I've thought about how to write this review for quite a while, because I had (what I felt) was a particularly rocky escrow – yet Denise and her team are also some of the best people I’ve met, and they really went above and beyond to overcome the challenges.
So, although I would like to report that everything went smoothly, I can't – but ultimately, I think maybe that's OK. Because the true test of a person isn't how well they handle the routine, it's how they respond to adversity. And in the case of Denise and Reliant Bank, I think they responded extremely well and I can honestly say that I would highly recommend Denise, and would do business with her again.
First I need to say that Denise is simply amazing. She knows her stuff, but probably more importantly, she's just a genuinely good, sweet person who sincerely cares about her customers, which shows through her actions, patience and the amount of time she spends with them.
So here's the story:
I first spoke with Denise about a month before we went into escrow for my home. I spoke with many loan officers at that time, but felt the strongest rapport with Denise. She continued to reach out during my home search, but in a non-invasive way, and was always available to answer my questions. So when I went to contract, the decision to go with Denise was pretty easy.
Unfortunately, we had a couple of miscommunications early in the loan process, and while trying to recover from them an error was made internally at the bank. As a result, the terms of the original loan I was locked into were extremely poor compared to what I was qualified for. To make things worse, the lock happened at the same time I was having issues with the purchase itself (the appraisal came in too low, seller didn't want to do repairs, etc.).
To try to correct the error, Denise went to a highly placed executive at the bank (a very nice guy named Sam) who, with the bank owner's approval, was able to make a massive exception to buy the interest rate back down as much as they could.
Throughout the process (before and after the lock) Denise was in touch with me basically every day, often multiple times per day. She usually responded to emails within an hour - at ANY time of day or night - and it never took more than a few hours unless she was sleeping (which she doesn't seem to do often! lol). And on numerous occasions throughout this process, I spoke with Denise late into the night, often 8 or 9pm her time and she would be in the office - usually specifically working on my loan.
Still, by the time we got everything squared away, there were only 2 1/2 business days left till close. For my particular situation, I was able to close one day late - but even closing two days late would have cost me thousands of dollars extra which I didn’t have, and would have also created some other very significant problems (I'll skip the detail but say that the problems would have been big enough to possibly kill the deal).
In those final 2 1/2 days, Denise and her team worked what seemed to be around the clock, and were able to finalize the loan, get the clear to close, send loan docs AND fund - which made it possible for my escrow company to close on the final day possible for me. This may not sound like much (it wouldn’t have to me, a month ago) – but it was a feat which seemed to truly amaze the escrow company and several others who did not believe the bank could do it that fast.
Anyway, the bottom line here is that EVERY business has the occasional outlier, the customer whose experience doesn't go as smoothly as it should. I happened to be that customer this time - but Denise and her team went the extra mile (and two and three) to ensure that everything worked out in the end.
Moving forward, I would have no concerns that such an error would occur again. Everyone I worked with at the bank was highly competent and knowledgeable, and I believe that this was the rare and random exception to the rule. But perhaps more importantly, I know that if something WERE to happen it would be handled with the utmost care. And that, to me, is worth a lot!
In closing let me say thanks to Denise, Sam, and all of the underwriters who I never met but who I suspect worked some awfully late nights to close this loan on time despite all of the challenges we encountered!