Welcome Home with Monique October 25, 2025

What is Welcome Home with Monique?

Monique Buchanan, your real estate specialist, talks all things real estate. On this show she covers the processes of buying and selling a home. Welcome Home with Monique informs you on best practices to navigate the housing market so that you can start building your wealth through home equity.

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. But

Monique Buchanan 0:22
you still don't on the radio, good morning. This is Monique Buchanan, the host of the welcome home with Monique show. And on this show, I talk all things real estate. Listen. I want to thank you for tuning in. Well, hello Las Vegas. Welcome to the Welcome home with Monique show. Thanks for tuning in again. My name is Monique Buchanan, your local Las Vegas realtor, and we have a great show for you today. So whether you are thinking about buying, selling or just curious about how to build wealth through real estate, you're in the right place. Today, we're going to be diving into failing to use your VA zero down benefit and how that can cost generations of wealth. So grab your coffee. Sit back and let's talk about real estate. And I have none other than my co host, Miss Rebecca coins, hi, Becky, good morning. Mo, good morning. So today's episode is gonna be titled From renters to riches and how VA loans could have changed your legacy, or could change your legacy, right? Absolutely. So let's start with your son. Guys. I don't know if you guys heard the show where Jake we were talking about Becky's son. He is in the military. What branch

Becky Coins 1:37
he's in the Air Force, that's right. And how old is Jake 20 about to be? No, he just turned 27

Monique Buchanan 1:44
you know, that's when we know we have to the mom math. We have too many kids. Once they

Becky Coins 1:48
get past that certain age, you just start it all blends together. They all

Monique Buchanan 1:51
start blending. So, yeah. So Jake just bought a house through your direction. Yes, he did. He was hesitant at first, a little scared. And Nourse, very, very right. So can you, kind of, you, like, speak on what he was nervous about, like, what did he talk to you about? He

Becky Coins 2:05
was nervous about a whole host of things. One, where he's stationed at, he's been there for a minute, and it's a base. He's not too overly thrilled. So he was worried about having ties there, right? He was worried if I buy a house that means I'm putting down roots. No, not necessarily, not necessarily, not necessarily, right? He was worried about, if I do that, I'm not going to be able to do it again. This is my one shot deal. That's what they think. Yeah, so

Monique Buchanan 2:27
let's bust that up right now. That is not true. It's not a one and done for your VA benefit, okay? Ma'am, no, ma'am. So those were his major

Becky Coins 2:35
concerns. Yeah, those were a lot of it, yeah, him thinking he didn't have enough money, right?

Monique Buchanan 2:40
That's a major one, and another one thinking, My veterans thinking that their credit's not good enough. Yeah, veterans, do you realize that you do not have to have the same credit scores as you know the general public? They can do as low as 580 credit scores with their with veterans. So keep that in mind, my veterans, you do not have to have the best credit and guess what? At this point in this market here in Las Vegas, we are closing homes with our veterans, and they're getting money back, because we know how to negotiate the rest of those funds right now from the sellers, because news flash guys, just so you know, I've said this time and time again, we are not in a seller's market here in the Las Vegas Valley, we are just not in it, not at all, all price points, not a seller's market, not here in Vegas. I can safely say that. Okay, and you guys have heard me say before to all of my listeners out there who I consider y'all family, and I talk to you guys like family. It's not just a paycheck for me. So I'm just gonna tell you straight up, if you do not have to sell your property right now, do not do it. If you can hold off and wait for these rates to come down and really come down, you will make a ton more money on your property. So unless you are moving out of state or you have some dire circumstances, I would advise you not to sell your property right now, hold off, because buyers, at least when they're dealing with me and Becky, yeah, are digging in your pockets as they should we you know, every one of my realtor friends, everybody I know, we're getting closing costs for our buyers, at least experienced agents know to go out there and get the closing cost for their buyers right now, because it is a buyer's market, which just simply means the buyers have the upper hand right now. Okay, that's just how it is. The rates are higher, and the buy there's, there's a lot of inventory. Actually, they have quite a bit to choose from right now.

Becky Coins 4:39
They're sitting on the market for a while, right? Long time average

Monique Buchanan 4:42
homes right now, we're talking just a regular house, you know, under 2000 like, well, even, not even under 2000 I would say, between, you know, 1100 square feet to 2500 square feet, or whatever, even over that 50 days or more on the market, you guys, and if you overprice your property. It's going to sit. We don't, we can't do magic. It's going to sit, okay, unless the Lord Himself.

