In Fresno, a greater percentage of military veterans are homeowners compared to the civilian population. Photo by Wesley Tingey on unsplash.com

If you’re a veteran in Fresno, you’re more likely to own a home compared to non-military folks. 

That’s the result of new research from Realtor.com identifying the U.S. markets where military homeownership rates exceed the civilian population — called the homeownership rate gap.

Fresno came in at No. 5 with a 14.9% rate gap — with a 71.2% homeownership rate for the military compared to 53.1% non-military.

Stockton had the highest gap at 18.8%, followed by Des Moines, Iowa (18.4%) and Buffalo, New York (16.7%) to round out the top 3.

In Fresno, one in ten families is a military household. Of all the military sales, 6.6% were through a VA loan.

With housing prices on the rise, the average down payment percentage for VA loans (4.6%) was significantly lower than the average down payment percentage for conforming loans (19.7%), according to a news release. 

Over 80% of VA loan recipients bought homes with a down payment of less than 10%, compared to 39.9% for homebuyers with conforming loans. Additionally, three out of every four VA loan recipients had a 0% down payment, which is not possible for conforming loan borrowers.

VA loan borrowers are also more likely to have a lower credit score. According to the study, 23.2% of VA loan borrowers are in the “Fair” credit score category, compared to just 4.5% of conforming loan borrowers.