Home Loans in Airway Heights & Medical Lake, WA.Fairchild VA

Home loans in Airway Heights, WA and Medical Lake, WA revolve around one employer: Fairchild Air Force Base sits between the two towns, and it's the largest employer in Spokane County. I'm Brad Patshkowski, a mortgage lender with HHL Group, a Division of Canopy Mortgage, LLC, twenty years in Spokane County.

VA loans for Fairchild families are a large share of what I do. Licensed in Washington and Idaho, I've closed new construction in Airway Heights, lake homes in Medical Lake, manufactured homes on West Plains acreage, and rebuilds after the Gray Fire. This page is how the money works on the West Plains.

Two towns, one base, different maps

Fairchild is home to the 92nd and 141st Air Refueling Wings and more than 7,400 military and civilian personnel. Airway Heights is the town on the Spokane side of the base along US-2, and Medical Lake is the town on the far side, about seven miles west. Both are 15 to 20 minutes from the main gate and 20 to 25 minutes from downtown Spokane.

For financing, the important difference is the USDA map. Airway Heights sits inside the Spokane urbanized area and maps ineligible for USDA, the same as the city of Spokane and Spokane Valley. Medical Lake maps eligible, and so does most of the unincorporated West Plains around both towns. That one fact changes the first loan I price for a non-veteran buyer, so the address comes before anything else.

Both towns sit well under the $541,287 FHA limit and nowhere near the $832,750 conforming limit, so loan limits are never the constraint out here.

VA loans for Fairchild families

If you're eligible, VA is the first program I price on any West Plains file. Zero down, no monthly mortgage insurance, and typically the strongest pricing available. The funding fee is waived if you receive VA disability compensation, and the VA loan requirements guide covers eligibility and entitlement in full.

What Fairchild families actually need from a lender isn't the program; every lender has VA. It's a file that moves on the military's calendar. I know PCS timelines, how BAH counts toward qualifying, how to handle a spouse's income from the last duty station, and what happens when orders come through with three weeks' notice. Because Canopy underwrites in-house, a three-week close is realistic when it has to be. I've also closed VA on manufactured homes on West Plains acreage, which fewer lenders will touch.

One honest note: if you're active duty with a short remaining tour and expect to PCS within a couple of years, buying isn't always the right call. Run the numbers against on-base housing and off-base rent before assuming. I'll do that math with you.

Price a Fairchild-area home→

Airway Heights: new construction and the builder's lender

Airway Heights passed 12,000 residents in 2025, up about 31% in five years, and most of that growth is new subdivisions along the US-2 corridor. Prices run below Spokane proper, a median around $373,000, with the tradeoff that the town's retail and services are still catching up to the rooftops. Northern Quest and the Spokane Tribe Casino are the other big employers, and a lot of my Airway Heights buyers work at one of them or at the base.

New construction means the builder's preferred-lender offer: use their lender, get a closing cost credit. Sometimes it's a genuine deal. Sometimes the rate has been marked up to fund the credit, and you can't tell which from the flyer. Bring me the incentive sheet and their Loan Estimate; I'll issue mine for the same loan amount the same day and put them side by side. If theirs wins, I'll say so.

Program-wise: VA for eligible buyers, FHA with 3.5% down for most first-time buyers, conventional for stronger files. USDA doesn't work inside Airway Heights, so the first-time home buyer guide and its down payment assistance section matter more here than in Medical Lake.

Medical Lake: USDA, lakes, and rebuilding after the Gray Fire

Medical Lake is smaller, older, and sits on a string of lakes: Medical Lake itself, Silver Lake, Clear Lake. The state runs two large facilities in town, Eastern State Hospital and Lakeland Village, so a lot of buyers here are state employees as well as Fairchild families. The median sale price was about $400,000 over the three months ending mid-2026, up 6.6% from the prior year.

For a non-veteran buyer under the income cap, USDA is the loan. Most Medical Lake addresses map eligible, which means zero down, a 1% upfront fee financed into the loan, and a 0.35% annual fee that's cheaper than FHA's mortgage insurance. The 2026 household income limit is $119,850 for one to four people. On a $400,000 home that's $14,000 less cash at closing than FHA and about $60 a month less in mortgage insurance.

Then there's the fire. The Gray Fire started near Medical Lake on August 18, 2023, burned roughly 10,000 acres, and destroyed about 240 homes. Three years later, families are still rebuilding, and I've worked several of those files. The loan is a construction-to-permanent loan: it finances the build on land you already own, insurance proceeds count as your equity, and it converts to a regular mortgage when the home is done. If you're buying a lot where a home burned, the same loan covers the purchase and the build. Every rebuild is different, between insurance settlements, existing mortgages on the destroyed home, and whether the well and septic survived, so this is a sit-down conversation rather than a web page. Call me.

Manufactured homes and acreage on the West Plains

A lot of the housing between the two towns and out toward Espanola and Four Lakes is manufactured homes on acreage. FHA, VA, USDA where eligible, and conventional all finance one that sits on a permanent foundation and is titled as real property. The FHA foundation certification guide covers what the engineer checks and what it costs here; the manufactured home loan guide covers the title and age tests. Wells and septic add a water test and an inspection to the file, ordered on day one.

How working with me goes

My office is at 1227 N Argonne Rd in Spokane Valley. Most West Plains clients never come in: documents move electronically, we talk by phone or text, and I'll meet you at the signing. Call or text (509) 252-4000, or start with the assistant on this site and get estimated payment numbers in a few minutes without a credit pull.

From there: real numbers the same day, a pre-approval usually within 24 hours of receiving your documents, and a rate lock once you're under contract.

Get my numbers→

If you have orders to Fairchild and a house-hunting trip on the calendar, call before the trip so the pre-approval is done when you land. If you're a Medical Lake family still working through a rebuild, same number. I'm the mortgage lender for all of Spokane County, and the West Plains is a big part of that.