Becky Coins 5:08
People, some of these sellers, right? They think it's a what, 2021

Monique Buchanan 5:11
market. They do. They do, unfortunately, they think it's 2019 you know? They remember hearing at the water cooler about their friend that got 20 offers on one of their and I get it that did happen. And guess what? I predict it's going to happen by next year again, because when these rates come down, we'll be reverted right back to 2019 so just for my people out there that are thinking about selling their property, that's just my straight up honest opinion, and it's my professional opinion. Okay, I'm out there every day. We're out there every day. You know, we see what's going on in real time. And guess what? The market could change tomorrow. We air this, by the way, we record this on what is it? Thursday, you guys are hearing it. Saturday, the market can literally change that fast. I mean, you know, pretty darn fast. So just keep that in mind, if the rates drop to 3% by Saturday or by Monday. Game Changer. Game Changer. Now my sellers are going to have the upper hand, and now I will be hitting the buyers over the head, because that's what I do. I will switch it up very quick. If I'm representing my sellers, I'm going after as much as I can for them. If we're representing our buyers, we're doing the same. So tell us a really quick about his deal. He did buy up in Washington State. We can assist you in all 50 states. Guys, remember that? So tell us about the deal. Did we get some closing costs for

Becky Coins 6:32
Mr. Veteran, Jake ma'am? We did. We got 15,000 in closing costs on that

Monique Buchanan 6:36
deal, and that was in Spokane, Washington. You guys, yes. So, I mean, you know, I can't speak for every market, but I can tell you, the majority of markets are seeing the same thing that we're seeing here in Las Vegas right now because of the rates. Yeah, and by the way, in the little news flash and update, what that shutdown has done is it has lowered the rates temporarily. Yeah, we're in the upper fives right now. So we're getting our phone is ringing with buyers, and if you are thinking about buying, it is a great time right now because the rates are down. They're way down. So the way this works is we have to get you right out there find your property, because you cannot lock the rate on a property until you find a property and get it in escrow. So just remember that if you're out there looking right now and you've been dragging your feet with your realtor, speed it up. Brother. Speed it up. Because as soon as those rates, they're gonna go back up. Once, you know that lost, while you can once, once the shutdown goes back, they're gonna go back up. Yeah, you know what I mean. So if you can find a house really quickly right now, like it, you know. And go ahead and get in escrow. You want to do that so you can lock your rate at this upper fives right now and possibly buy down the rate as well. So did Jake use our buy down method where he did get to the future rate today? Yes, ma'am. He did smart, smart young man. I wonder where he learned that from. No idea. Mom said we're buying some of this right down with that 15,000 Yes, we did. That's awesome. How does he feel about his purchase now?

Becky Coins 8:08
Oh, he is walking on cloud nine. He's big man on campus now, telling all his friends. He's trying to educate them all, yes, as if he's been doing this his whole life. Okay? You to call my mom. You guys have no idea,

Monique Buchanan 8:21
right, right? And so now he's a proud owner of a beautiful home. I did see it, yes, single story, plenty of yard, yeah, trees and grass and squirrels, yeah. So now if he does get, you know, deployed, or, you know, if he has to move, he can always rent that property out. You guys can always rent it out. Or you can, you know, list it for sale. It, yeah. Now I would, you know, obviously you're not going to make a ton of money, or you might even be negative in some cases, if you list too quickly. So I would always say, if it's right away, you probably want to rent it out for a year. Yeah, you know, let them pay your mortgage, let you continue to build that equity.

Becky Coins 8:56
But that's the thing with the veterans. You know what I mean? Like, you have that property and then you have to get stationed somewhere else. You have a lot of people that are coming into that base at that point in time. You got somebody to rent to, yep,

Monique Buchanan 9:06
yep. And they have the vouchers too, don't they, I believe. So they have those vouchers that will give them so much for rent.

Becky Coins 9:11
Oh, yeah, yeah. They get their housing. What's it allocation that they get? Right?

