Assumable Mortgages in Hampton Roads: How to Take Over a Low Rate While Everyone Else Pays 7%
Mortgage rates crossed 7% in September for the first time since January 2025, and they've kept climbing.
Here's what the headline leaves out. Some of the houses for sale around here already have a loan attached at 2.5 or 2.75%, written back in 2020 and 2021. You can take that loan over. Same rate, same payment. You don't have to be a veteran to do it.
I spent twenty-four years in the Navy and I've been selling homes in this market for eight. This is the walkthrough I give families at my kitchen table, including the part that sinks a lot of these deals.
What an assumable mortgage actually is
In a normal sale, the seller's loan gets paid off at closing and you get a brand new loan at today's rate.
With an assumption, the seller's loan stays in place and you step into it. You keep their rate and pick up their balance where they left off.
Most conventional loans don't allow that. Government-backed loans do: VA, FHA and USDA. On a VA loan, the buyer doesn't need VA eligibility. A civilian can assume a veteran's loan. You still have to qualify, because the loan servicer checks your credit and income against VA's standards. On an FHA assumption, you have to live in the house.
The fix: before you shop, ask your lender whether you qualify on VA or FHA credit standards. That answer tells you whether assumable homes belong on your list at all.
What it costs to take one over
Less than a new loan.
On a VA assumption, the funding fee is 0.5% of the loan balance. On a new VA loan with nothing down, it's 2.15% of the whole loan amount. VA caps the servicer's processing fee at $300.
The number that matters most on orders is time. The servicer gets up to 45 calendar days just to decide, and closing comes after that.
The fix: build your timeline backward from your report date. Thirty days out, an assumption probably isn't your move this tour. Ninety days out, it might be.
How to find them
Assumable loans rarely get advertised.
I use AssumeList. It's built to find homes with assumable VA, FHA and USDA loans, including homes that aren't listed yet. eXp Realty, my brokerage, partnered with AssumeList, so every eXp agent gets a full account at no cost. AssumeList says it tracks about 45,000 active assumable listings nationwide, all under 5%.
What that means for you: I can set you up with your own search, and you can sort Hampton Roads homes by rate or by the cash it takes to get in.
The fix: sort by cash to get in first. Rate comes second. The next section shows why.
The math, with real Hampton Roads numbers
The regional median sale price in August was $388,950, per REIN. Call it $389,000.
Say a Navy family bought here in the summer of 2021 for $300,000. VA loan, nothing down, 2.75%. With the funding fee rolled in, the loan started at about $306,900, and their payment is about $1,253 a month, principal and interest.
Five years later they've got orders. The house is worth about $389,000 and they owe about $271,000.
A new VA loan on that house at today's VA rate, around 7.2%, comes to about $397,000 with the fee, and the payment is about $2,700.
Assume theirs, and your payment is $1,253. That's about $1,450 a month.
The catch nobody puts in the headline
The seller still has about $118,000 of equity in that house, and they aren't handing it to you. That's the gap, and you cover it at closing.
Most families don't have $118,000 in cash. VA Circular 26-24-17, from August 2024, lets you take a second loan to cover it, as long as the VA loan stays in first position. The servicer counts that second payment when it decides whether you qualify.
Say the second loan comes in at 9.5% over 30 years. That's an example rate, and your quote will be different. The second payment is about $993. Add it to $1,253 and you're at about $2,245.
Against $2,700, you're saving about $455 a month. Still close to $5,500 a year and still worth doing. It just isn't $1,450.
The fix: ask for the cash gap before you ask for the rate. A 2.5% loan with a $150,000 gap can cost more each month than a 3.5% loan with a $30,000 gap.
If you're the seller
If you have a VA loan under 4%, your loan is a selling point in a 7% market. But know this first. When a buyer without VA eligibility assumes it, your entitlement stays tied to that house until the loan is paid off. On a $306,900 loan, that's about $76,700 of entitlement you can't use on your next purchase.
The fix: if the buyer is an eligible veteran with enough entitlement of their own, they can substitute theirs and yours comes back to you. Know which kind of offer you're signing.
The bottom line
The rate gets you interested. The gap tells you whether it works.
If you've got orders to Hampton Roads, book your PCS call. We'll map your orders, your timeline and your budget, and I'll tell you straight whether an assumption fits this tour.
Selling with a low-rate VA loan? Get your home value and I'll show you what your loan is worth to a buyer right now.
Watch the full breakdown on YouTube.
Mario Dove is a Navy veteran and a licensed Realtor with eXp Realty serving Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Suffolk and Portsmouth.
📞 (757) 530-5551 · ✉️ [email protected] · 💻 www.mariodove.com
eXp Realty · Virginia License #0225233546
Sources: Mortgage News Daily 30-year fixed index, September 2026. VA funding fee schedule, va.gov. VA Circular 26-23-10 (assumption processing fees and timelines) and Circular 26-24-17 (secondary financing on assumptions), benefits.va.gov. Hampton Roads median sale price, REIN, August 2026. AssumeList listing figures per assumelist.com. Example loan figures are illustrative, principal and interest only. Nothing here is legal, tax or lending advice.
