Better Mortgage

There were a couple of hiccups where they would ask me for some documents, and I would have questions regarding those documents, or those documents didn’t apply to me, and they have a space below that request where I could put in my comments or concerns or questions. But that messaging system could be improved a little bit more because it was very vague and it didn't give me all the options I needed.

The rate and terms were also pretty competitive. Better had one page where they had all of the options possible. They give an entire spectrum all the way from closing costs of $8,000 to minus $8,000. They also give an entire range of how does the rate change. They also give a 30-year, 15-year, 10-year, 5/1 ARM, 7/1 ARM. I can just select the rate and closing costs I'm comfortable with and then lock in the rates. That was very beneficial and convenient. I appreciated that a lot.

We shopped around and contacted every mortgage provider for New York City and it was a lot easier to handle and speak to other people. It was a lot more personal and there was a lot more in terms of communication and connection. I had a guy at KeyBank who was handling my mortgage and he gave me a cell number. There was another guy who Zoomed with me and went through the whole process of the mortgage. So, I got a whole lot more information from other people. I'm a first-time homebuyer and they were a lot more ready and willing to be like, “Oh, let me just hold your hand while we do this,” or I ask questions, or I wanna shop around for a formula to figure out the interest rates. Whereas, with Better Mortgage, I have to figure it out for myself.

But the interest rates weren't the same. And a 30-year mortgage with even a 0.01 of difference is enough for me to deal with. So, I went through the assembly line. I'd recommend Better Mortgage but shop around. If Better Mortgage is the place with the cheaper interest rate, then go for that. The loan officer was as helpful as she could be. But there's still limitations to everything that she knew or where we were in the assembly line. The issue was getting to her, whether it was email or trying to call her. ‘Cause sometimes they just don't wanna deal with the email. I would never recommend this to my mother because she'd be lost. She'd have to be more internet-savvy and more used to the emailing. I definitely don't think Better Mortgage is for the older generation but it's better for younger folks. Also, it's not so great for first-time homebuyers. Fortunately, got to have all of my questions answered by other mortgage companies, so I have less reliance on Better.

Better Mortgage was really helpful in trying to figure out what was best for me and the rates were reasonable too. They were very comparable with everything else I looked at. The closing costs seemed a little high compared to a couple of other places that I looked at but it was the better option. I had a good price overall. The process was handled extremely efficiently. The application and underwriting process took a month and a half at the most. I really appreciate how smooth and easy everything was.

Doing something like that, especially for a single person, can be so stressful. I was a little nervous going through the whole approval process and that went perfectly. Every time they needed more information, it was communicated efficiently and I was able to provide the information right away. It was easy to go in online and track where the progress was at. I liked that too. There was a week where I hadn't had any communication and I logged in. I could see that things were still being processed and everything was on track. My one concern is the friend who had referred me said, “I had to go look for how to make my first payment.” But I figured Better Mortgage would let me know.

Better Mortgage assumed that I owned that company. They asked for a ledger on a company that was basic for consulting that I did for a company, and it was very short period. The underwriter was asking for way too much info that did not apply so that made it more complicated. I'm in the tech world so I know how to get around computers, capture files, upload them, and put all this stuff on to the cloud or encrypted data. There are a lot of individuals that could benefit off of the refi through Better Mortgage, but the issue is they don't have the same capabilities. They're not tech-savvy or they don't have the proper equipment for either scanning or converting to PDFs so it's difficult for them on their end.

Better Mortgage could develop a phone app where one could take a picture of documents that they want that would automatically upload it to the specific task that they're looking for. That would make it easier for a lot of people because then they could just get their phone, take a screenshot of the front, maybe of each page of the document, and it upload it to their system that's encrypted.

The rate and terms were one of the best. In some cases, if they could turn around and be a little bit less lenient when somebody wants to consolidate debt, then that would help out also. A lot of times, they look at debt to ratio. But if you pay off the debt, hypothetically, the debt to ratio is going to be a lot better. If they have control over it on their end and say that, "Okay, we're not going to let the client pay off the debt, we're going to pay off the debt," because then they can automatically see that once the debt is paid, the debt to ratio is pretty much within the borrowing limit.

Their process was a superfast one. It was about 25 days from the very start to actual funding. There was one time where it was the only time that they outsourced any portion of the refinance process. But I had to use a third party over the phone verification process where I got on the call with them via a code that was sent to me. Then they called my, at the time, current lender to verify all of the data and the numbers from my current lender. I don't know why they had to do that, but that was the most frustrating process. I was speaking to the same person the whole time. Having to deal with an outsourced third party didn't go too well.

Better Mortgage tries and steers you towards appointments on the website. Pretty much anytime you have an issue, there's a button on the screen you're looking at that says, “Do you have an issue?” When you click it, they try and get you to set up an appointment with somebody. I never did that. I personally use the chat feature on the specific problem I had, and they responded so quickly. Then, if I felt like it was something to worry, then I would just give my individual person. She was great from top to bottom. She responded to my calls within super reasonable amount of time. It was 20 minutes mostly which I think is awesome for an industry with such a high workload.

I liked how Better Mortgage let me waive the appraisal. That really saved us a lot of time. We were able to use the value provided by home websites like Zillow in order to get the value of the house. When I was having problems trying to apply because I didn't know the value of my house needs to be a lot more than the amount that I'm trying to refinance, someone reached out to me and told me that this is what we needed to do. So, I was able to apply right away.

The process was a little bit over a month because there were some things that needed to be done. We had to pay off a lien and it took a long time for that to be cleared. Other than that the rep was good. He worked with me on a lot of things like adjusting the closing date for us to be able to cover the closing costs and a bunch of other things. It was a positive experience all around. I don't know where else we could have gotten a good rate or such an easy way to apply. I would go with Better Mortgage again in the future if we need it.