Some home-sellers don't want to deal with would-be buyers who plan to get a loan guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. But those sellers could be shooting themselves in the foot.

At the same time, vets who fail to look into add-on programs offered by their states, and sometimes by their local governments, could be leaving money on the table.

The basic advantage of VA-guaranteed financing is that borrowers don't have to put any money down. The agency does not set a cap on how much can be borrowed to finance your home, but there are limits.

In most places, vets can borrow up to $144,000 without putting up any cash of their own. But the limit is higher in some places -- sometimes much higher. In Sacramento, California, for example, the max is $827,500, while it's $546,250 in San Diego. And in Marin County, California, the limit is a whopping $1.05 million.

Of course, buyers can go above the limit. But for every $4 borrowed after that, lenders typically require a down payment of $1. So, in most markets, if you are trying to borrow $200,000, you'll need $14,000 as a down payment. ($200,000 less $144,00 is $56,000, divided by 4 is $14,000.)

While there's an ample pool of former servicemen and women who easily qualify for VA financing, many sellers still believe the old wives' tales that there's too much paperwork or approvals are too slow.

"Most home-sellers have major misconceptions about veterans and active military, so they don't even try to market their homes to this large population," says Wanda Petty, president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Veterans Association of Real Estate Professionals (VAREP). "As a result, they are missing out on a huge consumer market."

What may have been true years ago just isn't so anymore. To set the record straight, here are five legends about VA loans that no longer hold water:

-- Slow to close. According to VAREP, VA loans close as much as two days faster than conventional mortgages. Forty-eight hours isn't much, but it could be if you are in a hurry.

-- Tough to qualify. Buyers know the loans' parameters up-front, so there are few, in any, surprises. And if sellers know the rules, too, the qualifying process will go that much smoother, Petty says.

-- Out of reach. Few neighborhoods are too expensive for VA loans. See loan limits above.

-- Poor credit. The minimum credit score required by the VA varies by lender, but the average is 525. That compares favorably to the 600 needed for most conventional loans. Yet foreclosures on VA loans are far less frequent than on conventional mortgages.

-- Few buyers. There may not appear to be many military families living in your community, but they are everywhere. According to the National Association of Realtors, which is stepping up efforts to educate members about the VA home loan program, less than 12 percent of the 16.4 million active-duty service members and military veterans with a mortgage have a VA loan.

According to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication, the VA loan program is among the fastest-growing sectors in the mortgage market. At last count, the agency owns nearly 25 percent of the primary insured-loan market, easily outpacing the Federal Housing Administration, the government's other main housing finance agency.

But if borrowers need a little bit of extra help, most states and many localities offer additional benefits over and above what Uncle Sam provides.

The types of programs vary from place to place. Here's a sampling:

-- Maryland: The Old Line State exempts permanently and totally disabled vets from paying property taxes. And retired servicepeople are exempt from paying state income taxes on the first $5,000 of their retirement income.

-- California: The California Housing Finance Agency offers a tax credit program that reduces the buyer's federal taxes, creating extra income to use toward the monthly house payment. First-time buyers can convert up to 20 percent of their annual mortgage interest into a direct credit on their federal returns for as long as they own the property.

-- Arizona: Compensation received by servicemembers who are on active duty during any month of the year is exempt from income taxes on those months' income. The state also offers a property tax exemption for widows and widowers of vets, as well as disabled persons.

-- Illinois: The new state Homeownership Program for Veterans and Active Service Personnel offers significantly below-market financing and counseling.

To find out what your state offers for veterans, go to military.com and click on the Benefits tab.

Finally, don't overlook the benefits your city or county may offer. They can be quite advantageous.

For example, Maricopa County in Arizona offers assistance with down payments to qualifying military personnel, as well as a wide range of affordable housing options. And the San Diego Housing Commission offers rehab loans to help fix existing properties.

Unfortunately, there is no central repository for local information, so you'll have to do some digging. Start with your state's VA department.

On the heels of the movement to add green features to multiple listing service postings, a trend to list accessibility features is also gaining steam.

Local listing services are not required to highlight extra-wide doorways that can accommodate wheelchairs, first-floor master bedrooms, entry thresholds that are even with the sidewalk, grab bars in the bathroom, lever doorknobs and faucets, and other such features. But they should.

After all, according to the latest figures from the Census Bureau, nearly 20 percent of the population have some kind of disability. That's almost 57 million people. Of course, not all of them are severely handicapped, but about half are.

Moreover, between 2005 and 2010, the number of folks with a disability increased by 2.2 million. And in 2010, roughly 30.6 million people had difficulty walking or climbing stairs, or used a wheelchair, cane, crutches or walker.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the South Central Wisconsin MLS was the first to include accessibility terms, way back in 1991. When agents submit a property for listing, they can check up to 15 accessibility features, including ramped entries, 42-inch wide hallways and doorways and roll-in showers.

Several other listing services have since followed Wisconsin's lead, but it wasn't until two years ago that a movement began to add accessibility terms to the standard real estate data dictionary. That effort is being led by the Real Estate Standards Organization, a private entity dedicated to creating voluntary electronic commerce standards so they are the same everywhere.

Uniformity is "really crucial," says Bill Lubin, a Philadelphia broker and outgoing chair of NAR's MLS Issues and Policies Committee.

Without an agreed-upon set of standards, Lubin explains, there is no easy entry data field for agents to check off when listing houses for sale. So "they must be marketed in the notes section" of the listing, and the result is they don't pop up during searches.

According to NAR, 23 of the country's largest multiple listing services support the effort to standardize accessibility terms. Now smaller services are signing on, too, adding such common terms as low-profile carpeting, swing-in doors, entry slopes that are less than one foot, doorbells that flash the lights inside the house, higher toilets and lower light switches.

