People are friendly, professional and knowledgeable. I would give them a shot to see what they can offer.

They do not have professional and good customer service the first time around when I did refinancing the person that helped me get a good job and then I came back after a few years to purchase a home and I was literally moved from one person to the other, I think I went through four if I'm not mistaken People and none of them helped they would come strong like yeah we're gonna help you and I'll take care of you don't worry and then they disappear and they never respond to emails or anything very unprofessional so I eventually applied at UIF. We'll see how that goes. read more

They are the worst. They will charge you top dollars (interest rate, house assessment, inspection, Bank lawyer) on the name of halal. They don't bargain for you and I to get better deal. The customer service is third world country. They only get you someone who speaks your language but they aren't train to handle the customer as American. they have no understanding of customer value. Some of their agent think that they are doing you a favor. The best part, they accumulate all their customer mortgage and sell it US Bank. Meaning, you are borrowing money from US bank. The halal part is a couple of Imam saying that the contract is halal "that's all". This is the kind of people using a Muslim religion to their benefits. They are the people you need to be afraid from 'Evil'. read more

Quick, clear, professional 5 star partnership! We were seriously concerned when we read reviews here on yelp prior to purchasing our first home. After going through the process, honestly, I think your experience really depends on the specific account executive your work with. Program/product wise, Allhamdulilah we are really happy with Guidance providing a halal way to purchase a home. Their website and tools work well during the offer to close process. Here is our review for our awesome account executive in the Seattle area: Allhamdulilah, we were able to close on our first home in 22 days. Abdisa is an excellent partner and professional. He educated us about the home buying process, how the Guidance Partnership works and the end-to-end process from offer acceptance to closing. If you would like to close in 22 days as well, remember that this is a partnership; the process involves alternating actions from you, the buyer, and Guidance. Abdisa is professional, moves quickly, is responsive and helpful. You must be as responsive, professional and organized as you expect from Guidance. Abdisa, we genuinely appreciate your guidance and partnership, Thank You read more

Mohammad Reja is an outstanding account executive who handled our matter swiftly and as a professional

We closed on a house with Guidance early May and I'm very pleased with the overall experience. Mohammed Reja has been very helpful and was available in weekends and evenings which was very convenient. He spent hours with me over the phone and was responsive to his emails and texts. Guidance overall was smooth to work with. There was a delay of 10 days as the underwriter requested a second appraisal (as this was a flipped house). From a financial standpoint, I like the idea that Guidance won't go after your assets (other than the financed house) in case of foreclosure. This dose come with a nominal monthly LLC fee of $18 every month which is worthwhile in my opinion to protect my other assets. Closing costs and profit rates are similar to conventional banks' interest rates. read more

We had the worst experience with Guidance Residential. Our online application was rejected by Guidance even before a credit check was fully completed. I and my wife are Senior Auditor and Senior Accountants with excellent credit scores and have shown over 20% in cash for downpayment (also low DTI). We have provided our Guidance agent Mohanad Mohammed with every single document needed. He did not even bother reply to my emails. When we inquired about the rejection over the phone, Mohanad Mohammed misled us by mentioning that we had too many credit disputes on our report. We then figured out that the credit was not even pulled and the credit reports had no issues whatsoever. We even reached out to Credit Reporting agencies because of this misdirection. Mohanad Mohammed today mentioned that the only solution now is to reapply again because. He mentioned he is not willing to reapply as he might lose his job/licence over this. I think we know that is not true. He even misdirected the Account Manager working for Guidance that our application was disqualified because of "credit issues". That is not the case. Also....he literally raised his voice during our last call even though there was nothing to get confrontative about. He is extremely unprofessional, unreliable even with his peers, and ill temperate towards customer. This clearly reflects on Guidance as a whole. Also, it's unethical to charge customers for credit approval and giving decisions before doing the credit check. We already received pre-approval from UIF and Lariba who were very responsive and had many questions but timely and cordially. we started the process in the same day for all banks. I do want to work with Guidance because there are only a few Islamic lenders and I want to understand my options. I hope other agents are as good as some reviewers are saying. Best of Luck to Guidance. read more

