VA Loans in Irmo, SC: Fort Jackson's Two Gates, 2026 BAH Examples and a Town on a County Line

SCDOT opened all lanes of the Midlands Connection in December 2024, 16 miles of I-26 widened between Exit 85 at Little Mountain and Exit 101 at Irmo. The Koon Road overpass in Irmo was one of seven it replaced. A drive from there to Fort Jackson ends at one of the post's two gates on I-77. The Army's visitor guide lists Gate 1 on Fort Jackson Boulevard at exit 10, and Gate 2 on Forest Drive at exit 12.

A VA loan can buy a home in Irmo with no down payment required by VA, and a service member at Fort Jackson draws the housing allowance for the Fort Jackson duty ZIP wherever in Irmo the home is. I'm Jeff Moran, NMLS #483943, a mortgage broker licensed in South Carolina through C2 Financial Corporation, and I have been in the mortgage business since 1996. My page on Irmo itself covers the town, and how VA loans work in South Carolina covers the Certificate of Eligibility (VA's letter showing your benefit) and the attorney closing. The VA rules below come from VA's Lenders Handbook, Pamphlet 26-7, and from va.gov, and I checked them on November 5, 2026.

Fort Jackson's two gates and the roads to them from Irmo

The Army's visitor guide gives 4120 Moseby Street, Columbia, SC 29207 as the address for Gate 2. The two gates are two exits apart on I-77, so the drive from Irmo depends on which gate is yours.

Military OneSource's directions to the installation send drivers arriving on I-20 onto I-77 south, and drivers arriving on I-26 eastbound onto I-77 north, then on to exit 12. From Irmo, those two roads are where I would start looking at routes, and the best one depends on the street address of the home. I give no commute minutes here because I found no published time for the town, and your unit can tell you which gate you will use.

Your housing allowance follows the duty station

The Basic Allowance for Housing, BAH, is the monthly allowance a service member draws when the government does not provide quarters. The Army's active-duty guidance ties it to the assigned duty location, the grade and the dependency status, and it says the town where a member chooses to live does not set it. So a soldier assigned to Fort Jackson who buys in Irmo draws the Columbia and Fort Jackson rate, on either side of the Lexington and Richland County line.

For 2026 the Defense Travel Management Office, DTMO, returned Columbia/Fort Jackson, SC, housing area SC260, for duty ZIP 29207. These are monthly figures from DTMO's public lookup on November 5, 2026. They are examples by duty ZIP, grade and dependency status, and they are never anyone's own allowance:

Grade, 2026, duty ZIP 29207	With dependents	Without dependents
E-5	$1,878	$1,647
E-6	$2,121	$1,746
O-3	$2,232	$2,028

You can run your own grade and dependency status through DTMO's BAH lookup to get your figure, and the housing office at your installation can confirm anything about your allowance.

Living in the home: VA's occupancy certification and a Lake Murray cottage

A VA purchase comes with a certification that you intend to live in the home. VA's Lenders Handbook says you either live in it when you certify or move in within a reasonable time after closing, and it puts a reasonable time at 60 days. You sign the certification at closing on VA Form 26-1820.

Orders and deployments can get in the way of a move-in, and the Handbook has room for that. A deployed service member is in temporary duty status and can still meet the rule. If you are on active duty and cannot move in yourself, a spouse or dependent child living in the home covers it for you.

Irmo's motto calls it the Gateway to Lake Murray, so a cottage near the water comes up for some clients. The Handbook says a seasonal vacation home does not satisfy the occupancy rule, so I would want to talk with you about how you plan to use it.

The funding fee, and an Irmo median as an example

VA charges a one-time funding fee on most purchase loans, figured on the loan amount, which is the price minus your down payment. The va.gov funding fee table sets the fee on a first use at 2.15% of the loan with less than 5% down, 1.5% with 5% or more down and 1.25% with 10% or more down. After a first use it is 3.3% with less than 5% down.

