My father and I have had a horrible experience with Phoebe Todorof and Sage Trust Mortgage. My…read morefather is elderly and not tech savvy so i'm helping him. We applied for a cash out refi that dragged on for 88 days and still was unsuccessful. Phoebe said that it would take 18 to 21 days. My dad needs this loan to fund a big rehab job on his multifamily properties that is currently in progress, but now we have to start all over with someone else because we cannot take the incompetence anymore.
I initially called in on May 28th, the Tuesday after Memorial Day. Phoebe was still coming back from her holiday vacation later than planned, so we scheduled a call for the next day. We spoke on Wednesday the 29th, and it went well. By Monday, June 3rd, we had turned in all the requested documents. I attempted to call her a couple days after we sent everything, to make sure everything is in order but got no response. She then reached out to me on Friday the 7th saying "she has multiple options for me and that she would send them over to us shortly and text me when they're sent". My father and I never received any quotes or any form of communication from her for 6 days, until I had to call her on Thursday June 13th the next week to see what was going on. I asked Phoebe if she sent the quotes because we never received anything and she said, "It's been super crazy over here at work," but then she added, "And I was on vacation." (The Memorial Day vacation that she's been back from for 2 weeks now?) I didn't know how to respond, so I was silent. She then laughed out loud at me as if she couldn't believe I had the nerve to call on the status of our quotes after not hearing from her for 6 days. She ended this call by saying she would have the quotes sent over within the hour. 2 hours later, she texted me saying that she needed a set of tax returns that I had already sent her on the 3rd. I sent the tax returns again, but we still never received any quotes. The next day, on Friday, June 14th, we finally received our quotes. She said the loan would take 18 to 21 days. Just the initial quotes took 16 days. Despite this, we continued to work with her because our contractor was scheduled to finish his work by mid July and we thought since there's 30ish days left, the quote was good, and our property management company, which we love, recommended Sage, that it would work out. It didn't. It just went on and on for another 10 weeks.
I can continue the precise timeline but it's really just all of the same behavior. Over the next 10 weeks Phoebe would ask for more documents but each time I would turn in what was asked, there was a 7 day wait at least. I sent her very organized emails to make it as easy for her as possible and she still would ask for things that I have already sent her.
The last straw was on August 21st she asked us for more documents to send in and so I did by August 22nd. Of course no communication for 7 days like always. On August 29th I emailed her saying "We haven't heard anything regarding the loan in 1 week. It's been 12 weeks total so far. What's going on? She actually responded that same day asking for 2022 and 2023 taxes that I already sent her 11 weeks ago and a most recent mortgage statement which would be August. She said she only had June. One of the emails I sent her on the 22nd, had August, July & June mortgage statement. Which means she got the email, she only took the June statement, and didn't look at the rest of the email.. I realized this was just going to be a never ending cycle. I had to tell my dad that i'm not willing to deal with Phoebe anymore and that we had to start all over again, and he of corse was very upset. Fortunately and unfortunately, our contractor is experiencing some delays which buys us more time to find another lender but this experience has been ridiculous, unprofessional, and disrespectful.
The most disrespectful part of this all is how my father and I were treated. Within all this time Phoebe stopped answering my calls, returning any voicemails, text, or emails. A week would go by, 10 days would go by and I would try to get a hold of her within these time periods with no response. Then when she needs more documents, she'll send a single email asking for a list of more documents, pretending that I haven't been trying to reach her week after week. It's like Phoebe and Sage Trust Mortgage took on something they can't handle and instead of just being honest about it, they'd rather take my father and I down with them just to what?? keep their ego intact? It's been 88 days!... Your ego should have been gone well before 88 days.
I have only had experience with the lending side of Sage Real Estate and it was horrible. My father and I feel scammed because Phoebe was nice at first, and the quote was great but then once we committed, we were no longer treated like human beings. From our experience, this company does not have your best intensions in mind.
