Yes, but only if that particular building is on VA’s approved condominium list, or gets approved before you close. VA’s own buyer’s guide puts it plainly: “VA maintains a list of approved condos. If the condo is not on the list, the project must be submitted to VA for review to ensure that it complies with VA requirements” (VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022).
This is the part that catches veterans and active duty buyers off guard in Wilmington. Your Certificate of Eligibility, your credit and your income are only half of the approval. With a condo, VA also reviews the project itself, which means the association’s documents, its budget and how the building is run. You can be perfectly qualified and still be told no, because the building is the problem.
We bring this up on the first call with any buyer using VA entitlement who is looking at condos downtown, at Wrightsville Beach or on Pleasure Island. Finding out in week three of due diligence that a building was never submitted to VA is an expensive way to learn the rule, because in North Carolina your due diligence fee is usually gone when you walk.
What is VA actually approving?
VA approval is a project-level decision, not a unit-level one. Your lender or the project’s sponsor sends VA a written request along with the condominium’s organizational documents, and VA reviews them against its requirements. If the project passes, every unit in it becomes eligible. If it was never submitted, no unit in it is eligible until someone submits it.
Three practical points follow from that:
An FHA approval is not a VA approval. They are separate lists maintained by separate agencies with different standards, and a building that shows up on HUD’s condominium lookup may be nowhere on VA’s list. Ask your loan officer to check VA’s condo report for the specific building, by name, before you write the offer.
Approvals carry status and expiration. A project can be accepted outright, accepted with conditions, or expired and in need of reapproval. “It was approved when my friend bought here in 2021” is not an answer you can close on.
Someone has to do the work. If the building is not on the list, the association has to hand over its documents and the lender has to submit them. Plenty of boards are willing. Some, especially small self-managed buildings, never return the call.
Why we will not hand you a list of VA approved Wilmington buildings
We get asked for one regularly, and we do not publish it, for a reason we would rather say out loud than fudge. The only authoritative list is VA’s own condo report, approvals and their expiration dates change, and a list we posted today could send you chasing a building that fell off it in March. The right move is to have your lender pull the current status for the exact project, the week you are writing the offer.
What we can tell you is which local buildings tend to run into trouble, because the pattern is consistent across the Wilmington market. Buildings where most owners run vacation rentals, where the association operates something closer to a hotel, or where units are in a rental pool draw the hardest look from any project reviewer. That describes a meaningful share of the oceanfront inventory at Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach. Deferred maintenance and thin reserves do the same thing, and after the last few years of coastal roof, elevator and balcony repairs, thin reserves are not rare here. Our post on getting a loan on a Carolina Beach condo goes through those project standards in detail.
What a VA condo purchase costs beyond the price
Two VA-specific numbers belong in your budget from day one.
- VA funding fee, first use, no down payment: 2.30 percent of the loan amount. With 5 percent down it drops to 1.65 percent, and to 1.40 percent with 10 percent down VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022
- Funding fee on a subsequent use with no down payment: 3.60 percent VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022
- No funding fee at all for a veteran receiving VA compensation for a service-connected disability, among other exemptions VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022
- Seller concessions: VA allows the seller to pay closing costs, discount points and similar items up to 4 percent of the loan amount VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022
- New Hanover County median sale price: $464,000 for the three months ending September 2026, with 61 days on market, up from 34 a year earlier Redfin county pages, read October 17, 2026
On a $300,000 loan with no money down and no exemption, that 2.30 percent fee is $6,900, usually rolled into the loan rather than paid at the table. If you are exempt, it is zero, which is a real advantage over an FHA loan on the same unit.
The other number that decides what you can buy is the HOA dues, because a lender counts them in your debt ratio the same way it counts a car payment. On a coastal condo where the master policy carries wind exposure, dues are frequently the difference between qualifying and not. Get the current dues, the current master policy declarations and any approved special assessment in writing before you fall in love with a water view.
How to use the market in your favor right now
You have more room to negotiate than VA buyers had two years ago. New Hanover County homes took a median 61 days to sell in the three months ending September 2026, up from 34 a year earlier, and roughly two in five active listings had already cut their price (Redfin county pages read October 17, 2026, and Realtor.com via FRED, September 2026, in our New Hanover County market update). With a 30-year fixed at 7.40 percent for the week ending October 15, 2026 (Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey), the seller concession allowance is worth using: 4 percent of the loan amount toward your closing costs or points is a meaningful ask on a listing that has been sitting.
Write the offer so the building’s eligibility is your problem to verify and the seller’s problem to wait for. That means a due diligence period long enough for your lender to pull the condo report and, if needed, start a submission, and a written understanding of what happens if VA approval does not come through in time.
Getting an unapproved project submitted and reviewed is not a weekend task, and it depends on an association volunteering its documents. If you are on a PCS timeline or closing around a lease ending, the honest advice is often to focus on buildings that are already approved, or to look at a fee simple townhouse, which is not a condominium at all and sidesteps the project review entirely. There are also cases where a conventional loan with 5 percent down beats VA on the same unit, especially if you are not exempt from the funding fee. We would rather tell you that than steer you into a loan that costs you more.
Related questions people also ask
Does FHA approval mean a condo is VA approved?
No. FHA and VA keep separate approved-project lists with separate standards, and approval by one agency does not make a building eligible for the other. A lender has to check VA’s own condo report for the specific project, and check its status and expiration date, not just whether the name appears. If the building is not on VA’s list, the project has to be submitted to VA for review before any unit in it can be financed with a VA loan (VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022).
Can a condo get VA approval while I am under contract?
It can. Your lender or the project’s sponsor submits a written request with the association’s organizational documents to VA for review, and the project becomes eligible if it passes. The risk is timing, because the association controls how fast the documents arrive and VA controls the review queue, so a short contract can run out before the answer comes back. If you go this route, build the extra time into your due diligence period rather than hoping for the best.
Do I have to live in the condo I buy with a VA loan?
Yes. A VA purchase loan requires that you will live in the home you are buying, so it is not a vehicle for buying a rental unit at the beach (VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, April 2022). Buyers sometimes move out later for orders or a job change and keep the home as a rental, which is a different situation from buying it as an investment. Talk to your lender about your specific plans before you sign anything, because occupancy is a certification you make at closing.
Pick the two or three buildings you would actually be happy in, and have your loan officer pull their current VA condo report status before you tour anything else. That one call sorts the list into what you can buy now and what would need weeks of paperwork first. If you want us to make those calls alongside your lender and tell you which buildings in Wilmington are worth your time, talk it through with our team.
Sources: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Home Loan Guaranty Buyer’s Guide, Version April 2022 (condominium approval, funding fee tables, seller concessions, occupancy); VA Loan Guaranty Service condo report, lgy.va.gov, read October 22, 2026; Tidal Realty Partners New Hanover County market update, Redfin county pages read October 17, 2026 and Realtor.com via FRED, September 2026; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending October 15, 2026.
