If I could give Guild Mortgage of Savannah 0 stars, or negative stars, I would…read more
We began working with Guild Mortgage in mid-January 2014. The loan originator pulled my wife's credit, and qualified her for a loan of $300,000. Having worked in the mortgage industry as a loan processor and underwriter, I found that a little strange, as my wife is self-employed, and we hadn't provided the LO with any tax returns.
My wife and I made an offer on a home in Savannah on February 4th, 2014, with a mortgage contingency letter due on March 5th. The house was a Fannie Mae foreclosure, and we intended to buy it through their HomePath program, with 5% down. The HomePath program doesn't require an appraisal, and there is nor mortgage insurance. When we told the loan originator, she tried to push us back into a conventional loan, but we remained adamant that we needed to use the Home Path option. She finally seemed to udnerstand this, and we were provided an application and disclosures - on February 21! WE signed them and immediately returned them. I also returned income and asset documents, along with a number of other items that I knew would be needed from my experience.
One either February 24 or 25th, my wife contacted the Processor who had been assigned to the file to make sure she had received the app package, since we hadn't heard anything. She was short and very perfunctory with my wife, basically saying that it was month end, she was busy and she hadn't even looked at the file yet, but she would get to it.
On March 3rd, we called to remind Guild that we had a a commitment letter due on March 5th, and if we did not have the commitment letter, our $1500 deposit was at risk. The LO's response ? "There's no way I can get you a commitment letter, the loan hasn't even been to underwriting yet, and there's no way I can get it there before the 5th." She then tried to tell me we did not need a commitment letter and that, from her perspective, the loan was fine and would close without any problems. At that point I found out that not only had the loan not been to Underwriting, it hadn't even been looked at by the Processor. This is 8 business days AFTER the loan had been submitted.
On MArch 10th, the LO called to tell us that they ahd re-pulled the credit. I asked why, as credit is usually good for 90 days and you never re-pull it unless it's expired. The LO told me that since there was a dispute showing up on the credit report, it had to re-pulled after that dispute had been removed. Now, remember, she had originally pulled credit back in January - and the dispute had been on there since then! The new scores were too low to qualify based on our chosen program so we could either pay down debt - which we were prepared to do - or increase our downpayment to 20%. At this point, since the loan had STILL not been sent to an underwriter, we new we were going to need an extension to the closing date. The LO REFUSED to write a letter explaining why we needed the extension despite numerous request from our real estate agent. At this point, we also discovered that she as playing like Frank Underwood from Hosue of Cardfs - telling our agent one thing, while telling us something totally different. She finally agreed to write the letter, provided we agreed to bring 20% in as a downpayment.
At this point, we were working with another lender, and knew that they could do the loan as previously set up - HomePath, 5% down. WE agreed, just so we could get the extension.
WE began working with the new lender on March 11th. We had an app package to sign by March 15th. We received a conditional approval - with one condition, a letter explaining our credit inquiry with Guild Mortgage, on March 22. So, for the new lender, they were able to process and underwrite the loan package in 7 days. When I cancelled the loan with Guild on March 24, it had still not been seen by an Underwriter - over 20 business days since it had been submitted.
There was a distinct lack of communcation from both the LO and the processing staff at Guild. Unless we called them, we wouldn't hear from them. Tehre was no sense of priority from them either, no idea at all that they realized we were working with a deadline.
Stay far away from Guild Mortgage!