You’ve been through the long and tedious process of finding your perfect home… You’ve made an offer, it’s been accepted, and now it’s time to apply for a mortgage. Who do you turn to?
There are many banking options when it comes to mortgages and when it comes to selecting the right banking partner to help you get your dream home. There are many things to consider. The most notable are the interest rate, the length of the loan, the closing costs, etc.
However, one thing I’ve learned after buying a few properties is that the bank you select should be a real consideration. Although banks aggressively try to get your business, once you select a bank, the tides begin to turn, and that once friendly and understanding bank suddenly becomes very difficult to deal with.
That is, if you select the wrong institution…
Once the process has started, switching to a new bank can be an expensive decision and shady banks know this. The moving process would be a hassle for all other parties involved, such as your real estate agent and title company. Also, if you were to switch after just a few weeks, you may have to pay a significantly higher interest rate if interest rates rise.
You do not want that! Therefore, choosing the right company from the beginning is essential so that you can access your dream home in the best possible way.
I learned this the hard way when I decided to get a mortgage from AmeriSave. After going through this process with other mortgage companies, even in late 2008 after the financial crisis, I had a reasonable understanding of how the mortgage process worked.
But I had an unfortunate wake-up call just weeks into my AmeriSave mortgage experience. From my perspective, the banking company pressured me just for sport. It seemed that they almost enjoyed making my life a living nightmare. Making me struggle to obtain documents that were difficult to acquire. The fact that they are asking me for some of these documents is absurd…
What kind of documents could I request?
First it was the number of documents. At first, it was 10, then 20, when I finally thought I was done, I had 10 more, then another 10. In total, when I finally completed the process, I had to send between 50 and 60 documents.
Some of the strangest include:
- Current year K-1 tax documents for stocks you no longer even owned. He did not have them and, unlike other documents, tracking them down proved extremely difficult. In the end, I found out that those documents didn’t even exist. I then had to provide proof if none existed.
- I had to chase down one of the HOA bills for my rental property. This shouldn’t have been a big deal, since I provided AmeriSave with the document initially, but it turned out that the HOA bill I provided was from the previous quarter, and that wasn’t good enough. I had to get the HOA bill for the current quarter even though it was the same dollar amount.
- Since my wife had sent me a gift to help me purchase the property, AmeriSave wanted my partner’s bank statement. No big deal, I ordered it and received it. Unfortunately, they also required him to provide his other bank accounts which were NOT part of the gift. Why does someone who is not on loan have to provide bank accounts that have nothing to do with the loan? My partner was reluctant and for good reason. What business is AmeriSave in to demand to see someone’s private bank accounts that are not connected to the loan and not on loan? Good thing they didn’t ask for my mother’s bank accounts!
- AmeriSave also asked me to contact my accountant and write a letter stating that my business was currently active. This seemed like it didn’t make much sense for a number of reasons. For one thing, I had been in business for almost 20 years and just gave them a new tax return. Did they think I would dissolve my business? Second, my accountant only does my annual return, so he doesn’t have any first-hand knowledge of my business other than what’s on my tax return, which AmeriSave already had. Finally, they had already provided that my business was active by providing real-time statements showing business receipts. So they can see with their first-hand eyes that the money was coming into the company. So why did they want me to contact the third party that had less information than them and begged that they would create a document for me? It’s one thing to make me chase documents. Still, it’s even more complicated when I have to go to a third party and ask them to create a document, especially when that third party doesn’t have first-hand knowledge of the information AmeriSave wants them to provide. Why would that matter when they see that the business makes money? It would be like demanding a copy of a document when you already have the original.
It took some time, but after completing all the requirements, I finally got a Certified Loan Approval that was good for eight weeks! That shouldn’t have been a problem because the loan would close in four weeks. I worked hard to get everything they needed, including begging other parties to give me personal information or creating letters for me to get certified approval before we lost our escrow money.
He was ready…or was he?
A week before closing, AmeriSave sends me another huge list of requirements! What? Oh no! Wasn’t it already certified? Is the official document that I received that certified me not real? Do I have to start this painful process all over again? Why did you wait almost three weeks to tell me that I would have to do this all over again?
The first time I went through this process it was pretty stressful, but now I’ve given my landlord 30 days notice and sold half my belongings in preparation for moving. I did this because I was confident in the fact that it was certified.
Now we have another massive list of absurd new requirements, even though they are already certified.
- AmeriSave wanted a release and waiver document from my broker. When I asked him, his response was, “Hahaha. I can honestly say I’ve never been asked that by a lender before.”
- AmeriSave wanted me to provide a lease for my rental property because it wasn’t on my tax return… The problem was it was on my tax return. Stop wasting my time!
- They wanted a copy of the deposit check. The problem was that we paid by transfer and they already have the transfer documents. You are idiot?
- They want another letter from my accountant that my business is active. So now I have to contact my accountant again and ask them to write the same letter that he wrote three weeks ago?
It’s like AmeriSave is forcing me to do things for the sake of forcing me to do things. Frankly, I called and emailed my loan originator, trying to find out what was going on, asking him to call me as soon as possible. I did not receive any return phone calls. Instead, I received a short, dismissive email saying that I had been pre-approved, but now some things need to be updated.
However, that is not the case! I had an official certified loan approval that was good for a specific amount and good for eight weeks. I sent him another email asking him to get back to me as soon as possible, and with only a week to go, I think it was warranted, but no response.
I ended up missing my closing date because my loan was not approved. Once again, they wanted more documents. I missed the second closing date because they still took a long time to approve me.
The worst part is that when they don’t approve the loan on the due date, they delay the process. When the process is delayed, many of the documents that were submitted now become obsolete. So now they demand new documents again.
Wait… So I have to get new documents now because you didn’t do your job on time?
In the end, I must have submitted 120-140 different documents and didn’t miss out on two closing dates, finally closing right on the third deadline after complaining to AmeriSave management about my loan officer having no sense of urgency .
I was lucky enough to barely get out of one of the most stressful situations of my life when salespeople threatened to pull out, thus missing my third installment.
In the end, it worked out fine, but I can tell you that I would never work with AmeriSave again. My warning to all homebuyers, unless you want to deal with a lot of extra stress and a bank that doesn’t care about their customers’ closing dates, stay away from AmeriSave.
