Don't these women at mortgage office want to make a sale?

The BBQ Pit
1

In January, my wife and I decided to start looking at buying a house. We want to figure out how much we’ll need to save, how to reduce our debt-to-income ratio, and what other paperwork we’ll need. We’re surprised to find that we can buy now. But the women working at the mortgage office could not seem to care less about making sure we buy a home from them.

February:
We find out we can finance for a new home through a USDA program, with $0 down at closing. We choose a site, a floorplan, pay our earnest fee, and schedule with the design center for the options on the house.

March:
We get our options solidified at design center. They send their costs, add them to the base price of the home, and we submit that to the mortgage loan processor’s office.

Three weeks later, the load processors get back with us, sending us many application forms to print, fill out, sign, scan, and email back to them. Among them is a form that allows them to request our tax return transcript and a USDA borrower certifications form.

April:
Ground is broken on foundation. House will be finished in July/August timeframe. Perfect, so we’ll have plenty of time to register our child in the new school district.

May:
We find out they need proof of 12 consecutive months of rent payment. But then we’re informed that they’ll get that information direct from our apartment management. (We also pay by credit card or money order, because of a snafu when we first moved in and had one check bounce, and overdraft didn’t cover it. This will prove to be a hassle in July.)

We lock in our rate, which is good for 90 days. We therefore have to close by August 16.

**June: **
House is 90% complete. The builder says we can close between July 16 and August 16. We choose August 9, so that our first mortgage payment won’t be due until October.

(I’m a substitute teacher, so I have free rein in the summer to run around and get information. This will come in handy in July)

July:
4 weeks to scheduled close: Loan Processor opens up our application file (when we thought they were working on it since March). She finds that they have some problem getting the transcript from the IRS, so we’ll have to call and get it faxed to their number. (She doesn’t tell me that I have to tell the IRS that the fax number is mine, not theirs. It takes me two attempts, but I get it faxed to my apartment complex’s fax. I then fax it straight to her.

The next week, she tells us that she didn’t get the fax. I redo the IRS call, and this time get it faxed directly to them. After this, we find out that the fax from the first week had been received, but that she wasn’t at the office to receive it. At the end of the day, all faxes with confidential information (like IRS returns) that are not claimed are shredded. So, she basically lied to us.

Later that week, she tells us that our rental office won’t give out the information she needs because we haven’t given notice. I go do that. (Our notice is for 12/31, at the end of our lease. This means we’ll have 3 months of mortgage and rent overlap, but my wife has budgeted for this.) Then, the only information she asks for is what our lease term is, and if we’ve every been over 30 days late with rent. Upon learning that we’ll owe three months’ rent, she says we’ll either have to show that we have 3 months’ rent in savings, or we have to show from our records, that we have paid 12 months’ continuous rent (which is the information I thought she was going to get in May).

After some hassles (bank’s computer was down, so we couldn’t get immediate statements showing our rent payments via credit card), she informs us that USDA loans have been taking 8-10 business days, and that the August 9 date won’t be met, but that it should be through by August 16. She tells us not to make any plans for closing on the 9th (like the movers, furniture delivery, appliance delivery, registering our daughter in school, etc.). I reschedule everything to after the 16th.

August:
I thought that after getting all the files to the loan processor so that she could submit them to underwriting, I find out that she hasn’t done this until August 1, and that she’ll be hearing back from underwriting (before submitting to USDA) before noon.

August 2, 11:20 am. My wife calls, and asks if I’ve seen the latest email, sent 4 minutes before. She says, “We need you to complete the attached form [the USDA Borrower Certifications]. We missed this form at loan application.” Excuse me, no we didn’t. But, with printer in disrepair, I rush to Office Depot to print out one lousy form, fill it out, sign it, scan, and send it back to her. (I got this email in the middle of me writing this rant.)

I call both her and her associate to verify that they got the form and that things are progressing. No response from either.

I swear, if this loan falls through because of them, or if we lose our low interest rate that we locked in at, my head is going to fucking explode!

2

Welcome to home buying hell. :slight_smile:
This kind of shit happens to everyone. It’s a wonder to me how any property ever changes hands.
Sorry for your pain.

3

I can sympathize. We began planning to renovate our home 2.5 years ago, but banks were being very tight-fisted at the time, so we set about financing through a US gov’t backed loan.

We ran into all of the same problems you have, needing multiple copies of forms we had filled out months ago, consistent over-promising and under-delivering, finding out no one did anything unless we called them constantly, etc. This took over a year.

The final straw was last August. We got a phone call on a Friday saying the loan was “cleared to close” on Monday and scheduled the closing. I called our contractor and he pulled a building permit and started ordering supplies.

We showed up at the closing on Monday and learned there was a “major problem” with the post-construction valuation that was done by the appraiser, and that the loan was not approved and we would basically have to start over at the beginning.

I set up financing with a local bank this spring, had zero problems, 5% of the paperwork, and our contractor started excavation last month.

4

We are in a similar process. I feel for you. My only advice: Drink heavily whenever feasible. It might not help*, but it can’t hurt…

*Although, if I remember anything from chemistry classes, alcohol is technically a solution.

5

I read and heard so many horror stories like this and am forever grateful for my loan officer and my realtor. I was totally expecting to have this experience last year when we started looking. I braced myself for a year of bullshit.

