Mortgage Help

[chasineyes]

Does anyone have/know of any knowledagle, honest, mortgage companies or employees you have had success with? Looking to refinance to get in on this seriously low and falling rates!!!

Thanks!!!

[BoxMN]

I have used fisherdog17 here from FM a couple times. He was honest, I got good rates, and low costs. Worked well. The closer is also from FM, and he came to my home to close. Worked great.

Good luck!

[hanson]

I have used fisherdog17 here from FM a couple times. He was honest, I got good rates, and low costs. Worked well. The closer is also from FM, and he came to my home to close. Worked great.

Agreed. Peter refinanced my house for me about a year ago. Very Happy!!

[Down Deep]

If your credit rating is A+ and you are going to do a straight re-fi, I'd say go to one of the big banks.

[MinnesotaMike]

Stay away from all Wells Fargo products.

[RiverFish]

Stay away from all Wells Fargo products.

What's your reason? Our mortage is through Wells Fargo (sold from local bank), we have had no problems with them.

Just interested in your reasons.

[muddpuppy]

+1 I have been with WellFargo for about 7 years no issues. W just did a refi with them on a program they had. We went from 6.375 to 4.5 it only ran us about 1k total I saved that in like 3 mo.

I also talked to Fisherdog seemed like a good guy just didn't work out for me..

Good luck I would start with your current lender and go from there.

[rundrave]

I just refied with Wells Fargo 2 weeks ago and it went very smooth. It was quick easy and painless, I couldnt ask for better service or a quicker turn around.

[Eckie]

Stay away from all Wells Fargo products.

Care to elaborate instead of making such a general, somewhat ignorant statement?

(no personal offense intended).

[hanson]

With mortgages, unless you pick which "Big Bank" you want to send your money to,

its really out of your hands.

Both my original mortgage and my refinance have swapped hands.

My original was with Wells Fargo and my refinance is now with Chase Home Mortgage.

Thats not who they started out with though.

[NCLaker]

As mentinoed earlier. Definitely start with talking to your current mortgage company (assuming you have no issues with them). They may do a rate reduction program to get you a great rate using a streamlined program and very low closing costs no appraisal. Only catch is that they there is strict critera for qualifying for these programs so not everyone can take advantage of this option. If you are upside down in your mortgage or, don't have 80/20 than I found doing a refi with your currrent bank is your best/only option. Unfortunately you will not know until you do an appraisal.

I personally would stay away from Chase bank. I did a refi (they were my original loan holder, aquired from Washington Mutual) with them because they my only option since I lost ~20-25% of my equity to the housing crash. I didn't qualify for the streamline refi rate program cause I had a 2nd lien holder. However I did qualify for rate reduction with full closing costs but no appraisal required.

Had numerous problems with Chase. My first attempt with them they were suppose to refund my app fee, took me 9 month and many e-mails to finally get it back. On my actual refi, poor communication, slow turn around (took my closing date right to the wire), terrible handling & inaccurate paperwork details, closing numbers were inconsistant, on many docs they sent me earlier they told me to ignore stuff stated that was in the paperwork even thought it contradicted what it said I needed to do or contradicted what I was suppose to be getting. Ended up forcing Chase to give me credit at my close (I think it was ~$800+), because they messed up my final closing cost estimates on something they were NOT suppose to change. All happened last Nov-Dec. I was shocked that a bank of this size could do such a poor job. This was back when the banks were getting beat up by there poor forclosure processing practices. Maybe they imporved now but I was not happy. Now that I am in payment mode, I have no complaints.

[rocstar]

The last time I refinanced, I put together all my data, on the house, values, amount to be borrowed, years, income, etc and sent to four different lenders. My approach was you guys give me a proposal. Its my money and you need to earn my business. The best, quickest and most complete proposal I received back was from Wells Fargo. I was surprised at the the wide variation in professional response with passing grades from A to C-.

[upnorth]

This may be isolated, but we changed insurance companies and it took an entire year for wells fargo to get it straight in their books. I faxed them documents, my insurance agent faxed them documents still no go. They insured it themselves at our expense, tried for another year to get reimbursed, again to no avail, faxing, phone calls, emails go fricken nowhere. I would not go near them for stuff like that anymore, they are just too big. We are in the process of switching to a smaller more local bank, where you can make a few phone calls and get something done. Live and learn.

[fishtrapgirl]

When we lived in Minnesota we had our mortgage and a home equity loan thru Wells Fargo. We were with them for a couple of years. Then we sold our house and moved to Wisconsin. When we sold the house, our closing company automatically paid off the home equity loan along with the mortgage. Wells Fargo charged us a $500 early payoff penalty fee for the home equity loan. We thought it was ridiculous of them to do that considering the loan itself was only around $2000 at the time. The early payoff fee was never mentioned to us when we took out the loan, but I'm sure they had it in the fine print somewhere. We were in very good standing with them, awesome credit scores, and always paid a couple hundred extra every single month on our mortgage. We will never bank with them again because of this reason. Now we use our local credit union and are very pleased with them. As good as any bank is, there always going to be people who have a bad experience with them.

[MinnesotaMike]

Care to elaborate instead of making such a general, somewhat ignorant statement?

(no personal offense intended).

