They were very helpful with helping me get a mortgage. I have a complicated tax return with income…read morefrom multiple businesses, and unlike other banks I spoke with, Continental was able to put the puzzle together and get a great rate for me.

we worked with bill hoogkamp... his patience and knowledge was so appreciated as we were first-time…read morehomebuyers: nothing we said or asked was disregarded and he always kept us informed and involved with every step of the process. of course, we would go back in a heartbeat next time we need financing, but for now we're enjoying the fruits of their help. we can highly recommend maple tree funding, especially bill.

Great to work with. I worked with Ray - always answered all of my questions and helped made the…read moreprocess as easy as it could be. Always set my expectations as well. If I were to purchase another home I'd go through them again.

The worst business experience of my life, hands down. Tried to get a construction mortgage through…read moreHomestead. They began requesting documents, we would submit them and weeks would go by before we got updates, generally only after we asked for them. It took 7 months from first contact until we could close! At month 6.5 we were told that the longest building period they would give us was 8 months to build an entire custom home with a $5500 a month penalty for going over. They refused to give us a clause saying that time spent waiting for inspections and disbursements on their end wouldn't count towards the 8 months, even though every other thing they did took way longer than it was supposed to. Finally, they pressured us to close with 2 foot of snow on ground in middle of winter, and when I asked to postpone closing to spring they threatened us with "lots of fees". Finally, when we told them we wouldn't continue with them under these terms, they sent us a $105 bill for "adjustments" to costs of things that we already paid months ago. Do yourself a favor and use a real bank for your mortgage. Everything about the experience was head and shoulders better than with Homestead.

I had a horrible and stressful experience working with this individual Rick Solosky as well as his…read more"manager Peter Tull. First he'd reply to texts very quickly ( either from a boat or from lunch or from vacation never in his office) mainly why his answer never made sense or were half the answers or was gibberish and it appeared he responded without even knowing what he was writing and his answers made no sense. Even when communicating worthy he attorney via email his communication was a disaster and I had to ask him to correct. Mostly every time clarification was needed. Used copy/paste loan application from one property to another adding incorrect charges to the loan. At the end, he took 25% down when I had agreed to do 20% down. Processed the loan and as I informed over and over this was not what I had agreed to, his response was "this is what you signed". Loan types and details were not explained properly, he never picked up the phone to explain exactly what was going on, only pointing out the "advantages" of the loan. The incompetence and disregard is out of this world and sadly we ended up closing with them after all attorney and appraisal was done. After so many complaints with his work, I was referred to his so called "supervisor Peter" who was even more incompetent. They kept passing me from one person to another and each time the experience was worse! I definitely do not recommend. They are liars/misleading and they will lure into signing a loan where they present one thing but make you sign another. Be very aware because at the end, they will simply say that's what you signed. And they give you no option to go back or cancel.

Excellent service Ray and Brendan have been amazing easy to deal with and we were first time home…read morebuyers and they always responded would recommend to anyone.

After quite a bit of deliberation, we went with Trustco for our mortgage. We felt this was a better…read moreoption for us because Trustco - unusually - allows you to not pay PMI if you can put down 10%. It was really hard to stomach the idea of paying PMI for the life of the loan everywhere else and we just did not have the full 20%. Trustco is antiquated in multiple respects when it comes to transactions. It's kind of frustrating, but do-able. More importantly, there were some inconsistencies between what we were told by our rep (who was the branch's manager) and what was actually true. For example, we were told that we would not actually have to pay for the credit check because Trustco does it "in house" and didn't use a third party, but, lo and behold, we paid for the credit check. There were a couple of other situations like that when all was said and done. Of course, shame on us for not getting that in writing from him and taking his word. We should have been more skeptical. The closing process was a pain and Trustco's rep came across as a bit rude and incompetent. She even made a comment about having (coincidentally) viewed our house when she was house hunting and saying that she didn't feel it was worth the price (before it was dropped to the amount we got it at, which was below market rate). That came across as a very strange, sort of tactless thing to say. The seller's rep and our lawyer told us that Trustco is notoriously frustrating to deal with for mortgages. There were times we had to just sit and wait while Trustco's rep corrected something that Trustco had messed up, which took a while. Even the process of cutting checks at the end was interminable. I've worked for a bank and have cut checks - it's a simple process. Lastly, there is a $300 mortgage application fee. Our realtor said it was sometimes waived, but that was not the case for us. Be careful about your credit score before paying this fee as they have high standards. We made sure to specifically ask before we applied to ensure we were likely to make the cut. We felt that $300 once was better than a monthly PMI payment for 30 years, though. All in all, it was worth going with Trustco to not pay PMI, but not ideal if you have the 20% down payment. PS: We closed on our mortgage in September 2015.

My experience recently with closing on a Home Equity Line of Credit was not good. After our…read moreclosing with David (who seemed very nice, however is clearly not knowledgeable about the business) we went home to wait on our checks. About 3 days after the closing we noticed $15,000 in our checking account. We had no idea why it was deposited there. We hadn't received our checks yet, so we figured we'd wait to contact Trustco until they came. The following week we received the checks and we called Trustco. We were informed by two employees (one being David) that we were supposed to then redeposit that money back into our Equity Line. We were not informed of this at the closing. They told us that we would have to pay the weeks worth of interest on this $15,000 ($8.11) even though we didn't use it at all and had no plans to touch the money for at least a month. After listening to the staff talk in circles I asked to speak with the manager Becky. She also informed me that I'd have to pay the interest and that there was nothing she could do about it. I then told her I'd be looking into changing my mortgage and new equity line over to another bank. She promptly then informed me that she would send a request to have my interest credited. It took a couple days, but that did go through. Another problem was that when we originally signed up for the loan at Trustco in Wynantskill we were informed that the interest would not begin until we wrote our first check. We were encouraged to sign up for the equity line right away so it would be available for when we needed it. When I spoke with the manager Becky she said that this was false information and that the lower interest rate (2.99% for 1 year) began at our day of closing. I feel as if in general the company was not straightforward with any information. Had they told us originally to transfer over the money I would've done that. Had they told me that the lower interest rate would begin on the date of the closing I would've waited on the closing. Based on this experience I would still consider switching my banking because I feel as if I was not provided with clear and accurate information.

My son started over 3 months ago , got approved for a over $100,000 loan on property, payed more…read morethan $500 on loan pre approval, appreaisal fees, got all checked out and all paperwork set, all excited to buy first ever home, ( he is only 22 years old) doing everything him self. Bam 3 days before closing the come up with no lender because they (Laura) out of Saratoga NY branch messed up, no loan, no home, not give back any money he put out and messed up tje buy, seller, and attorney all screwed out of there money and screwed my son out of a house and 3 months waiting and money? WTF don't use homestead funding, big f ing rip offs and she never called corp. she lie all the time. rip off rip off ruin lives and lie. dont trust them....3 days before closing ruin peoples lives because they (her) messed up and dont care. She Laura needs to lose her job ASAP. Wake up NY State wake up.

Flo and Denise were an absolute pleasure to work with! They made our mortgage process extremely…read moresmooth and easy. We're second time home owners and our experience with Homestead was night and day compared to the mortgage company we used when we purchased our first home. I couldn't believe how quickly and efficiently Flo and Denise worked and they were great about keeping us updated as we completed every step. They really care about their clients and we felt like we were in great hands. We're so grateful for how stress free they made our home purchase and highly recommend them!!