Dive Brief:

• Homebuilders are beginning to vie for a piece of a burgeoning new market: military veterans.

• Pulte, which has a mortgage affiliate, for example, has announced it will build 20 or more mortgage-free new homes this year for wounded veterans.

• The impetus behind the courtship of vets: The Department of Veteran’s Affairs’s home-financing program has doubled the amount of loans it has approved since 2007,backing 14.5% of new homes sales.

Dive Insight:

Demand for homes is growing among the country’s 22 million veterans, many of whom can get credit through the VA home-loan program more easily than the average homeowner can through a traditional mortgage lender.