The most advanced services also list features that make some communities more livable than others, such as safe streets, outdoor places where the disabled can gather and public transportation options.

Now, all 800 or so MLSs across the land are being asked to present accessibility features in a single data field starting early next year. That way, would-be buyers who are confined to wheelchairs or have some other major disability can more easily hunt for houses that meet their physical requirements.

So, if you are selling a home with accessibility features, make sure your agent checks off those items in the appropriate box to attract the widest possible audience of home-seekers. And if you are a buyer, have your agent search the MLS by one or more of those features. You just might get lucky and spare yourself a lot of wasted time searching for places that just won't work.

Meanwhile, a new website has appeared in southern California to help buyers connect with agents who are trained to help them find homes with green features and to take advantage of energy rebates and financing initiatives.

The site, greenhomeagents.com, is sponsored by the Energy Network, a local government organization administered by Los Angeles County. It links buyers across the nine-county region to agents who have completed the National Association of Realtors' Green Designation courses and can advise them about the whole range of green features.

Dan Knapp, senior marketing manager at Build It Green, which runs the program on behalf of the Energy Network, says some 460 real estate professionals and nearly 50 appraisers have been trained so far in the art of buying, selling and appraising sustainable houses. And many more are in line.

"We're seeing a high demand" among these pros, Knapp says. "They see that the market is going that way and they are responding." An agent with NAR's green designation can "get people thinking about energy costs," he adds, and help them "get more home for their money."

Innovation is alive and well in the mortgage business, where Carrington Mortgage Services, NorthstarMLS and Privlo have all introduced new products recently. Even global property information and analytics firm CoreLogic is in the game.

Privlo, a venture capital-backed "alternative" lender, has financing for credit-worthy borrowers -- like former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and even yours truly -- whose careers, lifestyles or finances are just too difficult for traditional lenders to wrap their heads around.

People with uneven or seasonal incomes, for example, should qualify. So should self-employed entrepreneurs, or borrowers with a single blemish on their credit records.

"Borrowers have changed dramatically in the last couple of decades," says Privlo CEO Michael Slavin. "There's an entire class of solo operators, freelancers, small-business owners and even just regular folks who are much more credit-worthy than their tax returns might show."

Slavin also says that folks in more traditional professions such as nursing and law are also being turned down "when in fact they are extremely well-qualified." All of these people are "positively contributing to our economy," he says, and should be able to buy a home just like the generations who went before them.

According to the Los Angles-based company, there are nearly 18 million independent workers nationwide, an indication that Americans are redefining what the typical career looks like. And small businesses account for some 90 percent of all U.S. businesses.

Privlo intends to reach these folks with a technology-based platform and business process that better qualifies them, taking into account a far greater number of factors than their personal history and future financial prospects. It also considers alternative documentation and "career-specific" factors.

The company is currently making loans in Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Tennessee, Maryland, Minnesota and Virginia, with more states on the way.

You can see if you are a candidate for a "Privloan" at privlo.com.

Carrington, meanwhile, says it is offering "a more transparent, simplified" lending process with no closing costs or upfront financing fees. The Santa Ana, California-based company, which has a national footprint, pays all the "eligible" upfront costs, and also covers any unexpected increases in estimated closing costs.

"Many underserved borrowers, including first-time buyers, still view the path to a mortgage as unattainable, complex and often cumbersome," says Executive Vice President Ray Brousseau. "The Carrington Loan simplifies the process and improves the experience to help remove the anxiety."

Earlier this year, the company lowered its acceptable FICO score to 550, and expanded its guidelines on a number of FHA, VA and USDA loan programs by extending eligibility to more property types and reducing add-on costs known as "overlays." It also developed a patent-pending online educational resource designed to improve borrower financial literacy.

The Carrington Mortgage is a government-insured loan program. Any upfront mortgage insurance or funding fees that may be required can either be rolled into the loan amount or paid in cash at closing. Borrowers will also be responsible for services they request -- such as rate locks or home warranties -- that are not required as part of the loan.

To find out more, visit thecarringtonloan.com.

NorthstarMLS's new program isn't for borrowers; at least, not directly. But its new True Lifestyle Cost tool will allow real estate agents to show their clients the true cost of home ownership, including costs that are often ignored or forgotten, such as commuting costs, utility bills and day care fees.

NorthstarMLS is a multiple-listing service used by more than 14,300 agents and brokers in Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. (It should not be confused with Lewisville, Texas-based lender Nationstar Mortgage.) The service says it is in the process of rolling out the true cost platform, and will make a variety of resources available to help agents learn how to use it.

CoreLogic's new CondoSafe database isn't for buyers directly, either. But it should help open up the stagnant condo market, in that it will help lenders and secondary investors more easily determine if a condominium project meets their criteria.

The Federal Housing Administration, for example, has all but banned condo loans. It will back mortgages in condo projects only if the property has cleared a certification process that examines budgets, reserves, insurance coverage, percentage of renters in the development and delinquencies on payment of condo fees.

Currently, lenders must identify and then query each condo association to ascertain whether the rules have been followed. "This can be a time-consuming 'chase and place process' that can stretch out the underwriting process and add $500 or more to the cost" of making the loan, says Arlene Hyde, a CoreLogic senior vice president.

And if the information they receive back is inaccurate or misinterpreted, the loan application could be rejected.

CondoSafe solicits and stores information from more than 140,000 condo associations. Initially, the program will provide lenders with alerts based on apparent conflicts with investor guidelines. But in the future, it will be able to compare data to historical statements and validate the information.