This posting is just to share the recent experience I went through during a recent refinance of our home mortgage.

I want to start this by pointing out I in no way am being paid by any party mentioned within this posting. All companies mentioned are owned by their entities and I am not employed by any or have an interest in them as well.

I do not follow the news or pay much attention to the stock market and interest rates. However, I did signup for a Lending Tree account several years ago as I found it a nice simple place to track some of my financials. The key is a nice place to watch interest rates, notices on home value, and other factors. It was due to their email alerts that I found this is the perfect time to jump on low rates and a growing housing market. I got to say this felt like a positive perfect storm. It was not long after I learned of rates dropping even more that we decided the time is NOW.

Step one came after an email from Lending Tree in which it suggested I check out the rates for a home refinance. I got to say folks BE CAREFUL at this point. I say that the steps on the website are easy enough. You tell them what you are thinking of doing by answering some questions and click “SUBMIT”, or something to get the rates. This is when all HECK broke.

I say this as before I had 30 to 40 seconds to review the rates on my computer and my phone was ringing. The first call was from LoanDepot and as I spoke to one of their agents my caller ID went off. I was getting more calls, and my email also suddenly started showing new messages coming in. These were from other lenders as well.

Now, I’m not a fool it was good to get all the interest from the national loan companies but at the same time I did reach out to the credit union my wife and I utilize.  I went through the emails and voicemails and got myself narrowed down from about 5 or 6 lenders to just 3 I wanted to work with.

I will now go into the two national lenders as the third was our local credit union.

Rocket Mortgage was one of those lenders I wanted to hear from. You see commercials and information online about how great a lender they are. How, their customer service is top-notch, and this had me feeling good about them. I will also note that being that they are out of Detroit, Michigan, I also wanted to give them a chance. You see they have put a lot of money into parts of the city to help with its comeback and being originally from that city they had an edge going in.

However, that was quick to change and I will NOT do business with them unless they change some of their tactics. I’ll note that much of the discussions took place over the phone, and is just my experience. They got a lot of information to help them build a portfolio to come up with an offer on what they could do for us. The problem I have with them is they use hard tactics to get you to say yes. It was not easy getting them off a call as I’d asked several times during many calls, to let me take time and analyze the numbers. I’d ask that they send me the information in an email so I could discuss it with my wife. Their representative would often instead offer to call back to discuss it with her as well. It was feeling like, “hey we do not want not to put it in writing, and if we get the wife on phone can pressure you both to use us.” I’ll add they do state all calls are recorded.

There even came a time that as I was narrowing things down I mentioned what the credit union was suggesting they could do for us via an email. The agent was calling me fast, again, using the “we can get you this rate” speech, or we got a “flash” promotion. Yeah I get it they could get me a lower interest but closing costs were very high. They were not the highest but they were high. Yet during that same call suddenly I hear how they went to a VP on my rate, and a director was about to join the call. I question this as it’s rare to have someone take a potential loan up the channels like they explained they had. They may have but just rare.

I’ll stop going on and on about Rocket Mortgage as the tactics used for a high-pressure agreement was not sitting well with me. At one point I got so tired of them going on and on that, I hung up the call when I had to state several times give me time to review and I’ll be in touch. They did NOT seem to want to hear that. You see this was a day my wife was off for a test at the hospital. I explained that to them, yet they kept going on and on. I asked for time to digest as I had other things going on but they kept going, and why I hung up.

Yet, even after putting it in writing that I would not be using them, I kept getting calls from them. I had one voicemail that wanted me to call them back immediately. Yeah, the next call I answered, told them no thank you, and yet they still transferred me to an agent. I’m like “DO YOU NOT GET IT I DO NOT WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU!”.  The guy laughed and said all right he’ll make sure no more calls. WOW

Now keep in mind this was my experience as others must have had better ones. Rocket Mortgage does have some very high ratings when you research the company. As we know one bad experience is not how the whole company is, just those I dealt with from my point of view.

The next one is LoanDepot and I got to say I had a very good relationship with them. They were respectful and did not pressure us. Their agent did a good job of presenting their rates and covering things. They were acceptable of time requests and would not just call out of the blue with some “special” offer as Rocket did.  Their agents were more than helpful and even helped by sending a Loan Estimate, which Rocket never did.  Even after the original agent stated after reviewing the estimate from the credit union he felt their offer was a good one, they reached out to me again. They were not rude just asked if they could try and send me an estimate as a counter, and they did.

You see a key thing anyone should get while looking at a mortgage loan/refinance is to get an estimate. This will break down many of the costs in the loan from cost to create, escrow, tax and filing costs, and other things. By having those it is easier to compare one company to the other when it comes to the final product. It even states items if you wish to find another cost on you can do so.

The one thing I did learn is when it comes to an actual appraisal you will likely be paying the mortgage lender. They will then send out to a service that will have the bid for an appraisal sent out. You see the lender and, I as the seller, cannot lawfully find an appraiser. The reason being is it may be easy to manipulate the appraisal to come in at a wanted price.  Yep, want to avoid fraud when it comes to the appraisal so I understand why we are paying for that. The thing is to wait until you choose who you are going with before making that payment. You do not want to pay each lender a cost that can be upwards of $500 or more.

As for us after crunching all the numbers between our local credit union and LoanDepot we went with our local credit union. The primary reason was there was a 1 dollar variance between what our new mortgage payment would be between the two companies. LoanDepot would have been lower but like Rocket, they do have higher closing costs, and their originator cost was higher as well. Their rate was lower but by about .1%.  As the credit union is local it would work better to utilize them considering the cost differences.

When it comes down to the two national lenders I have to say that the tactics utilized between them were as different as darkness to the light.

LoanDepot (my experience)

• Soft sale
• Willing to listen
• Respectful of time
• Highest Closing Costs
• Good reputation

Rocket Mortgage (my experience may not be that of others)

• Hard Sell (reminded me of a door to door vacuum sales)
• Pushy
• Called more at their convenience (1 planned time only)
• Good reviews and high standing in the industry
• Good reputation

The overall point of all this is that I learned a lot about the process. A site, such as Lending Tree, is helpful but you must understand what you are getting into when it comes to their site. You wish to see a rate or check something be prepared for banks to call you.  The reason is that Lending Tree likely sells basic information to companies. 

You then want to be aware of hidden costs/fees and this is where a loan estimate is very helpful. This will break down nearly all the potential costs you are going to see when it comes to the loan. It will show what is going into your new mortgage, what has been agreed upon, and the loan amount and rate as well. This is extremely helpful when comparing the loans estimates you receive.

The appraisal does NOT get pushed into paying for more than one unless you are willing to do so. I suggest waiting till the final decision is made and pay that final lender to avoid multiple costs. Otherwise, you may end up with multiple appraisals as one per potential lender. The only one you will get any money back from is the lender you went through. Granted you may get some back from the others if the appraisal did not cost as much as they had you pay.

I kept a lot of other interactions out of this as it would be even longer than it already is. The simple fact to me came out of the national lenders we dealt with Rocket is one I will NOT suggest to people. Granted this was just my experience as they got their reputation for a reason.  I for one enjoyed working with LoanDepot and if the final estimates were not so close I”d have likely gone with them. It’s just their higher closing costs and such created the numbers to be so close.

I hope this helps others, and one thing I’d suggest searching for before you start anything is a Loan Kit. I am sure you can find something online that may spell out how to factor if it’s the right time to refinance. It may include things such as how to plot income, debt, and other factors in making a good decision.

I close with again I in no way have any investment, or ownership, to the companies listed within this blog post. All comments are my own and not those of any employer.