Never ever to try to get the loan from this company. Its very hard to reach Guidance customer service. I texted and called them multiple times, its very very unfortunate that they will hook you up with the loans and will some sort of disappear after loan process and redirect to US Bank. I do not recommend to use this kind of middle man mortgage company. If I'd have option to give negative or zero review feed back, I'd go for that. Please do not go with this company, I had to wait multiple months and had to pay twice for the evaluation/opinion for my property. read more

My wife and I had the best of intentions working with Guidance because of its Islamic home financing as oppose to working through the bank. Unfortunately, they have some of the elements of a Muslim run business that aren't so great. We did not close on time and were at risk of losing the home. They sent us CONFIDENTIAL information on the wrong buyer. They did not acknowledge the mistake until I brought it to their attention. There was poor communication throughout the entire process by the Account Executive as well Account Manager. They did not respond to questions asked by our attorney and neglected many of our calls. They informed us to bring x amount to the closing only to find out that they were several thousand dollars off. And this was from the Acct Executive. My recommendation is to avoid the headache of working with them. You're paying an interest rate with them as you would with any other traditional bank but the major difference is the clear lack of competence and professionalism with the people that work here. read more

Very disappointing with the experience .. too many pause and delay in under writing .. at one point of time they stop communicating over the phone or email about the process. .dejected and exhausted we even paid the application processing fees .at least for sake of collecting the application fees they should showed some respect in explaining the process and timeline.. keeping customer in dark and not informing about anything is unaccepetable.. i will call their customer service and ask for refund of processing fees.. just by naming it as halal doesn't mean its halal they way they are tossing our brothers time and efforts spend in their process is not acceptable how will they answer to Almighty of the wasted time we spend on filling their applicatio .. Definely week sector of people who will face these type of experience will run away from Islamic finance and it will make them think twice why to choose Islamic banking when plenty of options available in market... As a muslim im dissappoited to write this review.. islamic bank should lead as an example they should not stress the buyers by keeping them in dark.. i have started my process around mid june now we are in september still they have not informed me about anything.Now althamthuiillah im in good hands with another Islamic bank and completed the process in weeks...they always say they gona call you but they never call read more

My experience with Atlanta GA Guidance Residential was extremely unprofessional. The reason I'm posting here is because i would like you to be mindful of what could happen to you. 1. Guidance Residential interest rate is higher than most other bank. 2. Guidance Residential is the business like any other. Make sure they can back up what they say. Do not trust verbal confirmation. 3. Guidance Residential is a smaller lender compared to other banks. I struggle to get in touch with anyone. 4. Guidance Residential are aware that most of the customers are trying to avoid Interest. Be mindful and read all fine print before you sign anything. Disclaimer All of the above notes are my personal experiences with Atlanta GA team, It might not be your experience. read more

SalamAlikum, I had applied to refinance my home (which I own outright). I have excellent credit, $0 debt, make close to six figures, stable job, work remotely..etc. The process was going well until the underwriter asked me to get a letter from my manager stating that I won't lose my job while working remotely. How imbecilic! Then they asked me various personal questions regarding my bank statements which was entirely unrelated to my application. The experience was so bad I asked them to *cancel* my application. Guess what happened next? They sent me a denial letter with the following: "UNABLE TO VERIFY CUSTOMER IS ABLE TO WORK REMOTELY WHILE TRAVELING ACROSS THE US" Ridiculous statement from a ridiculous company. Do what I did and save up instead of borrowing or borrow from family/friends. (At least you'll have the piece of mind that it's truly halal). Allah knows best, Ameer read more

I wanted a great experience, however I got non responsive emails and the overall feeling of "all We want is your money". No real closing cost assistance, I had to look most of my questions up online. I put my trust and hopes in them and I got nothing. I'm going the interest based route, because I can get what I want and I still pay the house off in 30 years no matter what. read more

Hands down by far very helpful, honest, gentle people. At first I was a little concerned about informing them how much I had do put down. When they looked at my financial situation SubhanAllah they went with what they were comfortable accepting. They weren't interested in taking everything I had. They were willing of course to accept more down when going over our budget they approved us for. Atabek is a great financial advisor. MashaAllah very responsive and willing to work with you to get all necessary documents to close quickly. We were ready to close within 2 weeks MashaAllah. Highly highly recommended. read more

