I feel your pain, I have put in several offers and am at a loss. I am going conventional, due to all the issues with FHA etc. The competition is fierce for anything that is in a decent neighborhood and reasonably priced. The properties literally go in hours! Search that against anything overpriced, sits for months.
On the VA note, a friend of mine is a marine up on Pendleton, was having the same problem, no one would accept an offer with a VA loan. He ended up finding a retired marine, that was selling reasonable, guy gave him a good deal and accepted a VA loan, even though there were some hangups and variances with the appraisal. I guess it is true, once a marine always a marine….it was pretty cool to hear how some people still have ethics.