Redfin puts the middle sale price for all home types in Irmo at $272,370 for the three months ending September 2026. Any particular home will cost more or less, so I use it only to show the arithmetic. These are first-use fees at that price, worked out by my own arithmetic:

Estimate: first-use funding fee at $272,370	Fee
Nothing down, loan of $272,370.00, at 2.15%	$5,855.96
5% down, loan of $258,751.50, at 1.5%	$3,881.27
10% down, loan of $245,133.00, at 1.25%	$3,064.16

You can finance the fee into the loan, and some clients owe none. A veteran who receives VA compensation for a service-connected disability owes no fee, and neither does a veteran who is eligible for that compensation but receives retirement or active-duty pay instead. A surviving spouse who receives Dependency and Indemnity Compensation owes none, and neither does an active-duty member with evidence of a Purple Heart before closing. I read your award letter or claim status to see which applies to you.

If VA cannot confirm an exemption before closing, you pay the fee as if you were not exempt, and a refund is possible once the award comes through. The funding fee explainer covers how the fee reaches the loan amount.

VA's loan amount and the county figure

VA sets no maximum loan amount. The Handbook says "there are no maximum dollar amounts prescribed for VA-guaranteed loans." The loan is based on the lower of the value VA's appraisal sets for the home and the price you agree to, plus the funding fee if you finance it. If the price is higher than that value, you pay the difference in cash.

Your entitlement is the amount VA will guarantee to the lender on your behalf, and it is the reason a lender can offer you a VA loan with no down payment. For a first VA loan you have all of it available, so the county figure will not limit you. It starts to matter only if part of your entitlement is still tied up in an earlier VA loan, which can happen to a service member who bought at an earlier station and is buying again near Fort Jackson.

In that case VA measures from the 2026 conforming limit for the county, which is the largest loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy there. The FHFA county table lists $832,750 for both Lexington County and Richland County, so the county line through Irmo changes nothing. Keeping a first VA loan and buying a second walks through how that works.

Property taxes on the Lexington and Richland sides of Irmo

Irmo is on both sides of the Lexington-Richland County line. The South Carolina Encyclopedia says the Town's boundaries were drawn in 1890 as half a mile in each direction from the railroad depot, so the Town has been in two counties from the start. Two homes a few blocks apart can be in different counties, with different tax districts and different tax bills, and a mailing address cannot tell you which. Many Irmo-area addresses carry a Columbia 29212 mailing address, and ZIP 29063 covers far more land than the Town does.

For the home you are looking at, you can search the parcel on the Lexington County or Richland County property record, and it shows the county and the tax district. I look it up before I run your payment, and you can do the same from your phone while you stand in the driveway. The 2026 millage schedules from the two county auditors list three Irmo districts. A mill is one dollar of tax for every $1,000 of assessed value, and the fire pieces are where the three districts differ:

Tax district, tax year 2026	Code	Fire operations, mills	Fire bonds, mills
Lexington County, Town of Irmo with the fire district	5IFD	19.6	2.8
Lexington County, Town of Irmo	5I	21.3	0.0
Richland County, Town of Irmo	6TI	22.6	none listed

The Lexington County Auditor's schedule has the first two rows. The Richland County Auditor's schedule has the third and lists a county levy of 102.8 mills in that district. All three districts list the same school pieces, 266.0 mills for operations and 64.5 for bonds. These numbers are only parts of a bill. The rest depends on the assessed value of your home, on whether the county has approved it for the owner-occupied rate, and on credits and separate fees.

South Carolina assesses a home you live in at 4 percent of its fair market value under S.C. Code 12-43-220, and you apply to the county before the first penalty date for the tax year. S.C. Code 12-37-220 also exempts a qualifying home from the school operating tax, though you still pay the part that repays school bonds, and it covers a veteran who is permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected condition. The first two apply to an owner-occupied home in South Carolina, the disabled-veteran exemption has its own certificate and filing, and I would ask the county assessor to confirm how they apply to you.