It's a scam I was on the phone with him for an hour to try and see how do I pay for a half $1 million home with no interest And then he tells me that my payment 2700 Which at the end of 30 years will be 1 million read more

WE WOULD HAVE LOST OUR HOUSE BECAUSE OF GUIDANCE RESIDENTIAL I'm hoping this reaches as many people as possible but as your fellow Muslim. I strongly advise you to stay away from this company. They made our home buying process very difficult. They talk to clients in such a condescending tone to the point where it was infuriating. They will rush you and have no consideration for your personal life and then not meet the expected deadlines. We had all the paperwork submitted on time yet they waited till the last day before closing to submit it to their underwriter. We constantly asked what other documents they needed and they would keep saying they had everything but during the last week we had to submit more and more things that should have been asked for ahead of time. They are horrible at communication. We were basically calling or texting them every week to see the status of everything. Not once did they reach out on their own to update us properly. They will increase prices in your closing costs thinking you won't notice but I did! I compared their numbers to another company and the amount of extra fees they were charging was outrageous. It's sad that a Muslim finance company could be so horrible towards its own brothers and sisters in this community. The so called manager Eddie (I'm not the only one who complained about him look at the other reviews too) did not respond to us when we had three days left to close or the seller was not going to let us purchase the house. Most of our calls went straight to his voicemail. We kindly emailed and texted him multiple times to get things done in time and he ignored us. Guidance doesn't even try to defend themselves in these reviews and just says "thank you for your feedback please contact so and so" YOU GUYS DONT EVEN ANSWER YOUR EMAILS. THIS COMPANY IS A SCAM!!! We had to buy our house all in cash in the very last two hours of the sellers deadline for the place or we were going to lose it. We were panicking trying to find ways to come up with the money. The people who work for Guidance have no common sense. These things should never be done last minute. The amount of stress we went through was completely unnecessary. We put our faith and trust in this company and they wronged us in so many ways. read more

If I could give this company 0 stars I would... Would not risk your future home with them, 90% you will lose it because of them, especially in this market where houses are flying. I was lucky because I had back up plan and know some people. Honestly, they will treat you like trash. They were lying during the month of Ramadan... We started the process of purchasing a house on 3/9/2021 where the prequalification was completed. The application was submitted on 3/29/2021. The inspection was completed on 3/29/2021 as well. I was talking to Eddie Eid (Account Executive) where he stated the underwriters decided to waive the appraisal since it was a good deal on the house (3/29/2021).The rates were also locked in on 4/06/2021. Everything was going well and I have provided all the information they have requested from me. Unfortunately, it seems like the Underwriters, Account Executives, and Account Managers are not communicating at all. On 4/22/2021, Eddie told me they need additional information from my employers which should have been asked from me a week ago, not 2 days before the closing date which is 4/26/2021. I also contacted Eddie who started to lie to me about everything. I have several pictures to prove my statements and he did not mention the VOE form for my current employer, he only mentioned my old employer which has been provided to him. He tried to put the blame on me for their mistakes and unprofessional communication skills. They dropped the ball and started giving me attitude for pointing out their mistakes. Eddie also stated he contacted human resources, however I called the HR department at my old job and they did not receive anything which is (another lie). I had to contact the account manager to see what's going on, and she had no idea either. She also stated she was sending the email to human resources while I was talking to her. She freaked out on me and hung up. I literally had to do their jobs for them and had to hold their hands. I work as an underwriter myself and I know how things work, yet they decided to lie and not be straight forward. Their lack of professionalism and effective communication as well as their lack of basic work ethic has led to me wasting my time and effort in getting my house. It's really unethical for an account executive with an insurance license to be lying to his clients. I'm surprised these individuals still have their license... read more

I have been waiting almost a year now with guidance trying to refinance my house I originally bought with them. They first told me it would take about 45 days. I am starting think they are doing this on purpose to make me pay more. So its almost been a year they are really slow. I was recently told that it would be done about a week ago and now they don't even know if it will be a few weeks more or not. There is no one to complain to about this really. read more

