Singing Praises of Quicken Loans, and Boooo Chase

[oscar_actuary]

2007 April have 75 / 25 Mortgage with 5.75% 1st and 7.5% APR Balloon 2nd

Starting in 2010 I call Chase semi annually and ask about refi all of it.  Not enough equity and they don't deal with 2nds from another lender.

Forward to February 2012.  We have aggressively paid down our 2nd to < 20k.  I decide to try another lender to see what can be done.  We try Quicken.  They tell me about this HARP program.  No need for 80% LTV.  And they can ignore the 2nd.  By now, getting 2% less on the first was good enough.  We'd pay off the 2nd using 0% CC transfers, in part.  I called Chase and lo and behold, yeah, they could do that too.  Heck no, I'm moving on. 

Yesterday, Quicken calls me and we're about to get an even lower rate, with lender reimbursing most of the costs.

So one mrtg holder makes no effort to respond to me about better options than paying 5.75% in early 2012, while our new lender is initiating a call to help us out.

I think in todays social open era, more lenders and biz in general cannot take their clients for granted.  Then again, I was the uneducatd one who ignored programs like HARP because I thought they were only for losers and deadbeats.  lol.

[Kozmo]

Quicken makes a huge chunk of their revenue off of Harp. So their mindset is on it 100%.

But they do have great customer service

[JM-AM]

Quicken while can be helpful to some, usually cost you more then majority of lenders out here. This is just from my own experiences of customers (clients) coming into office with a quicken quote and GFE.

As long as you are happy with them that is all that matters.

[oscar_actuary]

For refi #1, I thought the costs were at least reasonable if not downright competitive.  And when it's likely +/- 5%, it often comes down to "the feel test".  Am I comfortable, etc?

For refi #2, they are covering all 3rd party. fees, and charging only 0.5% origination

For a 50 basis points rate drop, I'm recouping in less than 15 months. 

However, in both cases, yeah, I could beat the rate if I shop hard enough.  It might take a while to break even considering the lender credits Im getting. 

Also, most lenders are air bags; thus I try to avoid shopping around.  To my detriment, surely