Monique Buchanan 9:16
Right? So there you go, veterans. There is no reason not to be purchasing, especially right now, you guys in this market, we are able to get closing costs, which is the other portion of your cost, right? So if you're like, well, Monique, I don't have but $3,000 in my account. Well, to be honest with you, our number is 70298 430-700-7029, 84, 3700 This is Monique. This is Monique Buchanan, the host of the welcome home with Monique show. We are talking to our veterans today. We've, you know, got a couple topics, but I really want to hone in on our vets, because so many veterans do not take advantage of their benefits that they deserve. They have. Earned and speaking on that, I want to talk about my my grandfather. I thought about this the other day. I just loved him to pieces Baker B Berry, that was my grandpa. That was my mother's father. He was married to my grandmother, Viva B Berry, and he was a world war two veteran. And here's the thing, they lived where we lived together, I should say, my parents, me and my grandparents, from the time I was eight years old until he passed away when I was 18. So we lived downtown Las Vegas. We kind of bounced around in rentals, and it was two, you know, four adults. And I thought about that, I said, Man, why didn't my papa ever use his VA benefit if he would have bought a home? We're talking 1987 you guys, I used to live on. Could you imagine, right? Stuart and 13th downtown. I used to ride my little skateboard up and down the sidewalk. I drive by there now, and I think to myself, you know, God's gonna bless me. I'm gonna buy one of these multi units that I used to live in. And so you guys just heard that from me firsthand. You guys believe with me. I'm gonna get one of those multi units I grew up in. You know, me and my little dog. But anyway, so we never bought. My parents never bought with my grandfather. He never used his VA benefit. And so that's generational wealth and equity building that we he could have passed on to his grandchildren, you know, to my parents. They could have split the cost, and they could have had a bunch of

Becky Coins 11:32
Monique or a Becky to educate him exactly,

Monique Buchanan 11:35
exactly it went to waste. Yeah, it went to waste. So let's just talk about that real quick. All right? So it's zero down, you know, payment, right? And also, veterans, your rate is lower than the general public's out the gate. So now you have the ability to buy with a lower credit score than any of us. You get a rate lower than any of us. You don't have to worry about your down payment at all that's taken care of by them. Yeah, so that so by your benefit, what you're left with is closing cost and what I'm telling you right now in this market and in most of the markets in the country right now, if you're hearing me somewhere else, I can still assist you, me and Becky, but in this market, we are getting those costs paid for. You. Didn't you tell me that Jake got a check back?

Becky Coins 12:23
Yes, he got a $2,500 check back after his earnest deposit was 3000

Monique Buchanan 12:28
Hello people, that is what's going on. Now here, you know she's talking about her son.

Becky Coins 12:33
She's not gonna lie on her son. No, would never,

Monique Buchanan 12:37
right? No, but seriously, we're not making this up, right? So I hope that you're hearing me and understand that you know, the money that was left on the table could have changed me, myself as his granddaughter. He's got other grandkids too. My parents, their legacy, their life, the wealth that they could have left for me and my family as well. Because by buying that one property, let's talk about it. In 1987 the US median price was 127,000 she's gonna say, yeah, there's 127,000 now downtown Vegas, a normal house down there which we were living in, just we were probably living in, like a 1300 square foot three bedroom home, right? We're talking $100,000 in 87 Okay, so now today, that same property is worth $430,000 now I'm telling you, we would have had it paid off for sure, yeah, you know, probably in 10 years, yeah, we would have had that thing paid off.

Becky Coins 13:36
And even if you took the whole 30, yeah, even if you took the whole,

Monique Buchanan 13:41
even if we would have took, taken, yeah, it had been paid off years ago. Yeah, it would have been paid off. But so let's just say that it more than likely would have been paid off within 10 years, to be honest with you, and then continued to sit there and pay rent for all those years, but paid off $430,000 could have been split in two. My parents would have gotten or taken 215 they my grandfather and my grandma would have taken 215 probably would have bought another property and left that for all the grandkids, or whatever. You know, my parents would have bought another property, and it would have been paid off by now as well. So when I was in high school or one going to college. I could have maybe lived in that property for free. Yeah, think about the benefits that you can give your kids by having a property paid off. They can collect rental income from that property throughout their lives. They can say, You know what, I'm tired of working mom, I'm going to go back to school. Or, hey, life happens. Maybe one of them had a kid young. They need somewhere to live. You can provide that for your child,

Becky Coins 14:45
but think about your parents, though, even them, even they struggled. My grandmother, that was the one thing my grandmother did teach me, and I wish I would have done sooner, but her house was paid off long before she was able to live in that house. She didn't have a house payment. She paid that money. Mortgage off, right? And they were able to be comfortable when they she had to retire early because of health issues, right? They had very, very strict, limited income, and she was able to stay in her home.

