We first contacted Home Marketing Services, HMS, around October. This is a company that has the credit repair, realtors, and loan officers all in one building, your one stop shop. I signed up for the credit repair, which cost 350.00, and were told we needed to wait a while before being able to buy our house.
HMS CONTACTED US around March of 05 and told us we were ready to start looking. We first met with Maria and told her that we wanted a new house, but did not want to have payments more than a $1000.00/month. We went to a Pulte development and picked out a house. It was 135,000. I asked Maria if it was going to be too much, she assured me that it wouldn't and that we would get a refund in our taxes to pay the property taxes. We picked out all the carpet, tile, brick, etc..
The next day I contacted Kent, the loan officer, from HMS and asked him what the payments will be, he said around 1300.00/month. I told him that was too much and we could not afford it.
We decided to buy a used house and met with Brent. We found our perfect house and paid a $500.00 earnest money check. We also paid Brent, 50.00 for the sellers for our waiting period and he told us that we would need to give Kent a check for 350.00 for an appraisal fee, which would not be cashed.
We met with Kent the next day and he entered our information and took our paystubs and bank statements. He told us that he was unsure of how things looked until he got the full credit reports and looked everything over, which should be in about 48 hours. We wrote him a check for 350.00, appraisal fee, 70.00 application fee and left.
A couple of days later we talked to Kent and asked him how everything looked. He said it looked good. Our scores were in the low 600 and everything should be a go.
We then started speaking to Susie Lewis, Kent's assistant, who told me we needed to get the house inspected and get insurance. I told her that I did not want to get this done unless we were a 100% approved. She said "Everything looks great and I see no problems." She informed me that they were going to get the house appraised and we needed to get it inspected. I asked her are you going to cash the check for the appraisal fee "no, we won't it just stays in your file." We were coming up on our last day to ask for any repairs and to get the house inspected. I told Brent that I wasn't going to do anything until I was sure we were approved and since Susie and Kent assured me we were then I would get the house inspected. That cost me 275.00.
Our first closing date was set for 6/20 and on 6/16 Susie called and said we needed to get copies of our rent checks. I told her that "we did not have copies of them and it would take 7-14 days to get them in. Should I order them or what do I need to do?" She assured me that I didn't need them. On 6/20 she called and said she was going to have to send our papers to another lender. On 6/23 Kent called and said that he was going to need to send it to a third lender. On 6/25 Brent called and said that the SELLERS would have a loan officer that could help us. We spoke to loan officer that the seller's realtor suggested and she pulled our credit. She called on 6/28 and said that just by looking at our credit there was no way we would be approved without putting 5% down. She also said our scores were in the high 500's. I asked her why we were told we could be approved and she said "I don't know why they told you that, I could tell just by looking at your credit reports that there was no way of being approved without putting at least 5% down."
On 6/29, HMS deposited our 350.00 check.
This is the first house that we have ever tried to buy and we knew nothing about the process. HMS has sold many houses and should know without a doubt what information we would have needed and if we were going to be approved. We have been cheated out of so much money (1595.00). We were lied to, as well as the seller, who moved out of their house, and we were taken advantage of. I have called many times requesting the refund of our money (1200.00) and have not received any phone calls back. I will not recommend there services to anyone and will never use them again. They have wasted our time and money and I have never felt so cheated about anything in my life.
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