Personal Finance

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Last month I did a refinance with Quicken Loans and found the entire process to be simple, fast and easy. Customer service in my case was outstanding, with excellent communication from the folks at Quicken Loans.

I was previously in a 5 year arm that had adjusted in February. It adjusted up to a little over 6% (from just under 5%) which increased our payment some, but it wasn’t terrible. At the time, I had hoped to refinance into a either a 30 year fixed or another 5 year arm, depending on which gave me the best rate. Unfortunately, at that time, rates were higher than what my arm had adjusted to, so we decided to wait it out and just keep an eye on rates until they fell below our current rate.

In July, rates fell almost to 5.5% on a five year arm, so I called Quicken Loans to see if I could get this rate. I found them through a rate chart on online. I talked to a couple other mortgage companies including Wachovia, Bank of America and eLoan and was really turned off by the people I spoke with. Also, they were very cagey around the specifics when I asked questions. They seemed kind of clueless.

Quicken Loans took my information, pulled up a couple of options and let me view the details online. My credit is very good, so that helped. The banker Pete L went over in detail what the terms of the loan were and answered all of my questions (I didn’t want to get burned on the details, so I asked a lot of them … looking for the catch.)

I had a second mortgage, which we were hoping to roll together, but it was unclear if my equity was high enough to refi both of the loans. Even if we couldn’t refinance the second, getting the 5.6% on the first for five years was a win. I was a little nervous about the $500 deposit, but I was comfortable enough with the numbers and details to eventually move ahead with at least getting the rate of the first mortgage.

The appraisal unfortunately came back about 10K short - so were weren’t able to do the second mortgage. I was actually fairly pleased with the appraisal overall though because a lot of homes in our area have lost value. My wife wanted to shop some more, so she called Countrywide and they told us Quicken Loans was screwing us over and that they could get us a rate in the 4% range with no closing costs by doing an FHA. I asked them to send me the details, and it turned out that the FHA loan had a bunch of additional costs built in, including PMI. Pete at Quicken Loans walked me through the two loans side by side and we did the numbers and Countrywide’s “great rate” turned out to be a great big dud.

From there, everything was clear sailing. All I had to do was provide our payroll stubs, some savings and checking account statements and the phone number of our insurance agent so they could verify how much homeowners insurance to deposit into escrow. The customer service woman who nursed the loan through called me regularly and each time walked me through the terms of the loan and asked me if this was meeting my goals. I could sign most of the documents online. Pete also checked in frequently.

The closing, though, was what blew me away. Because my lock was about to expire (it did take a little time to work out some tax details around escrow — I wanted to avoid having to bring cash to closing), I was at risk for losing my rate. Quicken Loans pushed the loan through in under 24 hours and scheduled my closing at my home at 8:30 at night so we could still get the rate. They sent someone out to my house with the documents that night, and we signed everything on my back porch. I’ve bought two homes in the past eight years, and done at least four refinances and this was simply the easiest loan I ever did, especially in terms of the closing.

I’ve read some of the negative reviews of Quicken Loans here and have to say that my experience was the complete opposite. I never felt pressured, they answered all my questions and were always extremely friendly and accomodating. They seemed to really want my business and were always professional and responsive. Clearly from some of the comments on this board, there may be some bankers at Quicken Loans who need to maybe go or at least polish up their customer service skills, but the people I worked with were consummate professionals. It seems like overall the positive reviews here are much higher than the negative, so I think people should read both before deciding whether you want to do business with Quicken Loans. My experience was fantastic.

Also, Quicken Loans isn’t the cheapest when it comes to their advertised rates, but the devil is in the details with any mortgage company. I did get what they said I would get, which is the most important thing. Getting a quarter point lower just isn’t worth the hassle sometimes, especially when you are trying to get a lower rate and payment period. Be sure to read the docs carefully with any mortgage offer and ask the mortage company to go through the numbers with you. Show them the competing offers for second opinions and don’t let people tell you things like “that’s a bad deal” — make them do the math with you. I did this with Quicken Loans and it worked.

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