I was ready to buy a house in fall 2003. After doing research, I contacted Homeloancenter.com for my mortgage. I was pre-approved right away for a no-money down loan with an 80/20 loan. I locked in the rate of 5.5% on the first loan with a $600 lock deposit (charged to my bank's checkcard). I was told that it would be put against closing. Michael Park gave me a 5.5% on the first loan and a 7.5% on the second loan. Our P&I payment was approx. $700 (plus $141 in ins and tax for a total monthly payment of $841). I asked him to send me the paperwork and began looking for a house (we were pre-approved up to $125,000).
On September 20 we made an offer on a house ($114,900). We signed the purchase contract and I contacted Michael Park the following business day. He asked me to fax him the purchase contract and he would begin the loan paperwork. After two weeks, I had not heard back from him (nor had he returned my calls). I spoke with his manager, Gabriel Lubutti, he promised me he would get this taken care of immediately.
I finally heard back from Gabriel, but there were some problems with my loan.in order to do an 80/20, my first loan interest rate would be 6.5% and my second loan interst rate was over 11%. Or, we could take a 7% on the total loan and pay PMI. Our payment, regardless of which way we went, was going to be over almost $1,200 per month! I asked him about the rate lock that I had paid for and he said it was not worth anything, because Michael had incorrectly pre-approved us and that I WAS MISTAKEN IF I THOUGHT THE RATE LOCK MEANT ANYTHING! This was 3 WEEKS before closing!
I called Gabriel's manager, and the president of the company. The only person that returned my calls was the president's asst (we'll look into this, I promise). Meanwhile, I contacted a local KC company [ (AmeriFirst Mortgage - THEY ARE AWESOME), who locked us in (no fee required)] and they were able to help us meet our closing and the rate was lower than the original terms of Homeloancenter.
However, I was still out $600 from Homeloanscamcenter. I contacted them yet again, and they told me that they could not refund my $600 if I did not close my loan with them. This was crap and I informed them that I would report them to the BBB and the FTC (which I did). I finally got my $600 back. I wish I had done my homework first on Homeloancenter, because after the miserable experience, I found out lots of other people were in the same boat. STAY AWAY FROM HOMELOANCENTER!!! Oh and I did not receive the GFE until 2 WEEKS AFTER I was "pre-approved".
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