Found a house and purchased it in 3 months, with very little lost paperwork, “problems with information,” etc. I wish I could clone my loan officer and realtor so that everyone could have the same experience.

Is my experience really that exceptional, and the vast majority of house-buying experiences really so horrific?

I’m so sorry, AWB. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.

6

Wells Fargo, by any chance?

7

Not Wells Fargo, but I’m keeping the proper name out of the discussion, just in case.

8

Oh, that reminds me. I’ve got beer in the fridge. Thanx for reminding me. :slight_smile:

9

You know, back in the fall of 2011 I got a Quicken Loans mortgage in 16 days from application to closing. Everything was done by email or telephone except for the closing, when the loan arranger came to my house to close. It was a refi of a Wells Fargo loan to get a 3.25% fixed 15 year mortgage.

10

Wow. I never had any trouble at all. Sorry you had to go through this. :frowning:

11

After a HUD mortgage closing from hell, that was completed only because of the hard work and due diligence of a real estate lawyer, I now recommend to anyone that asks that they spend the couple hundred dollars and get their own lawyer. They truly are working for you, and care only for your interests.

12

More rant for the fire: She finally called me after 6 PM to tell me she’d received the last form I emailed. (Her office was being rearranged, and she didn’t have access to her phone or computer. :rolleyes: )

She then asked about our money due at closing. I said that was part of the balance of the checking account that I just sent her the balance of. She then told me that she’d need a 30-day transaction list of our checking that reflected the deposit of those funds today.

She said something else that set me off. I blurted, “Why didn’t you have me print this 5 hours ago!?” and slammed the phone down, as best I could with a cell phone. (i.e., I stabbed the hang up button with my index finger.)

Needless to say, nothing has been submitted to USDA.

13

Well, a little good news: a former realtor friend of ours said that if we can’t meet the original closing deadline of August 16, then because the delay was their fault, they’ll have to extend the rate lock and pay any expenses that that entails.

14

As a loan processor in the 1990’s, I can’t imagine yours is anything but incompetent.

If I had a loan application as early on as yours, I would have been very clear with you that even if you got me all the information I asked for three to six months from your closing date and got the loan pre-approved, all of the financials/employment/credit would have to be re-certified within 30 days of the closing date. It’s actually less work to just start everything within 30 days. But I also never took longer than 2 weeks to get everything to Underwriting. If employers were amenable to phone verification, then it was usually just a week. Even appraisals and inspections usually only took three days or so.

I had a checklist I would fax or email to applicants that spelled out exactly what documents I would need from them, what documents I needed for the file but generated myself (i.e. credit report, appraisal) and kept that checklist with the file so we were always on the same page together and there was no confusion and questions about any of it could be addressed at the beginning. Honestly the only thing I can think of back then that delayed things regularly was if an employer would only do verification via snail mail.

That was almost 2 decades ago. Things should not take as long these days! And yes, if the loan got delayed due to the bank’s fault, the locked-in rate was always extended.

15

When we bought a house, I kept having the sense that every person with the mortgage bank and title company had never been involved in a home sale before. We got actively bad information about how much money we’d need for closing, when the title search was done and when it was available, and more stuff that I’ve forgotten.

The re-fi was easy, though.

16

The bright side is that the house got built in 2 months? I’ve heard of some building times that took up to 6 months.

17

I’m in the UK.

When I bought my first flat (apartment to you Americans :wink: ), I got a mortgage through a Building Society in London (where I was living.)
It took less than a week (I had a healthy deposit and a good job.)

The seller and I were then set to exchange contractsat 12.00. on the agreed day.
At 11.00 the Building Society pulled out, citing the fact that the flat had 5 stories (including a basement) and was outside London. :smack:
My solicitor said he’d see what he could do.
By 11.15 I had a replacement mortgage from a local Building Society and we completed the deal on time.

18

Good to know I’m not the only one who had a bad experience with Wells Fargo. Mine was a refi using the HARP 2.0 program but the process took nearly a year, I had to resubmit documents numerous times as they switched me between loan processors (no less than 4 times), and they threatened to drop my application twice if I didn’t resubmit documents within a 48 hour time frame. I finally called management and accused them of actively trying to get rid of me but they denied it. Every time my rate lock would expire they would extend it but would not consider lowering the rate if the rates had gone down.

The problem was that Wells Fargo was about the only bank willing to do a HARP 2.0 refi on a rental property with a mortgage that was originated by another bank. Unfortunately, I had no choice but to stick it out with them and hope for the best. My fear was that if things fell through I would eventually lose that house when interest rates spiked. Fuck Wells Fargo…I will never do business with them again in any capacity.

19

God, I had the biggest pain in the ass with my refi. What is it with faxes? How hard can this possibly be? When I got the initial loan they’d have given a loan to my dog, and now I had to write a very apologetic letter - a letter! - to the underwriters explaining that I am so sorry I was late twice less than 30 days on a $40 credit card bill because I forgot to pay it and I will never ever do that again.

20

On closing day we were standing at the bank window waiting for our final numbers so we could get a cashier’s check. Thanks to our company taking so long, we were late to our own closing. Which turned out to be ok because when we got there, they made us wait for most of an hour. Then the paperwork was wrong. First they had the wrong dates, then they spelled my husband’s name wrong. On paperwork halfway through the stack. All of this after they gave us the wrong amounts for the flood insurance we had to buy.

Take a deep breath, take a deep drink and rely on the fact that it will all be over soon. :slight_smile: