| rev:text
| - I really want to be able to recommend Stearns Lending, but alas I cannot. We initiated an application for pre qualification on a nonconforming loan around March 1. We are 2 years and 7 months past a foreclosure with extenuating circumstances, but aside from the foreclosure itself, we are great candidates for a loan. Today is April 12th and the application package has gone through every step except approval from the Director of the Exceptions department. I've been given various dates by which we would know, including the promise that approval was imminent that day or the next day at the latest. Every deadline has passed. The app has been with the Director of the Exceptions department for at least two weeks and he won't respond to calls or emails from from the agent of this local branch that has been trying to help us. While I'm sure it's not her fault, if Stearns' own agents are powerless to move an application through the machine of this bank over 6 weeks, you should take your business elsewhere.
Will edit this review if we ever get a response.
UPDATE 5/30/13
Shortly after I wrote the above review, we contacted another lender who gave us a prequalification letter within 48 hours. To Amy Battin's credit, she provided us with a copy of our file so we could do it a little faster. With that lender's prequal letter, we went shopping for houses and found one we liked within a few weeks. While we were looking, I stopped calling Amy every week for updates. We had sort of given up on Stearns by then. After a couple of weeks of no calls, she contacted my husband to say that another lender might be able to help because they had recently changed the guidelines to requiring only two years following a foreclosure to approve a loan. Just so we might have options, we resubmitted updated information and let the process with Stearns continue.
Once we had an accepted offer on the property, I emailed Amy to say essentially that it was now or never. She emailed back with another positive response "I might be receiving a loan approval for you!" and requested the purchase price and adress on the property. No approval came. What did come was a private email on May 15 titled "Yelp Review". Apparently another potential customer made her aware of my review and had chosen to take their business elsewhere. She was unhappy and although none of the review was factually inaccurate, she wished I hadn't posted it. Coincidentally, on that same day, "Shania N." became a member of Yelp and posted a glowing 5 star review of this company. "Shania N." has only posted one review and I suspect that she was created to boost their star rating.
Two days later, we received a final email declining us on the loan. That decision came 10 weeks after we initiated an application for a mortgage loan through Stearns. We close on the house today through another lender.
***Although I felt I thoroughly explained that we are NOT a typical straightforward loan candidate, Amy Battin felt that it was not clear and even unfair for me to post a review based on our experience. She vehemently maintains that our case is not representative of her usual performance. This is probably true for good candidates without a foreclosure/bankruptcy/short sale or similar mark on their credit report.
PROS: Amy was very positive, was a pleasure to talk to and always responded to phone calls and emails within a day. In some weird way, if she hadn't made me believe early on that we were great candidates and that this could totally be done and kept giving us hope week after week, I would have given up and waited until we hit the 3 year mark to apply for a loan instead of approaching another lender. Also, Amy did say that she really went to bat for us arguing our case and calling daily to the people who were in charge of making the decision.
CONS: It's never a good thing to overpromise and underdeliver. We heard a lot of "we'll hear by X day" and once even told with excitement that our approval was impending by the end of the day (just gotta get with some guy who's in a meeting) and then no one called back that day or the next. I just think 10 weeks is too long to get a denial.
Upon consideration of the whole experience and given that we ultimately did get a loan because Ms. Battin said it was possible, I probably would have bumped this review up to two stars, but since I strongly suspect that "Shania N." is a plant given the timing of her review and lack of review history, I'm going to stick with my one star.
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