appraiser will accept, and a manufactured home finances differently depending on how it is titled. And your time horizon: how long you plan to keep the home decides whether a fixed rate, an adjustable rate, or paying for a lower rate up front makes sense. I am licensed in both real estate and mortgage lending, so I see the loan and the purchase as one picture, taking one role on your purchase and never both at once. That is why the figures stay off this page. They are yours.
Guides by loan type
Each loan type, its own guide.
This hub is the map. The guides below go all the way down on the loan types that have one so far, with the Utah specifics and the honest tradeoffs, and not a single figure.
Low-down-payment options
The loan types that ask for less cash up front, by name: FHA, VA, USDA, HomeReady, Home Possible, and the Utah Housing help that stacks on top.
Read the guideUtah Housing programs
FirstHome, HomeAgain, Score, NoMI, and the down payment assistance second loan: what each is built for, and why you start with a participating lender.
Read the guideGift funds for a down payment
The line between a gift and a loan, the signed gift letter a lender needs, and the paper trail that keeps family help from snagging the loan.
Read the guideVA loan entitlement
What entitlement is, how the Certificate of Eligibility proves it, how it gets restored, and how second-tier entitlement can carry two VA loans at once.
Read the guideConstruction loans
Single-close or two-close, how draws and inspections release the money, and where the lot fits when you build on your own ground.
Read the guideFinancing an investment property
There is no single investor loan. The survey of the paths: conventional investor loans, DSCR, portfolio lending, and the equity you already hold.
Read the guideMore guides, like conventional versus FHA, fixed versus adjustable, conforming versus jumbo, VA and USDA up close, second home versus investment financing, how much down payment you need, and Utah loan limits by county, are rolling out as part of this hub. Not here yet? Ask me.
Why choose with me
A loan officer who also knows the purchase.
Matching a loan to a real home and a real contract is a local job, and it helps to have one person who has lived here for twenty years and works this market every day.
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Twenty years in Southern Utah. I have helped buyers across Iron and Washington counties get from a loan name to a set of keys. I know which programs fit which properties here.
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Agent and lender, one picture. I am licensed in both. I can walk the loan choice and the search together, taking one role on your purchase and never both at once. I am paid for whichever role I hold, never for the other one.
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No program to sell you. I have no favorite loan, only a favorite outcome: you closing with a loan you understood before you signed. If that means a program I do not write, I will say so.
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Statewide, told straight. In Southern Utah I am your agent. Anywhere else in Utah, I connect you with a vetted partner agent I trust and stay involved.
Questions, answered
What buyers ask before choosing a loan.
VA, for eligible veterans, service members, and some surviving spouses, and USDA, in eligible rural and small-town areas, can both require no down payment for buyers who qualify. After those, FHA and the conventional HomeReady and Home Possible programs ask for less cash down than a standard conventional loan, and Utah Housing assistance can shrink the cash to close further. Less down usually means mortgage insurance or a program fee, so the smallest down payment is not always the cheapest loan.
A VA loan is a mortgage backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for eligible veterans, active-duty service members, Guard and Reserve members who meet the service requirements, and some surviving spouses. For buyers who qualify it can require no down payment and carries no monthly mortgage insurance, though most borrowers pay a one-time funding fee. Eligibility runs on your entitlement, which a Certificate of Eligibility proves, and the home has to be one you will live in.
A USDA loan is a mortgage backed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a primary home in an area it counts as rural, and for buyers who qualify it can require no down payment. The address has to sit inside an eligible area on the USDA map, and much of Utah outside the larger cities does, though the line can run through the edge of a town. Household income has to fall under the county limit too, so a lender checks both.
A jumbo loan is any mortgage larger than the conforming loan limit, the biggest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy. The limit is set by county every year; most of Utah shares the standard figure, and a few higher-priced counties carry a higher one. Above it the lender sets its own rules. Jumbo turns on the loan amount, not the price, so a larger down payment can bring a loan back under the line.
Occupancy. A second home is a place you use yourself and do not run as a rental business; an investment property is one you mainly rent out. Investment loans ask for a larger down payment and more reserves and may count part of the expected rent, and investors also have the DSCR path, which qualifies the property on its own rent. Calling a rental a second home to get the better loan is occupancy fraud, so settle the honest answer first.
Yes, and sometimes it should. The property can change it: a condo project the program will not approve, acreage an appraiser flags, or a manufactured home a program does not accept. Your file can change it, which is why new debt, a job change, or moving money before closing is a bad idea. A switch means the lender re-runs the pre-approval while your financing deadline keeps ticking, so call your lender before you change anything.
Keep exploring
Let's match the loan to your situation.
I am Scott Buehler, a Southern Utah agent and mortgage lender. Buyers who pick a loan from their situation close calmer than buyers who pick one from a headline. Tell me how you will use the home, where the down payment comes from, and what the property is, and I will say which loan types fit and line up a real pre-approval on the right one. On your purchase I take one role, lender or agent, and a separate professional handles the other. No pressure, and no obligation.
Not in Southern Utah? The loan conversation works anywhere in Utah. Need an agent for the search too? I can connect you with a partner agent I trust; when I am your lender I receive no referral fee or other payment from that agent or their brokerage, and using a referred agent is never required.