image credit: jazbeck
I was the buying agent for a real estate deal that recently closed. Over the years, I have been a part of countless transactions. There are a lot of moving parts in real estate deals…they can be complex and sometimes they don’t go so smoothly. This one in particular provided one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever felt as a real estate professional.
Most of the problems on this deal stemmed from a less than professional mortgage loan officer. Like any other profession, there are good mortgage loan officers and some not so good ones. Normally I offer to recommend a couple of really good mortgage people that I know and trust.
In this case, the buyers came to me with a pre-approval already in hand from their lender. Appreciating the fact that they had done their homework and were ready to get started – I went with it.
Things seemed to be moving along just fine. I talked with and received updates from the loan officer (who will remain nameless) on a regular basis. He told me what I wanted to hear, and I assumed that we were going to be good to go. After all, he was telling me what I wanted to hear…
Things started to get a little “iffy” about a week before the scheduled closing. The loan officer sent me an email telling me that he was having trouble getting one of the buyer’s loan payments verified. He told me not to worry and that he should have this information in time to meet our contract settlement date.
Hmmm…red flag. At this point the lender had been working on the loan for a month – why are they just now verifying a payment?? Since I had never worked with this person before, I had no choice but to take him at his word, and trust that he would have everything ready by the following week.
Two days later another email from the loan officer arrives – stating that he did receive the payment verification. Good news.
Not so fast. Now, less than a week away from a settlement that was scheduled over a month in advance, we had another problem. The mortgage lender needed to verify some more of the buyer’s income/employment status.
Could there have been a legitimate question regarding the buyer’s income? Absolutely. But now was definitely not the time to be doing this…
I spent twelve years in the mortgage business, many of those years as a loan officer, and I can tell you that this is the kind of information that should be questioned, asked for, collected, and verified upfront. In the beginning of the process – not a few days before closing.
When pressed on the issue, the loan officer pointed fingers at everyone else. The buyer’s, third party vendors supplying information, etc..
He told me that he needed one more week to get everything done. Frustrated but still hopeful, I asked the seller for a one week extension of our contract. The seller reluctantly agreed.
Feeling better now that we had another week to make this happen, I followed up with the loan officer a few days later.
I received an email stating that although the income and loan payment issues had been cleared up…they had now unearthed a problem with the title to the property.
@#$%&! What?!
“Yea,” he said. “We just found this lien on the property a couple of days ago and we’re trying to get it cleared up, but we’re running into a wall.”
I was thinking that I’d like to put him through that wall…my buyers were now staying in a hotel, waiting anxiously for this deal to close.
“The good news is…once we have it cleared, I can send this to my underwriter for approval.” He said.
The lender had the file at this point for over a month now, and their underwriter still hadn’t seen it.
I had to call the seller again, and deliver more bad news. Not only did he have to get involved to help clear this title lien issue (which he did), but now we were not going to make the extended contract date.
We needed another extension.
Needless to say, the seller was not happy. In fact, at first he refused my request to extend any further.
Knowing that my buyers were in a tough spot – they would have been homeless without this house – I pressed on and convinced the seller to give us the extension and help us solve any remaining issues with the lender.
Thankfully, the deal closed. It took a lot of effort (and groveling) but it closed.
Looking back, there were several things that the mortgage lender should have handled differently during this transaction…miscommunication (sometimes purposely), not gathering the correct information upfront, and slow response times just to name a few…
The important takeaway from this experience is to make sure without a doubt that you feel comfortable with the mortgage lender (and any real estate professional) that you are considering hiring to help you.
Take the time to ask questions, and get to know the people you will be working with. Choosing the right professionals to represent you can save time, money and a lot of headaches.