Once our bid was accepted on the Mercury home we had to set up a mortgage. Within 24 hours we went from casually looking for a rental to buy to having a bid accepted on one.
So the next 48 hours were spent gathering paper work, signing forms, and faxing/emailing documents to the mortgage company our realtor suggested to us. He'd worked with Citibank before and got us in contact with someone there.
This was our mistake. We should have gotten pre-approved for a loan beforehand and been prepared to move forward on a mortgage application with the bank of our choice. Since we'd heard of Citibank (who hasn't?) we felt fine working with them.
Ultimately, everything went through fine. However, the process was a royal pain in the ass.
I couldn't believe how many documents they wanted from us for a small mortgage loan. We were putting down $21.5k so our loan was only for $63.5k. Plenty of cars cost more than that.
But god forbid I didn't get them an official document that said our $400.00 a year HOA fees were paid. And exactly WHAT is that suspicious $3000 deposit we made a couple weeks ago??? Written and signed proof please!
Ask Jesse or my friends what I thought of the loan application process. I'm sure they'll tell you of the many f-bombs I threw around. At one point I was near ready to tell Citibank to kiss my ass if they wanted any more documents from us. I faxed hundreds of pages to them over the course of 3 weeks. Oh, they also had to call my boss to get a verbal confirmation that I work where I work. Twice.
The people I directly spoke and worked with at Citibank were very nice, thankfully. It's not their fault their company requires such dumb shit. Their whole process can eat a dick, though. Can you tell we won't be using them again? =P
It was finally all approved, though, and we had our closing date! We'd be closing on
Goddamnit, Citibank.
Unfortunately your experience is typical for banks these days. They are all really gunshy after the mortgage crash and make you jump through a lot of hoops. I've had better luck with local credit unions. They seem less inclined to have blanket requirements and more interested in the big picture and if it's a good investment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right. And I understand that after the crash things are going to be a bit different, but man that didn't make it easier. haha
ReplyDeleteI've heard good things about local credit unions so we may try that next time. Thanks!