Monique Buchanan 15:10
Yeah, that's huge. That's huge, especially when you're on a fixed income. I've got, you know, my father lives with me, but there's so many in his position that are living off of $2,000

Becky Coins 15:21
or less. Could you imagine them trying to find a place to live right now? Oh, my

Monique Buchanan 15:26
goodness. So that's something that's in the works for me. I'm trying to figure that out for them right now, because I do get that call quite often and it breaks my heart. I have nothing to offer them. Yeah, there's rent. Rent constantly goes up, you guys, it constantly goes up. So here you are renting right now, thinking you're safe, but once again, that is a facade. You can be put out within 30 days, right after your lease is up. Your your lease can go up as much as they want. No rent cap in Nevada, and if you're a senior citizen and you're on a fixed or if you're anybody on a fixed income, and you have to sit here and continue to worry about rent going up, what are we doing, especially if you have family members that can live with you and help you with the mortgage, get a mortgage that's fixed for 30 years, it cannot go up, but only by taxes, and that's minute in most cases, of course, right? If you have a HOA that can go up, but that's minute, yeah, you're eventually going to pay that thing off, right? And then what you're left with is just taxes in most cases. So, you know, I like a sense of security. I like to know what I'm going to have to pay every single month, and for 30 years, sign me up, and no, I'm not getting kicked out of my house. And no, nobody can put a note on my door and say, Have a good day. Because previous shows we have, you're gonna sell your property. You've made enough equity. You're looking at, you're sitting on $400,000 worth of equity. You want to take that out and maybe pay your kids tuition or whatever you have to do. You know, you tell your renters, have a good day. Here's 3030. Day notice, yep, happened us twice, yeah, and we've talked about this happened to happen to my best friend who was renting from a friend, and that person still is a friend, but they have to do what's best for them and their family, and that's what we have to understand, right? So I don't know what to say if you're thinking that you're gonna, you know, relocate. That's fine. Like Becky pointed out, you're a veteran, you have, you're in the service. There's plenty of people that will rent that property from you. Yes, right? If you're a retired vet, and you know you're renting right now, and you've got grown kids living with you. Hey, tell them, kids, instead of paying rent, we're gonna, we're gonna pay a mortgage so I can leave this property to you and your kids. Absolutely, we got to make it make sense. You know, it does not make sense to pay somebody else's mortgage for them, because at the end of the day, you're paying somebody's mortgage. Now, like they say, is it going to be yours or someone else's?

Becky Coins 18:00
And I promise you, after the first one, your whole mindset is going to change. Jake is already since he closed, that's all I hear about. Is the next property, next property and the next property.

Monique Buchanan 18:11
And you know what else they see that it's not as hard as they thought it was. Yeah, because we all have that built up in our mind that it's unachievable, it's so hard, my credit must be perfect. I, you know all these things, these roadblocks that we let our mind tell us, instead of just making a quick five minute phone call and finding out what the process is, 7029 80 430-700-7029, 84 3700 you can follow me at at realtor Monique Buchanan, B, U, C, H, A n, a n, on I G, Instagram.

Becky Coins 18:44
I also wanted to mention mo that it doesn't take just relocation for the vets to worry about being tied to that property. You only have to be owner occupied in that house for one year. So even if you decide to get a better house, you will still you can refinance that other that first house, turn it to conventional a year later, and then use your VA again.

