I could not recommend Claire and her team enough. We had a poor experience with another company…read morebefore we worked with Claire and she turned our homebuying process around. They were quick, efficient, knowledgeable and had timely responses to emails and calls. Their online document submitting system was smooth and effortless. Over my family had a pleasurable experience buying our first home. Thank you Mortgage First!

I did a re-fi with cash out and even though Todd said it would take a month or more, it was done in…read morejust three weeks. Although he was a bit stiff, and did not laugh at all my jokes, he was prompt, courteous, and forthright. I don't understand much of the home buying or financing part of life, so it's wonderful to work with those that are patient and will explain the nitty gritty. I highly recommend this place--Todd, in particular.

Update:. Scott recommend that I pull money out of my 403b to pay for the down payment on my house…read more Unfortunately, he was apparently unaware that to do so incurs tremendous tax penalties. I ended up with a massive penalty equal to the money which I pulled out of my 403b. This seems like something he should've been aware of it and been able to advise me appropriately about and therefore I have lowered my rating.

Scott is a miracle worker. The day before I was to close with Freedom Mortgage a title discrepancy…read morewas found and Freedom needed to delay the transaction. It was an absolute nightmare as our home was packed and movers were scheduled. I called Scott the following day and he immediately had his underwriters scrutinize the title and there were found to be no issues. Scott and his team (Selisha and Melissa) went to work on my loan immediately. Time was of the essence. Scott was able to close on my loan just a few weeks later. He answered very late night texts to my questions. His knowledge, effort, professionalism, directness and customer service is excellent. I can't recommend him enough! THANK YOU SCOTT!

I am pleased to recommend Phillip H. Gerstner, CPA, of Lighthouse Financial Enterprises, Inc. as…read moreyour mortgage broker. Phil took our project on a year in advance and helped us worked through some challenges that we could not have figured out on our own. He is patient, intelligent, and presents information in a logical and orderly fashion. You will trust him right away as I did. One thing I really enjoyed is, Phil has a "can do" attitude, and seeks to get things done, i.e., he doesn't let things linger on his desk, and you don't have to push him, or follow up incessantly. When you are in the middle of buying a home and already wading through so much paperwork, this is exactly the kind of broker you want to have. We did interview other brokers from the "Best Of Salem" list in addition to Phil, and my wife and I were both shocked at how dismissive and cold some of them were - they talked down to us like we were nobody. I don't know about you, but people like that don't deserve our time and money. Phil Gerstner is a kind person who will advocate for you, and give you good advice. It was an absolute blessing to find him, and we could not have put this deal together without him. If I saw Phil Gerstner on the street even today even after the fact, I would be delighted to stop and have a word with him.

The only reason I gave a rating of "five" is because there isn't an option to give SIX!…read more My wife and I have had a lot of experience over the last 23 years buying and selling properties. We had been watching property in a very specific part of town for nearly two years. As our country's financial outlook began to turn gloomy, we decided we'd better pull the trigger quickly before rates went to the moon. A friend we trust recommended Phil Gerstner at Lighthouse Home Loans. We reached out to Phil and the rest is history. Understand, we've bought and sold more than a dozen properties in a couple of decades and we have NEVER had such an OUTSTANDING experience as we did with Phil and his team. We thought for certain we'd waited too long and would pay the price through high rates. Phil shopped our loan HARD and found us several options to choose from that made sense and were manageable for us. Phil took the time to teach us about the process, broke each option down into steps that helped us understand potential outcomes BEFORE we made a decision. We have NEVER had a broker take the time and spend the energy doing this before and we have come to VALUE Phil's thoughtful input. I CANNOT RECOMMEND PHIL AND LIGHTHOUSE LOANS STRONGLY ENOUGH. You will be doing yourself, your family, and your future a huge disservice if you don't at least have a conversation with him, talk about your plans, dreams, and options. Thanks Phil and Lighthouse! We LOVE our new home.

Tracy is patient and incredibly knowledgeable! She goes that extra mile to provide exceptional…read moreservice! Thank you!

Tracy was a pleasure to work with and did an excellent job communicating and managing the process…read morefrom beginning to end. I would confidently recommend her to any clients looking to purchase a home.

I had the privilege of working with Jennifer from Strategic Mortgage Group during my recent home…read morepurchase in April. Jennifer made buying a new home seem like the easiest thing I've ever done. Uploading documents into the web portal she uses was easy. With each document request I received a little note explaining exactly which document this was that was being requested, or where to go to find it. I appreciated how secure the web portal was and how serious she is when comes to her client's sensitive information. I've worked with loan officers in the past that do not explain things as the process unfolds, and this experience was the complete opposite. Jennifer recognizes that although she lives in the "mortgage bubble" 24/7, her clients may not. She took the time to explain everything thoroughly and answered all questions I had in a timely manner. She was always available for me to call her and I felt like her top priority during my whole buying process. When my husband and I found a home we loved she did great at telling us exactly what we needed to bring to the table financially so we could purchase the home. With this information, we were able to tell our real estate agents what we needed to ask for in our offer. We were clear to close in less than 3 weeks after going under contract thanks to her fast and efficient hard work and service! I felt important, heard, and supported during my whole buying process and I cannot thank Jennifer enough.

From the owner: For over 29 years, Jennifer Jacobs has been helping borrowers navigate the sometimes-confusing…read moreworld of mortgage lending. She's like your personal mortgage GPS, guiding you through every twist and turn with patience, expertise, and a sense of humor. But don't let her easy-going nature fool you - she's a fierce advocate for her clients interests. Jennifer believes that everyone deserves access to the best possible mortgage options, regardless of their financial situation or property goals.

