If you've gotten a mortgage recently, how was your overall experience?

I have gotten several mortgage loans, and most recently, we refinanced our primary residence and are now in the process of refinancing our rental house.

The worst thing about it is the long wait between each step. You fill out the application forms, wait, get the appraisal, wait, receive the initial best estimate of closing costs, (which barely resembles the final cost), wait, and eventually, when you get to escrow, there are over a dozen document to READ and sign. My husband reads every word, and asks questions about the parts that aren’t clear. It takes about two hours. I always have a snack before we go, and take a water bottle with me.

I went directly to a mortgage banker last time I refinanced and it was painless. He did all the work, paid all the closing costs and I only had to pay the appraisal fee.

If you are going for your first mortgage just plan to give all your financial information and then some. It keeps you on pins and needles until you close. If you are buying a condo they also look at the financial stability of the HOA as well. Good luck if you are going to buy a home.

When we renegotiated our mortgage with HSBC the lawyer was totally unprofessional. He was over four hours late. He lied and blamed it on traffic. We checked traffic along with the Tittle person there was none. People like him earn my total disrespect.

I just closed on my first home. It was pretty easy. I worked with a real estate agent who’s been in business for over 15 years, and who was referred by my wife’s boss, long time friends from church.

She then referred us to the mortgage person and title person we ended up using. It was super simple. All we had to do was provide financial statements (W-2’s, pay stubs, etc) and they took care of the rest.

It was a little more costly that way, but it was worth the peace of mind. As long as you can follow simple directions (such as ‘send me a copy of your driver license since your address changed), and comply within a timely manner, it’s pretty automated on your part!

Even with “complications,” like the fact that my wife had some dings on her credit due to past student loan issues . . . the mortgage person took care of it with the bank issuing the loan, all we had to do was explain to her why it was what it was in a couple sentences.

They do all the bean counting and paper pushing, you simply check and read the documents for accuracy and keep yourself in the know, so you don’t get ripped off, and sign on the dotted line.

Good luck!!!

I got a mortgage a year ago and though the process was relatively easy because of our stellar credit rating, I was taken aback by all the new regulations and sheer volume of paper work. The loan doc was the size of a phone book! 3 times the work involved than my last mort. 7 years ago. Plus the debt to coverage ratios were tighter and I had to provide more evidence of collateral this time out.