Overall, The Mortgage Firm's paperwork was good, even the title company noted that everything was prepared perfectly and the paperwork package was small. Funds were disbursed in a timely fashion. However, from day one with TMF, we had nothing but poor communication and issues. First, TMF is happy to let you think they're a mortgage broker when they're not. We asked for a broker, were provided with their information, did some research and found nothing but 5-star reviews (red flag #1), and came across lots of wording that make them sound like a broker. However, they never actually call themselves a broker and when we pressed them on this during the closing process, they never said "we are not a broker." They also moved forward with several typos on our application even after we pointed out that we found mistakes.
After we provided our pre-approval information, they compiled a loan application. After a week or so into the closing process, we start getting email after email requesting us to explain inconsistencies and typos...well we never typed that information in and we expect that TMF transcribed the information that we provided into an application package with errors. We were very confused when they kept asking why we wrote what we wrote in the application when we never completed the application itself.
About one week in, they provided us with an interest-rate-lock at 4.99% which we thought was high, but they assured us that this was merely an upper limit, so we signed. We expected them to shop around for interest rate options for us but they didn't, since they have a lender-partner that they work exclusively with. As we got closer to closing we called Chris Kidder to explain our frustration and understand when we'd find out what our mortgage options were and he spent the next 30 minutes deflecting the conversation. We never received an answer other than "your mortgage will be sold and the interest rate will never be above 4.99%." In fact the interest rate they pressured us to sign off on and led us to believe was the upper limit is exactly what we got, there was no shopping around, and doing as much as research online and in person as possible led us to believe that we grossly overpaid.
The mortgage rate and fee experience caused us to nearly back out of the entire transaction. However we thought that by this time in the closing process it was too late to shop around for different lenders. So we ended up being pigeon-holed into one interest rate option at the last minute--2 weeks from closing, when we were expecting to be evaluating interest rate and fee options. Every communication with TMF was confusing and frustrating.
TMF also took it upon themselves to make decisions on our behalf. All we wanted to do was look at the various interest rate and fee options and make the decision that we were comfortable with---either a higher rate with lower fees or a lower rate with higher fees. We repeatedly requested this information from Chris, including with follow-up emails, and they were ignored. In the end, they "decided" on a higher rate and no up-front fees on our behalf. Email after email and phone call on this matter was ignored.
Two key conversation points, in hindsight, were big red flags:
1. When we pressed Chris about the interest rate/fee options and when we'd see them, he said that we should review introductory materials that they provided for us at the beginning. But these are extremely vague and misleading. The "lending process" diagram was more like marketing material and didn't actually specify when we'd be receive an interest rate. We couldn’t believe that we were being directed to a marketing slide when we were asking incredibly important and intricately-detailed questions.
2. When we asked who their lender partner was, Chris told us that the loan originates with them and would be sold right away...of course, that's how this all works. But then he said "well they might keep yours." Yes, of course they might, we're extremely low-risk borrowers paying a very high interest rate! Who wouldn't hold that investment?! In the end, it was sold right away, and we’re sure that TMF made a lot of money off of us as a great product with low risk and a high revenue stream. We’d expect that to be enough revenue for them, but they went ahead and sold our contact information too and now we are inundated with marketing spam too.
Needless to say, communication was extremely poor overall. Sure, they called us and emailed us many times. But half of it was unnecessary and the other half was misleading and deceptive. Now a few weeks after closing, we still can't tell you if TMF did right by us or not because we didn't have the opportunity to shop around nor have our questions answered.