Lisa is very professional, excellent communication, very reliable. In my 35 years in sales, I KNOW…read morea good representative and Lisa is exceptional. We accomplished our business during the very trying times of covid where the normal world of mortgage companies was turned upside down. Lisa did an extraordinary job during the covid pandemic. Customers should realize that companies are strained due to their employees who contracted covid. These are times like no other. Patience and understanding are vital.

Please read my copied Facebook review photo below. Lisa is incompetent, misleading and…read moreunprofessional! Less than one star rating!!

Traci is a very sweet lady and my only intent for this review is to share our experience and…read morehopefully give some constructive feedback so other clients do not go through what we went through. My fiancé and I just got a new house. Our realtor (a coworker of mine) referred us to Traci for our mortgage/ financing. We knew from the start that buying a house would require us to jump though many hoops and is not an easy to do. We figured that Traci would shed some light and give us some direction because all of this was very confusing, and we kept an open mind during the process. We were not that impressed with Traci's services. Little did we know, another coworker of ours also went through Traci and had a negative experience with her but we were not aware of that at the time. We were under the impression that Traci would take good care of us and keep us in the loop, given that she has so many 5-star reviews. Instead we felt that we were treated poorly. For example, Traci is very hard to get a hold of over phone. All my calls would go to voicemail and most of our communication was done over text (which can be hard to interpret and is not the best method of communication because she would take up to a day to respond). Our intention of hiring Traci was to be able to call her up, give her some numbers to crunch ASAP, and then put in an offer (all of this is very time sensitive) but on many occasions, she would take hours to get back and told us to use her app to crunch numbers ourselves (which we were not comfortable doing). Instead of being 1 step ahead of things, we felt like were always 2 steps behind. Traci never gave us any heads up or checked up on us during this process. She would send us cute and informative check lists way after we needed them or after that step was completed (which was no help to us at all). We did take COVID into consideration, but she mentioned that she sent our closing kit (what to expect when closing) late. She also misspelled our names on letters multiple times and that made us feel like she did not pay close attention to detail (we have emailed and texted her numerous times and they have our signatures with our names). She would also give us deadlines with no heads up. Given that we were trying to close on the house and needed to request paperwork during the week of 4 of July (most offices are closed for the Holiday) which gave us a super small time frame (about a day) to get papers in and drop our Escrow check. We wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt because she came highly recommended but what really upset us was the fact that our Escrow office NEVER received any of our paperwork. On the day we were supposed to receive our phone call to make our appointment for the closing table, we never received any call and found out that Traci had once again dropped the ball and never sent our paperwork to the office (which could have messed up the entire closing process and potentially make us temporarily homeless). Even after we called and requested her to send our papers off, she sent them 30 minutes before the actual escrow appointment (when typically this sensitive information is sent 2-3 days prior to the appointment so they can catch any mistakes ahead of time). I feel that we were not treated with any kind of priority and that we did more work than she did. She also gave us inaccurate information regarding payment methods and refund checks (which isn't a huge deal) but could have caused a delay for us. In the end she did send us pizza on our move in day along with a blanket as a welcoming gift (which was very thoughtful), but I am still not comfortable recommending her to our friends, family, or community.

Traci was absolutely wonderful! When anything came up during our house buying process she remained…read morehelpful and hopeful. She also sent us little gifts in the mail just to let us know she was thinking of us. She was so thoughtful through the whole process, patient, and kind even when my frustration levels were at their highest. She was seriously the best. I would highly recommend her help with any of your house buying needs.

I wish I could rate MBI with zero stars. Jim Morrison never got back to us, we constantly had to…read morechase him around. He set us back months in purchasing a house, because of his horrible advice. I would never ever recommend going there. Very unprofessional and just ended up holding us back in our home purchasing journey.

I have used Jim at MBI for multiple property refi's and he has made everyone as easy as a refi…read morecould be, he came highly recommended by our realtor and that was 7 years ago. Still using Jim for our refi needs.

I recently purchased a home through the USDA program and Mat Stewart of Rock River Financial…read morehandled the loan. As a first time buyer, I was completely clueless about how the process worked and Mat was always more than patient in answering my questions and concerns, as well as in helping me to correct the numerous mistakes I made along the way. When the listing agent and seller made several serious mistakes of their own, Mat was indispensable in getting the process back on track, spending a great deal more time and effort than is the norm to do so. He never gave up on helping me, and there were many points at which I wouldn't have blamed him if he had, since what should have been a pretty straight forward process turned into a long and arduous ordeal. He even had to secure a new underwriter because the loan became so complicated for various reasons, none of which were his fault. He truly went above and beyond the call of duty to help me move into my dream home, and I highly doubt most loan agents would have stuck by me through all of the mishaps and stressors that cropped up along the way. I can't possibly recommend or thank him enough for all of his help, sacrifice and patience in this endeavor and I feel that I would have given up at several points had it not been for him. If you are in need of a loan agent, you absolutely can't go wrong with Mat Stewart!

I recently worked with Rock River Financial to buy my first house. Mat and his team were very…read moreknowledgeable, professional, and friendly. I had a lot of questions and they were more than willing to answer every one of them, and responded quickly, too. They were efficient and kept me up to date throughout the process. I found them to be easy to work with and felt like they genuinely cared about getting me the best mortgage - I wasn't just another numbered applicant. I was really impressed with their expertise, honesty, and promptness and definitely recommend them!