topic Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement? in Mortgage Loans

Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 14:05:50 GMT

We started on the Veterans United Lighthouse program at the end of May, at that time, we had two of our three credit scores over the 600 mark and were told we only needed to gain 19 points on our credit score to be preapproved for a loan. When contacting them, we had planned on paying off some delinquent medical debt to help our score but they said not to touch it that all we needed to do is open one credit card account and that would probably do it for us... the lady suggested Wells Fargo for the card... and we were rejected and lost points on our credit score. We did find a card that approved us but then also saw another drop on our score.

Anytime we call to try and get direction or answers to questions, she gives us conflicting advice... and now that our credit score fell she says "maybe you should pay down that medical debt"... this is what they told us not to touch when we began. It's very frustrating.

We were supposed to at least be under contract and moving forward by now because we need to move to a different city for my husband's job in August but now she says it will take several more months... we are VERY unhappy with the service (or lack of service) we've gotten there and think it would just be better to handle our credit on our own because all she's done is give advice that caused it to fall.

SO, here's my question... when we started the Lighthouse program, we signed an agreement that said something like "if you use the lighthouse program you agree to use us for your VA loan"- so now that we are very unhappy with the program, are we still bound to use them for a VA loan? I have read so many negative comments about Veterans United since I started myFICO message boards yesterday and this is very concerning for me. This form I signed was a digital, online form so I don't have a copy (I know, that was dumb of me to sign it- we were recommended to the program by a friend of ours who had a good experience so our guard was down a bit).

ANY ADVICE?

Current credit scores are now: 586, 602 & 583... rental houses are very expensive where we're moving to and we really NEED to buy but now it seems unatainable.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Revelate — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 16:03:34 GMT

Welcome to the forums!

If you want to make gains in your score, my first and always recommendation is to do the following:

1) Post all your negatives and ask for help resolving them in the Rebuilding Your Credit forum, there may be some simple quick wins for getting them deleted.

2) Post the whole darned enchilada in Understanding FICO Scoring: card limits and balances, loans, negatives, etc; this is for putting lipstick on the pig to optimize an instant in time pull.

We're not FICO employees but this forum and one or two other places online are the next best thing when it comes to FICO optimization. LO's unfortunately often don't know what they're talking about when it comes to FICO scoring, though your LO was right the first time, don't touch those medical collections by simply paying them, if you can't get them deleted they will not help your credit score and might even bring it down further. The card advice, ugh, there's very few circumstances where that would have helped immediately and there's always a tradeoff involved with opening a new account when we're weighing potential advice on that front.

I don't know anything about that particular program but hopefully someone will be able to give you better information on that.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

ChistineNJ — Sat, 04 Jul 2015 17:13:03 GMT

at least you got in the program i could never get this company to call me back they say there ave avail 24/7 but every time i called there was never a csr in my state available. none the less i agree with the emeritus you can always state your querys here and the folks here will chime in. im no expert but i dont think they would be able to bind you to use them as your loan provider. just ask others with more experiance will chime in. for my own information did i miss anything by not signing up?

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 04:42:00 GMT

@ChistineNJ wrote:
at least you got in the program i could never get this company to call me back they say there ave avail 24/7 but every time i called there was never a csr in my state available. none the less i agree with the emeritus you can always state your querys here and the folks here will chime in. im no expert but i dont think they would be able to bind you to use them as your loan provider. just ask others with more experiance will chime in. for my own information did i miss anything by not signing up?

Personally, I don't think you missed anything by not signing up with them- we're looking for a new mortgage provider just because of the problems we've had so far paired with the negative reviews they've gotten on this forum and elsewhere... found a hand-ful of other mortgage companies to check out but it's all very stressful... not sure who to go with for the most seamless and quickest loan (I know, it's a VA loan and they aren't quick).

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Sun, 05 Jul 2015 04:42:43 GMT

@Revelate wrote:
Welcome to the forums!

If you want to make gains in your score, my first and always recommendation is to do the following:

1) Post all your negatives and ask for help resolving them in the Rebuilding Your Credit forum, there may be some simple quick wins for getting them deleted.
2) Post the whole darned enchilada in Understanding FICO Scoring: card limits and balances, loans, negatives, etc; this is for putting lipstick on the pig to optimize an instant in time pull.

