VA is making a change to the types of loans that will be approved through the automated underwriting engine, and those changes are not friendly to new borrowers.

Currently, people applying for a VA loan can sometimes get an approval with debt-to-income ratios as high as 56% (assuming the lender doesn’t have overlays reducing that top mark). Well, VA has said they are going to stiffen the requirements for the automated approval, but they won’t tell us exactly what.

These guidelines are expected to be implemented the week of December 17, 2011. FHA has not announced any changes to their automated model.