[RANDY P]

OH crap- "Streamline"
TL;DR- in English- as long as you can fit those discounts and fees into what you ORIGINALLY borrowed you should be golden. You cannot INCREASE the base original loan amount with a streamline.

(Been awhile, sorry)- Last I checked, typically with a streamline situation you are only allowed a certain amount of closing costs to be added into the loan. Since a streamline uses only limited information to qualify for the loan, they limit the amount of points / fees that can be rolled in VS a traditional full refi.

The VA allows you to Roll any of the following costs into your VA streamline loan:

VA funding fee, which is 0.5% of your loan amount- MANDATORY
2 discount points or 2% of your loan amount
1 origination point or 1% of your loan amount
Any itemized fees that the VA allows (credit report fee, underwriting fee, appraisal fee)

Translated: 3.5% in origination costs + Credit, underwriting and appraisal fee are allowed to be added into the new loan- AND to roll these into the loan you must be able to fit all these costs INTO the original loan amount borrowed- so if you have NOT paid down the existing loan enough to cover the new fees, you're SOL.

Case in point: if you bought 3 months ago (Borrowed $100K) and applied for a VA IRRL today, after making ONE payment, technically you wouldn't qualify since you don't have enough paid down to roll the fees in.
NOW- this means "Add it to the tab"- if you wish to pay the discount points and fees out of pocket, these rules don't apply.

Double check with the lender, but that's how it was before.