Eckie, I'll give you the benefit of the dought before I call your statement ignorant. Yes, I made a very large general statement. Here are just some of the facts.

Purchased my second home using Wells ( 2000 ), I have been a customer for 25 years.

We took out a home equity loan to purchase lake property (2006). I have a checking and savings account, the wife has a checking and 401k account with Wells.

We just refinanced to pay off the lake and take advantage of a lower interest rate.

The Wells rep that I dealt with was NEVER available after the first and last meeting I had with him, he was always out of town. His co-worker was less than knowlegdable about my account and asked questions that have been answered multiple times. I wasn't given my closing papers until the day we closed. I had questions which took most of the day to get answers, again the main rep was not in town.

Nobody from Wells was at the closing. I recieved a letter from Wells about 2 weeks after the closing that I did not sign the NOTE and that I need to sign a new one and send it to them. I had my copy of the NOTE in which I made a copy and sent it to them. Because I elected to not participate in the monthly electronic payment at closing I was given a letter as a "payment coupon". I do all of my banking on the net, so I wanted to set them up in my Bill pay program on the Wells HSOforum. The "Letter" did not have enough information for me to set them up as a payee. Through some phone calls I was able to get them in the system.

In order for us to take advantage of some of the offers Wells was giving we had to participate in the monthly electronic deduction, so I called them and set it up, two weeks prior to our first payment due date.

Our first payment was coming due on the 1st, I did not get a confirmation from Wells that the payment was going to be made. I was getting nervous about missing my first payment, so I made the payment via bill pay on their HSOforum, the HSOforum says it takes three business days to get to the bank. Two days before the 1st I get a letter from Wells stating my account has been set up and the first payment will be take out on the 1st. Now I'm making 2 payments.

This was the bigining of the end:

Multiple calls to Wells to get this straightened out, multiple people stating the people I talked to prior did nothing. It was finally fixed, 2 months later.

I go to my accounts and I notice service fees, I have NEVER had service fees before. I make another call and find out because I paid off the equity load I am not qualified for free checking and savings, yes a service fee on my saving account. I go to my local branch and discuss the situation and they say they can help reverse the service fees, it took two more trips to the bank to finally get it figured all out.

There is more but I'm tired of typing.

So, that is my reasoning behind my IGNORANT statement, and I will stand behind that statement all day long.

I agree that Wells is TOO big, they have lost the personal touch like many of the service comapnies have today.

Good Luck

Mike

[Eckie]

MM --

Well said --- again, I meant no personal offense to you by asking a question (can a question be considered ignorant?)...I was just curious as to what your experience was -- the OP wanted help, and probably would have appreciated specific examples to go along with opinions presented by others.

Thanks for the post. The information you provided the 2nd time around I'm sure is helpful to many. Sounds like you had several problems with your transaction, including a VERY unprofessional, not-so-knowledgeable mortgage representative.

[SkunkedAgain]

I could list a TON of problems that I've had with Wells Fargo, but my fingers and brain would bleed at the same time. I've been a customer of TCF, US Bank, and now Wells Fargo for the last four years. I have never consistently had minor or major problems with any other bank BUT Wells Fargo. I only switched to make the financial transition easier on my wife when we got married. I can't wait to take our mortgage elsewhere (they just screwed up applying automatic payments again) and will hopefully get all of our checking and savings accounts moved as well.

[Down Deep]

Minnesota Mike ----Calling your statement "Ignorant" was uncalled for and I am surprised that the fourm administrator didn't jump on that post and smoke it. I do have a question for you. Why didn't you go to a branch office and talk to thier mortgage officer? Anytime I've had a problem with Wells Fargo and visited their offices I've been more than satisfied with thier assistance. One of the reasons I recommend using a big bank or local bank is that they have a live people in an office who I can talk to.

[311Hemi]

I could list a TON of problems that I've had with Wells Fargo, but my fingers and brain would bleed at the same time. I've been a customer of TCF, US Bank, and now Wells Fargo for the last four years. I have never consistently had minor or major problems with any other bank BUT Wells Fargo. I only switched to make the financial transition easier on my wife when we got married. I can't wait to take our mortgage elsewhere (they just screwed up applying automatic payments again) and will hopefully get all of our checking and savings accounts moved as well.

Not related to my mortgage, but I just got a notice from Wells a few days ago that if I don't keep a $1500 balance on my checking account they are going to charge me a $7/month services fee. Been with them since 98', they may be losing my business if I can't get this fee removed.

[Wanderer]

I agree the best bet for a re-fi is to see what your current lender has to offer to keep your business. Along with that I would head over to my Credit Union. I've had more good luck with my C/U than my bank for flexibility. See which offer is better.

I'm also currently having troubles with Wells right now due to OLD banking business they acquired some time ago. Seems like the right hand doesn't even know if a left hand exists for this matter. US Bank has been pretty good with my mortgages but I had to laugh when I last closed and they said there was virtually NO possibility my mortgage would be sold to another company because after all, they were the solid bank that didn't need TARP money and why would they sell a solid mortgage? Three months later I'm reading a letter to announce the sale of my mortgage to company "X" but US Bank will still service it and collect the payments.

Welcome to the majic money machine.

[LightningBG]

Mark M. at Bremer in Woodbury. done many loans with him. very good.