Loan Officer dragging..... maybe?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if his response time is atypical for a LO, but it is typical in my experience when dealing with people over email. Especially if they're dealing with lots of other similar clients. Let's say he's working with 40 ppl. Takes 1 minute to read an email question, 5 minutes to read their file and get caught up, 1 minute to compose a response. That's 6 minutes * 40 = 240 minutes a day or 4 hours just to do a single email for each person. I'm guessing he probably has less clients to deal with regularly but probably spends more time on each so it may even out.

My point, though not really made above is that email is a medium that lets you defer response to when you have time and is not always a good indicator of how someone is actually treating your issue. If you've got a phone number, use it. It will prioritize you over everyone else just sending emails and it would give you a bit better insight on what's going on so you're not guessing at whether he's dragging his feet.

@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I read this as you emailed some docs to the LO on Friday, May 24th. He doesn't respond saturday, sunday, or monday (a holiday), responds promptly on tuesday and from that, you felt he was dragging his feet.

Did he give you some reason to expect he works weekends or holidays or was there something I missed in the original post?

You went in for a pre-approval at a 620 score and apparently, their minimum is 640. I'm pretty sure your scores won't change that fast. It seems like he's moving you along. Do you have a way to reach him by phone? I suspect talking to him would give you a better sense of how he views your file and be the remaining push to move you to either stick it through or jump ship.

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He basically said that getting our scores up would make for an easier, faster time down the road. He's doing a rapid rescore, so they should be updated by the end of next week, provided that he submits everything on Monday. 

I don't particularly mean that the last part took long... I know it was a holiday weekend. I just meant the entire process in general, just to get preapproved. Like, when I submitted screenshots to show our new credit card balances, rather than wait, why not tell me he needed other documentation right then, instead of replying with 'Great! Just get the judgement paid off and we're good to go!' 

Like I said... I've never been through this process before, so I have no idea if this process SHOULD take this long? Or if it's normal to deal with a loan officer takes at least a day to get back to you, no matter how simple the question. 

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[Anonymous]

After reading dozens of these mortgage threads, I think I need to send both my LO and my Realtor a bottle of champagne. While we did use email of course, mostly it was only when documents needed to be sent or uploaded. Other than that, we actually called each other. On the phone. Sometimes daily. I had both of their cell numbers and just called them directly when I had a question or concern (I called my LO during reasonable business hours, of course; Realtor was an early bird like me and we sometimes called each other as early as 6 a.m.).

After reading these forums I'm beginning to realize how fantastic those two men actually are. I am seriously going to send them both a thank you present. No lie.

I hope your situation works itself out, Aimingforahouse. You must be worried sick about meeting that August deadline you were blindsided by. I can't offer any real help, but I'll be thinking of you and sending positive vibes your way.

Marlena

[Anonymous]

Just as an update, here's my current timeline:

Timeline:

May 15th, we found out our landlord no longer wants to rent and asked us to be out by August 1st. We decided with a 7 person family, we needed to buy, not rent again.

May 16th, found someone on Zillow forums (a real estate agent) who hooked us up with a local lender who works with low credit (mid-score 620).

May 17th, Filled out preapproval form on lenders site.

May 19th, He emailed me and said he would have a list of things for us to do before we got a rapid rescore to get to 640, and would get it to us the next day.

May 20th, emailed me the info, and I started working on the things he mentioned (mostly paying down credit cards and paying off a judgement). He said to send him proof of each thing that was done.

May 21st, I emailed him screenshots of our account summaries for the credit cards being paid down.

May 23rd, I emailed him with the proof of satisfaction of the judgement.

May 24th, he emails me and said I need different proof for the credit cards, as he can't use screenshots. I emailed him back within hours, with PDFs of statements and account transactions/payments.

May 25th, nothing

May 26th, nothing

May 27th, nothing

May 28th, I emailed him to see if the PDFs were sufficient proof

May 29th, He emails me back and says they are in his file to look through, hopefully later today.

June 12th, I get a notification from MyFico that my husband's credit was pulled again for the rescore (early in the morning). I emailed the lender to see if he had any update. No response from him.

June 15th, I emailed him again, asking if he's gotten anything taken care of yet. No response.

June 16th, I messaged the realtor, and told him what was going on, and that we hadn't heard anything. He called the lender, and messaged me back within an hour saying that we are preapproved for $140K. We have an appointment set up with him on Thursday morning to go look at the two houses we've had our eye on.

[Anonymous]

So that's great news!  Congratulations!  Good luck on finding the place you want, hope it goes well.

Yes, back in the old days, it took a very long time.  The mailman did drive a truck (as opposed to the pony express)  but the LO would have to write down a communication and then have a clerical person type it up, stuff it in an nevelope, and wait for the mailman to pick it up, take it back to the main post office, sort it, and mail it out.  Then you had to collect your data and write it out and mail it back.

Oh yeah, no such thing as getting a pdf of an online account balance, had to wait until the company sent out a new balance statement and then take it somewhere fancy to get a xerox made, then mail it back, etc.

Need proof you paid something?  Most likely, you had to find the cancelled check the bank sent back with your statement every month. 

And the LO had to add up everything on a paper adding machine and actually keep a file in a metal filing cabinet.

IRS transcript?  Mailman, wait for them to open up envelope with your request, read it, copy it and mail it back.

And yes, it took a very long time.

Gee whiz, I really feel old now!