| rev:text
| - I recently had a very positive experience with First Financial Services on my personal residence refi and felt compelled to write a review given the negative feedback I discovered on Yelp.
First let me say that I do not know anybody at First Financial other than the folks I met online while processing my loan. Second, I found First Financial on Zillow, like I suspect some others did. I had never heard of them prior to that. I called or emailed First Financial along with a half dozen others that I found on Zillow. Most got back to me qucikly. First Financial got back to me answering the exact questions that I asked and that wasn't true of all the respondants (I provided my desired loan amount, my LTV, home location, etc. and asked for everyone to give me their 15-year, fully amortizing, no points, no fees rate).
First Financial not only answered my questions but they quoted the lowest rate of those who actually answered my question, 2.75%. So I decided to run with them.
Submitting paperwork online was easy. I'm on the opposite side of the country from them (California) but it was as easy as if they had been down the street.
My loan officer was Michelle Boring and I have nothing but praise for all my interactions with her. After I submitted most of my paperwork, I decided to check on First Finanial on Yelp just to make sure I was dealing with a legit company. Needless to say, I got worried very fast when I read these awful reviews. I called Michelle to express my concerns. She told me to check their web site, she told me the dollar volume of loans they close succesfully each month, and she referred me back to the Zillow reviews. That placated me enough to proceed, but I was cautious.
The quote they provided included about $1,200.00 to cover fees and in the end, that's about exactly what my fees totaled. I did have to pay my second property tax installment with the funding of the loan and while I would have preferred to wait until April, that was no big deal.
On the date I told them I wanted to lock the rate, interest rates had edged up, but after one quick phone call, Michelle was able to get and exception and they locked in my rate at the 2.75% rate that was initially quoted and still operative the day before I locked. Big plus for that.
Once my paperwork was all submitted, I was turned over to a processor, Jane Tsuei. As was the case with Michelle, everything went smoothly through the close of my loan last week. Zero complications, zero headaches. In fact, I was out of town the week they wanted to do my sign-off and not returning until late on 12/23. They re-scheduled the Notary for Christmas Eve to accomodate me. Who works Christmas Eve?
The entire process took less than two months and it couldn't have been any easier.
With that said, I'm sure others are being truthful in recounting their bad experiences. I can't explain why others had such different results. I will say that I made it very easy for First Financial. My loan was a no-brainer for them. My LTV was very low (about 20%), my credit is outstanding, I have almost no debt and my income easily supports the payments. I also submitted every document they asked for and did so promptly, typically following up with an email stating that I had done so. I'm sure not all of their loans are this easy to underwrite.
Certainly can't guarantee you'll have the same experience as me but I wanted to at least let others know that good results can and do happen.
One more thing not that it matters to the process. First Financial sells most or all of their loans. I had a Wells Fargo loan before and they told me that there is about a 50% chance my loan will be sold to Wells.
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