We're not FICO employees but this forum and one or two other places online are the next best thing when it comes to FICO optimization. LO's unfortunately often don't know what they're talking about when it comes to FICO scoring, though your LO was right the first time, don't touch those medical collections by simply paying them, if you can't get them deleted they will not help your credit score and might even bring it down further. The card advice, ugh, there's very few circumstances where that would have helped immediately and there's always a tradeoff involved with opening a new account when we're weighing potential advice on that front.

I don't know anything about that particular program but hopefully someone will be able to give you better information on that.

Thank you for the advice- I'll give it a try!

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 16:46:00 GMT

Hello,

I know your post is almost a year old but just wondering if you ever got the home loan you needed to move?

Bobby.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 16:50:09 GMT

Bobby- yes, we were able to get a loan through a different company and they were much faster and more attentive than Veterans United. I don't recommend them at all.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 16:56:46 GMT

Thanks for the quick reply, I was getting ready to sign up with them today but im not sure what to do now.Could you share with me who you went through? I may have a better chance with them as well.I think us vets paid our do's and whe should be approved no matter what.But just like anything else with the va it takes an act of congress to get anything done.Thank you for your service and I look forward to your reply.

Bobby.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:01:44 GMT

sorry I forgot to ask if the other company required a 620 on your middle score. Thank you for the info, we really wanna purchase soon but jumping through all these hoops is not good for someone with PTSD lol

Bobby

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:06:12 GMT

We used Steffnie Parsons with People's Bank & Trust. Her email address is Sparsons@Peoplesbankusa.com and her office number is: 405-445-1091

Hope that helps- she was pretty diligent in working things out for us and didn't drag her feet like the other place did.

My only recommendation is to really look over all your paperwork to ensure all the figures are correct. We had no problems, though.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:17:41 GMT

Thank you so much for the info, I will email her in a few min. Good luck to you and have a great day.

Bobby.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:02:34 GMT

I found the light house program to be stupid and they connected with me with them twice. But Veterans United has been great after I got preapproved. Oh course I am OCD with them and I ask for status twice a week and provide requested document within an hour

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:04:29 GMT

Bobby- just saw your last question. No, their requirements were lower than Veterans United- don't remember what they were but they were lower than 620.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:11:34 GMT

Bank of the west will go down to a 580 but they make you go to full underwriting with that score before you know if they will pre-approve you

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:36:25 GMT

My nephew just bought a house and before he was approved the lender said in order to get your score to a 620 very fast this is what you need to do. Apply for a $300 secured credit card and use it every day for gas,food, whatever.Then as soon as you buy something then transfer a payment for that amount to the card from your checking account or whatever account you would normally use.h E said he did it and in a month and a half his score rocketed up to Atleast the 620 and they have moved into their new home.Ive gotta try that, sure can't hurt anything.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:12:31 GMT

one more question, what was the interest rate with the peoples bank?

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 19:43:48 GMT

Well, that was awhile back and I'm sure interest rates have changed a lot since then but it seems like it was 3.7 or something like that... I just remember it was lower than what we would have gotten it through the other places we checked. My advice would be to check around and see what the going interest rates are and then see what they offer you. We found zillow.com to be really helpful in finding info like that and for searching for houses too.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 14:32:29 GMT

I used the Lighthouse program and my experience was good, my rep told me what i should do and it worked. I've since been pre-approve for a home loan and we are now i the under writing process. I think it all depends on the rep you get, ours just happen to be pretty good , you do have to kind of stay on them but i would imagine you would want to since this should be something that is very important you.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

mommy2cooper — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 15:46:18 GMT

This program was of no assistance. We did get a call back and set up with the program...we did everything asked, but in the end we never heard another peep form anyone. I did it all on my own.

Re: Unhappy With Veterans United Lighthouse Program- Anyone know about breaking the agreement?

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 00:20:03 GMT

Wow, I am surprised to read the comments about the lighthouse program. I just joined a month ago. My rep had me pay two medical bills and ask to have them removed. They were eventually removed. Now I am working on getting my credit usage down to 20%. What I don't like is that all of my creditors do not regularly update my balances to the credit bureaus and lighthouse sends me a email to say that my balances are not going down despite me throwing about $1000/mo on them. Lighthouse doesn't guarantee preapproval even if you follow everything they tell you to do. I had the Experian fico app on my phone but my score was racing up and down that I couldn't take the anxiety so I deleted it. I never got higher than 609. It went 587 to 609 and now back to 588. I do feel disappointed and I have PTSD too. I am beginning to think I may never make it into a home.