Monique Buchanan 19:04
After you've lived in it for a year, you can move on, is what she's saying, guys. So don't feel like you're trapped. You're not trapped. No, you have options. So, and if you're one of those veterans, I want to talk to you today about my new listings. Right? Got a couple new listings, so once hitting the market this weekend. You guys, you've heard me talk about it before. It's a single story. No, Hoa, 3806 internet Avenue. Don't you love that name? I love it. It's in the Northwest, and it is 16, over 16,000 square foot lot. Okay, the house itself is around. Let me see here. 2846 square feet, and it is a four bedroom home, all right, with a pool, three car garage, and no. Hoa, right? No. Hoa, you know what's funny about that? A lot of times when you have no Hoa, you know, you got to hope that the neighborhood looks good every single. House, yeah, is manicured to the T, I mean it, yeah, there's no no worries there. So a lot of pride in home ownership, pride and home ownership. So guys, 3806 internet Avenue, there will be an open house coming soon on that property as well. And then, of course, we have another one that should be going live, not this weekend, but next week. Okay, so be on the lookout for that listing. It is under 460,000 list price now that other 130, 806, internet will be listed at around 780,000 you are on over a quarter of a lot. Like I said, RV parking. You've got the pool, single story, four bedroom, you know, and on and on and on and on. Three car garage. So those are hard to find right now. You know that's, that was my list. So now this property also is on the corner lot, 916, carry grove. 916, carry grove. This one's you can see it now, though, on any of the platforms, Zillow, you know, realtor.com, you can go ahead and see a picture of just the outside right now. You guys were going to be having professional photos coming soon, where you'll be able to see the entire yard the inside. But let me just tell you, it's over. It's 222, two. Okay, it's hard for me to say that 2022 and 22 square feet, 2222 2222 square feet. There you go, like my first time, four bedroom, three, bath. And that's three full bath, you guys. And it, like I said, on the corner lot, not to mention it is bigger than most yards, at 6500 square feet in its neighborhood, and it has a low HOA. And guess what? Solar will be paid off, so you will have free solar on that property, 916, carry Grove, coming soon. So if you're thinking about listing your property, we do mention the listings on the radio, which is very powerful, and that is at no charge to you, no extra charge for listings. In fact, we don't charge you anything, Becky, until we sell your property. Okay, that's when we collect our success fee. Okay, so we front all the marketing costs ourself, and we do market. And we do market, we actually do it. Not to mention the radio station, which is very powerful, you know. So let's go ahead and pivot, um, I do have some unfortunate news you guys that I want to share with you. First, I wanted to say thank you so much to all of my listeners out there that prayed for the Diaz family. I even had a couple of you guys reach out and ask me how everything's going, and you know how they're doing. So I just want to share with you that unfortunately, we did lose our sister, our KU and V sister, Jay Diaz. She did unfortunately pass away. She leaves behind her loving husband, Ernesto, and their five beautiful children. They're all under the age of 14. This was hard for me, you guys, they're doing well, though. I did drive out there to Pahrump and see them. We took them some food. Me and my sister Alexis cooked for them and took them some food. The babies are in good spirits. In fact, they told me they're taking care of daddy. So Jay was a sweet soul, you guys. She's worked for the school district, and she brought light around everybody. I remember when I first met her, you you met her too. Didn't you Becky? Such a sweet woman. She raised those babies so so well, yes, they are just wonderful. So respectful. Even at this time, this hard time that they're going through, they've so respectful. So it's heartbreaking, you guys and you know, unfortunately, Ernesto is now facing, you know, this hard challenge and this heartbreak of losing his wife, but he's also facing falling behind on his mortgage. Obviously, she was sick for a couple months, and he was caring for her while she was sick, but they were not able to make a couple of the mortgage payments, which unfortunately happens to a lot of people out there that are fighting some kind of illness or disease. His name is not on the loan. So I do want to talk to you guys a little bit about that. If you are one of the folks out there that you know a lot of times, one of the spouses will have better credit, so you'll put the the loan in their name, and then you'll just quick deed your spouse onto the title. Well, that's what they did, which is very common, right? I want you guys to make sure whoever's name is on the loan. You call the loan surfacing company and you add your spouse, or whoever, your loved one, whoever bought with you, your partner, you add them and give them permission to have access to details of that loan, because, unfortunately, Ernesto Jay didn't think about it. We put the loan in Jay's name, she had the stronger credit, and then we just added Ernesto onto the title, but now he is not able to get any information and not even able to. Let them know. Hey, you know this is what's going on. Can you work with me? Yeah, we went through that with my brother in law, yes, but he's, you know, he is facing this hardship with the mortgage, you know, trying to get it caught up. So if you'd like to help the Diaz family, you can text me directly family, and I'll send you the GoFundMe link. If you want to be a blessing to this family and his kids, you know, they can sure use it, you guys, if you're in a position that you're able to help this family out, you know, I never asked for anything like this, but you know, we have to come together as a community sometimes, you know, so you can, like I said, text me family. 7029 80 430-700-7029, 84 843700, I will send you the GoFundMe link so you can bless this family and kind of help them get over this hump. You can also text our cash app. If you're one of those people that just like to do Cash App is quicker, easier. I told Ernesto to please give me his cash up information. That's the money sign Ernesto Diaz 77 so that's, you know, Cash App always starts with that money. Sign, money. Sign Ernesto Diaz 77 and most of all, continue to keep this beautiful family in your prayers. They truly need our love and support right now, you guys. So thank you to all my prayer warriors out there, and you know, with that being said, you know I didn't want to leave on a sad note, but you know, God makes no mistakes. And you know we don't want to put a question mark where God has put a period. So I just want to praise his holy name and say, Thank You, Lord, that you're giving strength to this family and that you know, good things are going to be coming their way to help them get through this. And I want to thank each and every one of you in advance that does go ahead and jump on there and we'll go ahead and be a blessing to this family. All right, so until we hear from you, talk to you next week. Have a blessed weekend, guys. Thank you for listening. Please remember all terms discussed are simply an estimate. My license number is S, 1788, 46, my phone number, if you'd like to contact me, is 702-984-3700, you can also find me on YouTube. You.

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