Smarter Mortgages

Beware of Smarter Mortgages. Zillow reviews are terribly misleading. Go wih Unilocal reviews.
Their business model is as follows (based on my botched refinance experience): they attract you with low APR. Then they take a long time to ask for documents and to process them (they work for Chase, so there is a long delay, they claim). Then they will not correspond with you for weeks, let your lock period expire, then get back to you with a new, higher, rate and closing costs. If you refuse to pay, you will be stuck with paying more than $ 400 for appraisal. And yes, about appraisal – I think they and their appraisal company has some understanding. My appraisal came at least $ 100k lower. Which also allowed Smarter Mortgages to ask for a higher rate.

Smarter Mortgages may be able to get you a low rate but the process is excruciating. I’ve been a homeowner for about 9 years now and this is not my first refinance. I know the difference between an smooth refinance and a torturous one.
I was referred by a friend whose refinance with Smarter Mortgages went smoothly and quickly. I guess some people get lucky with them but not me. I would definitely NOT recommend Smarter Mortgages to anyone. I started the refinance process in March. By the last week in June I was still waiting for my servicing rights to transfer so I could make my July 1^st payment on the new mortgage.
Be ready to deal with multiple people. You may be asked to sign and send in the same paperwork by multiple people at multiple different times. Expect miscommunications and in some instances, lack of communication. You will need to be ON TOP of your own deadlines because they won’t be. Be prepared to check in often, send many emails and make multiple phone calls. Expect disorganization from beginning to end.
Another annoyance is that I was required to pay the title company with a wire transfer (they would not accept a check). That in itself is not Smarter Mortgages’ fault, but I was told by Smarter Mortgages that I’d be reimbursed for the $ 35 wire transfer fee. Afterwards I was not reimbursed. I asked about it several times. They ignored me and I never got the $ 35 back. I know that’s not a lot of money, but it’s the icing on the shit filled cake that is dealing with Smarter Mortgages. Never again.

I just completed a refi through Smartermortgages (working with Jeff Kuhn), got a great rate, and had no problems. It did take about 60 days, but with a refi I was in no hurry and they honored the rate lock even though rates had gone up in the mean time. I’ll call Jeff again if rates ever go even lower.

Two months later. No satisfaction. No apology — in fact they refused to refund my $ 500.00 loan fee even though they admit they failed to provide s loan.
You are a fool to deal with these people. They are in bed with Zillow (who they pay) and Zillow protects them, even refused to allow me to write a truthful review on their site. Swipe left!

Let me start off by saying I’m a business professional and coming up on 40 years old. This is the worst experience I’ve had with a company in 39 years of life. Unilocal really needs to offer 0 stars as an option. I’m terribly upset giving them credit for anything. If you’ve ever read a review and heeded a warning RUN! I’ve owned 4 homes and refinanced 3 times now and this company should not be in business. They are either terribly understaffed or their inside staff is completely inept. They don’t return calls or emails, waited until 3 days before our closing to ask for additional information when I had been emailing them for months asking if they needed anything, told us the day of our closing our closing costs of almost $ 5000 that needed to be paid within 3 days. I could go on and on. The best part of dealing with them is I know, no matter how hard I try I’m the rest of my years, I will never find a company I like less. I sincerely hope they write a rebuttal. I’d actually like to take them to court if I had them time. I have no reason to bash this company, I gave them every opportunity and the failed over and over. RUN! Pay an extra point. Don’t go through what I did. This is the first review I’ve ever written and probably my last. I just want to save anyone I can the months of pain I experienced. Smarter mortgages needs to hire some smarter manager and stop taking on more loans than the staff can handle. (this was managements excuse to me by the way)

