I chose to work with Michael Pennington because he had great reviews on Zillow's mortgage marketplaces and because he had the best rate by far -- for the same 3.625% rate he charged about $3500 less in closing costs than another recommended lender.
But in the end it was a mixed bag.
The good:
1. The rate really is fantastic
2. Mike was very responsive early in the process
3. The deal (miraculously) closed on time
The bad:
The main issue I had was that communication from Mike's end degraded as the deal proceeded. He works with an assistant, Christy, who regularly took 1-2 days to respond to my messages, if she replied at all. Towards the end of the deal several additional people were thrown into the mix -- an underwriter, a closing department, etc. It felt like they were playing hot potato with my loan, and nobody was responsible for making sure it all went through.
There were a couple of specific hiccups at the end that nearly caused us to miss our closing date.
The first hiccup had to do with IRS forms. I provided our 2009 and 2010 returns, but the underwriter also wanted our 2011 returns, and he wanted the "processed" version from the IRS. Apparently the IRS takes 6-8 weeks to process your returns, even after they deposit your check, and there's no way to speed this up. My returns weren't ready yet and they would not be ready until 1-2 weeks after our designated closing date. For starters, it seems a little nuts to require these forms right after tax season, when they likely aren't ready yet (it's like the tax season and the peak home-buying season are perfectly aligned to screw as many home buyers as possible). But mostly I'm annoyed that this wasn't flagged as a potential issue much earlier in the process. It wasn't until the week of closing that we realized it was a problem, which lead to a lot of stress and countless hours on the phone with everyone, even the IRS.
The second hiccup had to do with title and escrow. From what I gather, in Washington state it's common for the same company to provide both title and escrow services, but in North Carolina (where Mike is located) this is not the norm. This caused a lot of confusion. The lender made a last-minute request to do a "sub-escrow", which added an extra fee to the HUD, and then the lender balked at this surprise fee and asked to have it removed. It was all very chaotic. Even after I signed all the closing documents it wasn't clear that it would all "close" (get recorded) on time.
There were other issues too. The Good Faith Estimate that Mike provided is expected to be within 10% of the final price, and in the end it was about 10.5% off. I asked for the homeowners insurance to not be escrowed and in the end it was. etc. All of these things are secondary to the stuff mentioned above, especially the poor communication.