Rawls Creek, Kinley Creek and the flood check

WIS reported on May 28, 2026 that flash flooding had put more than four inches of rain on parts of Irmo. Councilman Gabriel Penfield named Ashford, Friarsgate and Stonegate among the hardest-hit neighborhoods, and a resident without flood insurance had believed the home was outside a flood zone. A USGS report on the September 7 to 9, 1987 flood documents about 5.5 inches of rain in three hours in the Kinley, Rawls and Stoop Creek basins near Saint Andrews Road.

That history is a good reason to look up the flood status of the parcel before you make an offer and to get an insurance quote for it. FEMA's flood map shows the zone for an address, an insurance agent can quote the premium, and I can put the premium into your payment once you have it.

A home that is not built yet

The Town Council gave final approval on October 15, 2024 to Water Walk, a mixed-use plan of nearly 550 residential units on about 64 acres at Dreher Shoals Road, Muskrat Run and Salem Church Road, according to WIS. I have not seen a report that any home there is finished.

If you do buy a home that is still being built, VA's Lenders Handbook has its own steps. VA appraises the home from the plans, and for the inspection it accepts a local Certificate of Occupancy, or the local foundation, framing and final inspection reports.

Putting an Irmo VA purchase together

Once you have an Irmo address in mind, I can run the VA payment with that parcel's tax district and flood status. In Rate & Best Fit you see pricing for your scenario and choose the rate option that works best for you, and the choice can change later. The application opens from there. You are welcome to call me first, and getting pre-approved in South Carolina lists what I will ask you to provide. If you already own in Irmo, the Irmo home equity page covers a HELOC. The Columbia area page shows the rest of the metro, and the South Carolina page shows where I am licensed.

Nothing on this page is a loan approval, a denial or a commitment to lend, and it is not tax or legal advice. The county and tax district for a particular home are on the Lexington County or Richland County property search, and FEMA's flood map shows the flood zone.

Common questions

Can I use a VA loan to buy a home in Irmo, SC?

Yes. A VA loan works on a home in Irmo on the Lexington County side of town or the Richland County side. VA requires no down payment, except that you pay the difference in cash when the price is above what VA's appraisal says the home is worth. A lender may ask for a down payment when part of your entitlement is already in use. The same VA rules apply in both counties.

Does my BAH change if I live in Irmo and work at Fort Jackson?

No. BAH follows the assigned duty location, the pay grade and the dependency status, so a Fort Jackson assignment draws the Columbia and Fort Jackson rate for duty ZIP 29207 wherever in Irmo the home is. You can confirm your own figure with DTMO's lookup.

Is the VA loan limit different in Lexington County and Richland County?

With your full entitlement available VA sets no maximum loan amount, and the 2026 one-unit conforming figure is the same in both counties. The county figure matters only when part of your entitlement is already in use on an earlier VA loan.

How far is Irmo from Fort Jackson?

The distance depends on the street address and on which of the two gates is yours, so this page gives no commute minutes. The Army lists Gate 1 at exit 10 and Gate 2 at exit 12 of I-77. Military OneSource routes drivers from I-26 and I-20 to I-77 and then to exit 12, which is a starting point to check from the actual address.

Do I have to live in an Irmo home I buy with a VA loan?

Yes. You certify that you intend to occupy the home, either living in it when you certify or moving in within a reasonable time after closing, which VA's Handbook puts at 60 days. A spouse or dependent child can satisfy the rule for an active-duty member who cannot move in on time, and a seasonal vacation home does not satisfy it.

Is an Irmo mailing address the same as being inside the Town of Irmo?

No. ZIP 29063 covers far more land and population than the Town does, many Irmo-area addresses carry a Columbia 29212 mailing address, and the Town itself lies in both Lexington County and Richland County. The parcel record shows which county and tax district apply to a particular home, and the Town can confirm whether it is inside the limits.