We started talking to them about a refinancing a property of ours in the end of November 2014/​the beginning of December 2014. I was in contact with their Senior Mortgage Manager, who later on started to sign her email as the VP of the company. She assured me how trustworthy they were and I was informed about their guaranteed closing date thing. A closing date was never set for us. They locked the rate for less than 30-​day period, which made me think they knew what they were doing and felt confident we can close in that time frame. During those 2 months when I was trying to work with them, they have been giving me only excuses of not doing the job. Also, we did get an email from the president and CEO in the beginning of the process. It was about their honest approach, saying we can contact him with any comments and concerns. I sent him an email a week ago. He totally ignored it and failed to acknowledge it in any way. After initiating the process, we quickly submitted the documents they asked for. Their underwriter asked for a few additional documents and after receiving them, on January 2, 2015 their Client Manager informed us she was awaiting the review, and we’d know «something» (?!?) in the next couple of days. Time passed by and there was no news. On January 8, 2015, I contacted that Client Manager asking for the status of the file, and she said she hadn’t gotten the review back, and she gave me her «word» (I felt I was in second grade instead of communicating on a professional level with a business representative) she’d contact me when she got news. That never happened. On January 15, 2015, I contacted her again, saying it looked like something is not right on their side when an underwriter fails to review a few documents in a 2-​week period. I informed her that at that point we were considering another lender because of not wanting to loose more money waiting on Smarter Mortgages to do the job. She did not respond at all. The VP emailed me with bunch of excuses and the ambiguous response that we «might be getting a second underwriting opinion in about a week». It just did not make sense: what did the underwriter say? Did he need more documents? Did he approve or disapproved the file? Were we getting a second underwriter opinion or not? We just kept waiting (hey, we got the VP’s word!) … and loosing money. Finally, we couldn’t put up with their negligence anymore, and on January 27, 2015, I emailed the president, who was that nice to offer his help with any of our concerns and comments in the very beginning, and informed him that from my experience with working with numerous lenders in the past, it wasn’t acceptable to wait more than 3 weeks to hear back from an underwriter, and after contacting his staff on regular basis nothing moved on. I asked for refund so we could go to a different lender and stop loosing money. The president never responded. P. S. That so called Client Manager of ours sent an email 10 minutes later that day, asking for more than 15 additional documents needed from the underwriter. BTW a document she emailed and asked us to sign was dated the end of last year, which is another proof they were sitting on their hands instead of moving forward the paperwork. Out of decency, I replied letting her know we already contacted their president (like she didn’t know that) informing him we were couldn’t work with them after all that did not happen. She had no courtesy to say anything as a response. Neither the VP had. Out of the blue, some Mortgage Manager ASSISTANT, that had been CCed on their emails to me, jumped into my monologue, and asked how she could help and speed up the process?!? Really? You had nothing to say for a month, and now, after we cut it off, you offered help?

We used Smarrter Mortgage to refi our home in Texas. Best transaction I have had in years — great communications — even after business hours. Not sure why Unilocal give it 1 star … makes no sence. I used Zillow as my reference — as usually I was very skeptical — but had a great result. All good.

I recently attempted to refinance a home mortgage through Fearon Financial, a brokerage firm in Ohio. I refinanced through Fearon last year and, although the process was slow, the 2012 refinancing occurred without incident. This year, however, when I sought refinance again Fearon’s appraiser used a very different appraisal standard from what was used in 2012. The new appraisal standard led to a significant reduction in square footage, number of rooms, and number of bathrooms. Indeed, the 2012 appraisal included another story, two more rooms, 600 more square feet and an extra bathroom. The new appraisal standards, naturally led to severe reduction in the value of the home. The value dropped by over $ 40,000 from the 2012 appraisal to the 2013 appraisal. I assumed that since Fearon did not raise any concern about the 2012 appraisal that a similar standard would be applied in 2013. Indeed, had I known Fearon would use a different appraisal standard I would never have gone ahead with the refinancing contract. But I did go ahead with the contract under the assumption Fearon and their contracted appraiser would use the same standards. The new appraisal came too low for us to qualify for refinancing without using private mortgage insurance. Yet, Fearon Financial Corporation passed the cost of the new appraisal along to me. As a result, I was charged $ 467 for the appraisal, absorbed the cost of dealing with this, and did not get our home refinanced. Again, had I known Fearon would use a different standard I would not have gone ahead with the contract. If Fearon Financial believed the 2012 appraisal was incorrect then the company had an obligation to share that with me. Alternatively, if they believe the 2013 is incorrect they have an obligation to cover the cost of the appraisal since they advertise that they will cover the cost of appraisals when refinancing occurs. Stay away from Fearon.