It was a terrible experience. I have an excellent credit score & I own my house 100% and applied for a cashout loan. first, they were the only Islamic lender that will charge you an application fee (which was cheap). Then it took them two and a half months to process my application when other Islamic lenders did it in about 3 weeks only. They made me sign and submit so many documents that no other lender asked for. They issued an approval then and made me pay for the appraisal ($525). Then while I was waiting for the underwriter to process the final documents they sent me a denial. Their incompetent underwriter does not even know the definition of P&L statement as self-employed. she does not know that P& L statements are based on invoices and not on actual money deposited in the bank. I had to send her copies from Wikipedia for financial definitions because she was asking for things and giving them incorrect titles. she wanted our sales to match our deposits which will never happen in real life as remodeling contractors and interior designers! The correspondences were unprofessional and below average standards. if you have no other choice, DO NOT spend any money to fulfill their requirements unless they issue you an actual final approval. Also keep in mind that once you get the loan from them, you will start dealing with the actual bank issuing the loan (they are only middlemen, brokers). read more

Total ripoff. I was their customer and refinanced with them again. It was a heart breaking experience. They doubled the original quote and i would never recommend guidance to my enemy..Please guys dont get sold into their salaams and get ripped off. read more

The loan process was not bad, I bought my house with them in California. However at the time of closing you will find bunch of hidden fees etc. that you were not made aware of earlier in writing... and then at the last date you are already hooked in like a fish and there's no point turning back. Even if you take that away, they will sell your loan to US Bank and you will go to a traditional mortgage. So this is how they operate... they sell you an Islamic dream loan, because you are God fearing and don't want to pay interest. For that they will charge you a higher rate than what your bank for example Bank of America will charge you (haram LOL) and then in less than a year you will get a piece of mail that you are now indebted to US bank or some other bank with almost non-existent customer service. You end up paying more in the hopes that you doing so because you don't want to pay Riba', but then end up with a normal loan anyway at much higher rates. It's a plain old bait and switch scam. read more

Extremely greedy Capitalist entity. Not Shariah Compliant by any means. I requested a buyout quote on a Friday. Was promised receipt by Tuesday by email. Didn't receive any email till Wednesday. Upon calling back was promised a quote by email in 2 hours. Did receive the email (which needed another 2 hours to decode using Cisco Encryption) but no buyout quotes in it. Just a general email mentioning Customer Service numbers etc. Finally upon calling back on Thursday got the quote, but was charged $7.27/day if payment received after last Tuesday's date. That's total nonsense ripoff!!! i will start a campaign against them in Houston Texas. read more

Of course the only way you will select them is if you are looking for islamic alternative. But the whole process was vague to me, Some of the problems I have with them (Just some): 1. They promised me to match ratings, I got 2.75 regular financing, at the end, they gave me 3.125 %, guess what with $4000 up front fees, that $4000 kept going up and up, $800 more in the last day (after their fake lock rate). A total of 15000-20000 extra on the loan 2. The LLC fees mentioned here by many, its 18.75 you pay extra every single month, they did not disclose about it, apparently it should be their fee for co-partnership, very greedy and annoying, avoid them if you have any other alternative read more

I think its great we have an "Islamic Banking Institution" in place here in the US offering mortgages in a "halal" fashion. The only reason this isn't 5 stars is because I just got pre-approved and all the fees and extra closing cost fees they charge is absolutely ridiculous. I'm looking forward to understanding how they differ from a conventional loan and why they are "halal". If the answers are not satisfactory to me, I would just go with a credit union and a fixed rate mortgage so I know exactly how much I will pay at the end of the term. read more

I am very disappointed in the way Guidance is running their business now, while I have been with them for many years. They didn't appreciate this and still played me off when I was refinancing my home, not to forget that my agent was taking his time and I had to chase him a lot to get the response for every step. Also, they made a fraud in my case by giving me a higher rate while I had more than 20% equity in the house and credit score above 800. The agent told me that Guidance only give new buyer the lower rates, while existing customer will get slightly higher rates even with qualified credit score and home equity. Later on, I learned that this is not true. It's totally disappointing and unethical and does not show any Islamic rules for business at all. read more

