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I have a quite positive opinion of them. A few years ago I helped a friend apply to re-fi a second home. She was accepted all the way through until the last review (underwriter) only because they didn't like her age (retired) and cash flow in the end, even though she had paid everything excellently for a year+ with the second home vacant, and then had it newly rented at the time. Anyway, we talked a lot with the Quicken agent in the process of choosing them and going through the process - and they were really quite impressive, despite the ultimate denial. And they even did refund the appraisal fee, etc. Best!
I have a quite positive opinion of them. A few years ago I helped a friend apply to re-fi a second home. She was accepted all the way through until the last review (underwriter) only because they didn't like her age (retired) and cash flow in the end, even though she had paid everything excellently for a year+ with the second home vacant, and then had it newly rented at the time. Anyway, we talked a lot with the Quicken agent in the process of choosing them and going through the process - and they were really quite impressive, despite the ultimate denial. And they even did refund the appraisal fee, etc. Best!
So the "Quicken Agent" or Loan Officer did not know how to calculate qualifying income and debts and they are the "best". The denial had nothing to do with age- that is illegal and your friend wouldn't have to worry about a refi if that was true because she would be swimming in cash from the lawsuit she won. It had to do with a simple calculation debt to income ratio: income/ debts= %. Does the % meet guidelines- yes or no? It didn't get accepted until the last review by the underwriter because underwriting is the only review there is that counts. The LO did a poor job of qualifying the loan and wasted your friends time in collecting and submitting documentation. Based on this experience as posted the reccomendation should be stay away.
I used them for a re-fi last year. I was disappointed in multiple ways, and told them so.
1. They rushed me through the process. When I pointed that out, they just said that most customers want to do it as quickly as possible. Since a re-fi now requires a comprehensive inside-outside appraisal of the property, I wanted to get little things done, like painting, getting a cracked window replaced, etc, but Quicken kept trying to speed things up and get the appraisal ASAP. It's because the Quicken employees get paid based on how many loans they close in a month. The customer's timetable is secondary to the Quicken employee's timetable. One of the reasons I chose Quicken was their supposedly very high customer service ratings.
2. The person I started working with suddenly quit in the middle of the process, and I got a new person who didn't get all the documents from person #1, and to whom I had to re-explain all my requests and needs all over again. Quicken and all these mortgage companies have a very high turnover rate (my brother in law does this for a living and confirms this). Then the sales person hands you off to the next person, who hands you off to the next person, and you have to re-educate each person about your case and your specific needs and requests.
3. They insist on doing the closing documents in your home, sending a notary to your house. This was a minor inconvenience, but inconvenient nonetheless. The notary was afraid of dogs, so I had to lock the dogs up, and the only room I could do this in was the dining room. Then the notary remarked (as we were filling out documents on our laps/coffee table on the couch) that she's used to everyone sitting at a table to do this. I was thinking "well, you just made me lock my dogs up in the only room with such a table."
4. When refinancing, I was also buying my partner out of the home, getting the house and mortgage into my own name. I knew that as part of the process we would need a quit-claim deed for him to sign, and I requested this, and reminded the people I was working with over and over that we would need this. They assured me up and down that it would be included with the closing documents. Well, needless to say, the packet did not include the quit-claim. I called and e-mailed Quicken frantically, and the only person I could reach (suddenly all my other people were unavailable) said that no one should have promised me a quit-claim, that they "never" do those. The notary sitting right in my house said that she does tons of closings fro Quicken and they frequently do quit-claims. So we had to handle the whole quit-claim process ourselves separate from the refinance.
5. The mortgage rates they advertised were WAY lower than the rate I got. At the time their commercials said 3.9%. I had an 814 FICO score at the time, my debt ratio was pretty low, and the value of my home was way above the amount I was re-financing, but I still ended up with 4.5%. Every time I brought this up, they went on and on, talking purposely over my head (implying that I could never posisbly understand all the intricacies of the rates, so don't bother asking.) I finally decided I had gone so far (and got the annoying appraisal done), and I just wanted to get it finished and be done with it, so I just gritted my teeth and accepted the 4.5%. I still hear their 3.9% commercials today and laugh, while digging my fingernails into my palms.
7. They thought nothing of calling me all hours of the day and night (one time they had me on a complicated call, going over documents, after 11:30 PM.)
The few times I brought up that I'd rather just handle things during regular busiess hours (I'm totally able to handle such calls at work), they said that "most customers" like the fact that they work around the clock.
8. The one good thing was that even though every person I was assigned to kept telling me I'd be paying PMI, I ended up not having to. But I still don't understand why they didn't know that. The amount I was financing was 72% of the total value of the home.
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