Had a great experience with Guidance. We recently closed on a condo and guidance was there all the way helping us, making sure every thing went smoothly. Before we were renting, not wanting to purchase a home because of interest. But then we heard about Guidance and now we are happy to be interest free home owners! True story read more

One of the worst! I have 2 houses with them, so I do have a good insight about their business and customer services. There are only few islamic mortgages out there, so we are limited in options. But, Guidance's customer service is horrible. They do not answer phone calls/emails after they lock you in and you have to keep chasing. My closing is in less than 7 days and I am going through a nightmare situation trying to get hold of them. Avoid them! read more

Great working with Aasim Ikramullah. We are greatful for his assistance. He was always there when we needed him and he made sure we were aware of every important detail of the loan . He was really a hardworking easy man with positive thoughts. The only downside of dealing with Guidence is that some of their other department are clearly overloaded, end up being late on turnaround, and create time pressure. Like , the underwriters and the loan agent whom Aasim had to work with to get things done within the closing period. read more

Guidance residential is dealing in Anything but Islamic finance. Their rate, profit rate as they call it is as interest rate higher than most of the banks are offering. Imagine that! I wanted to refinance my home with them but then why would I pay higher rate than what I am already paying ? So I decided to go with credit union, yes I did, because interest is an interest, just because you say Salam and mashallah doesn't mean you can scam me. read more

It is very unfortunate that an Islamic institution is dishonest when dealing with their clients. It was a total embarrassment working with them. My realtor would constantly ask if we wanted to switch to another non-Islamic institution because they were efficient and honest. It's been over a month and they keep requesting the same documents to be submitted over and over again. They couldn't have lost them because they were uploaded online. I would think this was a hoax if someone else hadn't gotten a loan through them before. They never met deadlines with paperwork but expected us to submit in a timely manner, they are unprofessional, and they were dishonest during the holy month of Ramadan. We had to reschedule our settlement twice and we still haven't settled to this day. They are pushing me to go to a non-Islamic bank. read more

I was in touch with Nejat Abdurahman for a couple of years before i found the right house and started the purchase process. Nejat was great to work with and patient with our inquiries and shifting requirements. Everything went smoothly and according to plan from her end, and i also refinanced a year later to take advantage of lower rates and a higher valuation. The only downside of dealing with Guidance is that some of their other departments are clearly overloaded, end up being late on turnaround, and create time pressure. Like, the underwriters and the loan agent who Nejat had to work with to get things done within the closing period. Also, they recommended working with Chicago title, which was a bad experience. In other ways, my experience with Nejat and Guidance was great. I would just make sure to use a different title company than Chicago title, and to be careful about timelines. read more

The issue with Guidance is they have no control over their underwriters, they can not even escalate with them even if they lose clients. My story is simple, I applied for a loan in NJ at a time when the market is so hot and houses don't last more than few days, my account executive was great and that is the reason for the 2 stars, he helped me gather all the paperwork, got me pre-approved quick, went through the process and set a date to close on October 6th, the seller made his plan to move to a new house and I thought that it was going to be simple, but the last step was the appraisal which came back 70k less than the purchase price ? That was a shock to everyone involved especially in a hot market where houses were sold even higher than mine. Well, I found out to my surprise that the appraisal company sent someone from another state and he was not familiar with the area and the market, his report was totally wrong, he never did his homework and just picked random houses from Zillow to compare, used ones with less bedrooms and less square footage. I insisted to have another appraisal done but their response was they only go with first appraisal only regardless even if it was wrong, their underwriters was taking their time to even checking with the appraisal company to get a reason for the lower price they gave, I even called the area manager, sent few emails telling that I was going to lose the house and to escalate with the underwriters but to no available. I had three weeks left to close and I had to think quick, so I called UIF and they really helped me and I was so grateful, they quickly got all my paperwork, sent an appraisal from the area and the report came back with the asking price, amazing, we closed one week after the original date. Thank you UIF for all the great work read more

Terrible bank to deal with. Cancelled my application after their agent left the bank and did not refund me my $750.

One of the biggest problems I've had in life is dealing with them. They are not trustworthy. They do not consider Customer Service what's so ever. I have never written a review, god curse me if other otherwise. I am taking my time to write because I want CHANGE. This is not how you treat people. I applied 3 times. The first time my wife and I weren't able to find a home so our application expired. The second time I re applied and they ran my credit and on May and waited 3 full months going back of forth with them and they saying underwriters want this and that and I provided everything only to at the end get another application expired this time no pre approval. This time I was fed up and I wanted to talk to someone else in charge so they got me an new account manager. He promised it would take 7 to 10 business days. I gave him all the paper work within a day or so. I submited my application on 8/720. It is know 9/4/20 and I have yet to get my pre approval. I been texted and was promised I would get it within a couple day and that was another LIE. This is so unprofessionalism. I am trying to buy a home for the first time and I chose this rout so I could do it in a halal way. This people have gaven me the worst 4 months of my life. They will lie all the way. They are unethical. They were supposed to make it easy on me the process but they did the opposite. I have waisted more time with them then looking for someone else. People will always have a choice and I did too. People can go and deal with them but here is someone who never wrote a single review in life taking time to stay away from them. read more

Hands down one of the most unprofessional companies you can deal with. The team of Munther Qtaish & Saad Alameddin were so unresponsive once my application was submitted. 3 weeks went by and I was not getting a response from either of them. Text message, email, phone calls all saying "read" but never a response, when I finally called from a different number Saad answers and his only explanation to me was "it's not in my hands. It's not my decision" but he's my account executive? After 2 months of waiting. They finally tell me my application was rejected because of having a 2 month gap in my employment due to COVID-19 pandemic. Which I can 100% see why they wouldn't accept it and that I would have to wait a little more. But the level of professionalism they operate at is a joke especially from a "halal prospective" they could've told me right off the bat but they choose to beat around the bush and waste 2 months of both our times. HIGHLY DO NOT RECOMMEND. read more

Slow in responses, at the end got the work done, thank you When I purchased my second house I will definitely go with you but would tell you from the beginning few points to speed it up and to prevent what happened this time read more

I recommed this bank for a house loan as they are so helpful and trust worthy. Please go with Brother Saad Alameddin as your lender . He was very helpful through out the process. He made the process so easy that i still not believed that am the house owner now. All because of him. read more

I had a terrible experience dealing with guidance. The only reason for me to go to them was because they have done a good job of making us believe it is Halaal financing and I thought I should get my loan refinanced. I had to deal with their VP in NJ AbdusSamad M. who assigned Nabil M. in the Boston area. They made the process very very difficult and kept on asking for more and more information which I kept providing. They do not lock your rate until much later in the process but would mention that the rates have started to go up. When asked when the rate will be locked they told me it can take three months or longer for the underwriter to review the application and then the rate can be locked. they just keep dragging the process without much communication. So five months later as my patience was running out, I called them and expressed my displeasure. Surely, within a couple of days I received an email that my application was declined. Well, I approached NewRez mortgage (unfortunately traditional Non-Halaal) for refinancing with the same information that was provided to guidance and was approved and closed within ONE MONTH. How is this possible that a regular company can approve and close that quickly whereas Guidance halaal wastes months and still not do it. Even if their financing is Halaal, they are doing it in a Haraam way. read more

This experience had me feeling like I should just take out a traditional loan and take a chance on potentially burning in hell than deal with this institution. I cannot believe the incompetence that is on display at Guidance. It is not isolated to a single employee either. These idiots insisted MULTIPLE times over a week's period that the appraisal was complete even though it wasn't. It delayed my closing and they barely apologized. Everything was very unorganized and unprofessional from start to finish. All my friends are at that age where they will be buying starter homes. I will vehemently share my experience with each and every one of them so they choose a different lender. Unfortunately, there are not allot of options for Muslim homeowners who would like to forego a traditional mortgage. Guidance knows this and takes full advantage of it. Good thing there's Justice in the Hereafter, suckas. read more

I have explained their process in this article. http://plugnread.com/2018/11/in-the-name-of-islamic-financing/ It has the details of their whole process, also the comparison between them and a conventional mortgage company. read more