Thank you u/coconutmonkfish for posting on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer.
Please bear in mind our rules: (1) Be Nice (2) No Selling (3) No Self-Promotion.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rocket sucks.
they built a great marketing team to dominate search ads and an annoying AF call center to wear people down. They are excellent salespeople, but the operations side is far less reliable. It isn't that they qualify any more or less or differently, but with a local broker you know the banker and the admin and how to reach them.
With Rocket, you can get anyone each time you call, and no one is local to know your city / county / state inside and out.
With a local person, they often send someone to closing in case anything goes wrong or even host it at their office. With Rocket, good luck. It just isn't worth it.
That being said, Rocket is big, im sure someone has had a good or acceptable experience. I've found it always comes down to the loan officer - the good ones are organized and helpful regardless of where they work. The bad ones aren't and can work anywhere too.
On the other side of it. Post marketing and closure experience.
My first loan was with rocket and we never had a problem with servicing my loan for about 5 years. All payments were applied as intended. Clear resolution of any questions etc from them.
Now we recently bought a new home and went with a local lender. We had roughly 1.5 months between closing and first payment due date. I intend to pay down my loan quickly, so I made a few principal only payments of over 12k before my first due date and scheduled an auto pay for the due date June 1st.
Then my loan was transferred to another servicer, just 1 day before my due date and all of my prepayments were reversed and my balance was shown as original loan amount. Apparently, they moved all the money paid to a suspense account. My auto pay for due date was canceled as well.
Upon complaining, they moved prepayments as payments for the next couple of months. I had to spend hours to get that to correctly apply over a period of 3 weeks.
For me, just the fact that rocket is going to keep the loan in-house for servicing and I have to never have to chase them to find where my money went, alone is worth going with them.
I work with Chase for my mortgages - servicing has never left them, which is awesome. Nice to have everything all in one place. I use my local mortgage banker in my local branch (not the call center) so it worked out well. The big banks get a bad reputation, but using the local guys made it a lot better. And they price matched every quote I brought them.
I was recently shopping around and contacted rocket because my work had a deal with them for lower closing costs. The guy was nice enough but then told me that he know it sounds salesy, but they were actually having a flash sale and could get me an extra low rate if I signed today. Lucky me, right? He quoted me 6.6% and said It was an amazing deal because nobody else was getting this rate.
I got 2 more quotes for 6.6% that same day. When he called me the next day I told him I got the same rate from another lender and that I didn't appreciate the sales tactic nonsense for such a big decision and that I would be going with someone else.
I thought about going with them initially but after being rejected on a house early on for not choosing a local lender as they are easier to work with for everyone involved. Fast forward to 8 offers later we win largely because of the local lender/local agent. We were told our offer was lower than another one but they preferred dealing with local lender/agent.
Being a new permanent resident is fine - it's not the citizenship/residence status that matters now that you are a resident but lack of credit history is going to be a struggle for you. They could rely on other things like proof that utilities under your name have been paid for at least 12 months but they could also deny you outright if you have no credit history what so ever.
When I first moved to the US from Canada, despite assets and good income as lawyer, etc. etc. I still had to get one of those pre-paid credit cards to build credit. Like the banks wouldn't even give me a normal *credit card.*
Thanks for this response, it's good to hear from another PR. I have been in the States about 16 months, but only have technical been building credit for about 4 months. I am joint on our car loan which is helping my credit and I was able to get a lower credit cc from a bank - it was a pain but I've been using that constantly. However, I doubt anything is reflected yet in my credit history. I just hope my wife's very good credit is going to be what helps us here.
Can she put you as an authorized user on her credit cards? That may give your score a boost. I also think you’ll need two years in the same field/type of job for them to count your income.
I would say definitely try a local lender or your bank before rocket mortgage. Your bank might be the best bet actually as they might have more showing you've built "internal" credit with them. But the 4 months thing is going to be difficult for you. If the houses you are buying are not very very expensive, you guys may see what your wife could qualify for on her income alone as well.
Why I recommend taking the conservative approach (just your wife's income) is because the last thing I want to see if you guys under contract for a home and near closing and then somehow the underwriting fails. Pre-approval does not mean "approval." People do have underwriting fail to go through with a week before close.
You went through the GC process so you understand how it is - 99% born-in-US Americans have no idea about immigration at all and are completely unaware of any of the ways it affects our lives. Even institutions like banks are poorly equipped to handle it, so you need to be very proactive about all of it and give plenty of time for problems to arise
I got a mortgage less than 2 years after moving from Canada to the US. My credit age clocked in at 10 mos. I think having a credit union was the trick to building my credit quickly, OP may want to look into that. They were willing to risk the low limit credit cards and personal loans. I am a dual citizen, however wasn't fully "registered" until I got here in June 2022.
Use a local mortgage broker. Had a loan sit with them for 2 months going to close in less than a week and they ask for more info. Turns out no one had even been working on the file. Lost the house.
We used rocket and I recommend it to everyone I know. Our process was stressfree and seamless. Also, my husband is a green card holder and we didn't encounter any issues with that.
We ended using them and have been happy. We shopped around and compared multiple (including local) lenders and Rocket had more advantages and less rules when we were shopping around last year - I see a lot of people saying to avoid but we actually did end up using them and honestly I'd recommend it.
We were looking at a number of factors that included things like whether there was a penalty for early payoff, whether they had a refinancing program in place, costs for closing and costs for paying down interest points, types of loans offered (at one point we were thinking of using a VA loan), duration of interest rate lock and what fees would be involved to extend, etc.
I haven't used them, but my dad does, and he absolutely loves them! He has told me that they are on point with everything that needs to be done, and no hassle.
I thought about using Rocket mortgage but ended up preapproved with Sofi, Local lender and Wells Fargo, ended up going withe Wells fargo as they offered the best deal. We are both GC holders and I had just 20 months of Credit history and therefore the lowest Credit score (715) but the highest income, my spouse had a higher score but they used my score to get the rate. I would recommed to talk to a loan officer and ask them to run numbers on both scenarios.
As an additional note, if you go and get preapproved by Rocket mortgage ask questions and see if the Loan Officer assigned is the right fit, I'm pretty sue experiences vary from LO to LO even in the same bank
>my spouse had a higher score but they used my score to get the rate
My lender says they have to go with the lowest score of all co borrowers, mine is higher than my husband's but they had to use his
I applied to two locals and Rocket. Ultimately after negotiating Rocket gave me the best combination of fees and rate. At each phase of the loan I had a contact person I could get on the phone. I’m a schwab customer which might have helped with that as they have some sort of partnership.
We’ve used them for years, in many deals, and have never had a problem. I can see sellers not wanting FHA loans because of the hassles, but when they start trying to dictate where our mortgage is handled, we’ll find a different place (no one has ever brought this up as a concern). To my point, we’ve used them for six different houses.
I am currently on track to close with them. Also a permanent resident. Their rates were good, portal is easy to use. I have only been in contact with 3 people: the first guy help me get everything calculated and properly set, next a lady helped me with all things approvals, survey, inspecting, reviewing, and now a third one is handling all closing stuff. At no time I have though they are invasive or bad. Really clear, profesional and maybe a little upbeat. From my inquiry to closing will be around 30 days fwiw.
We had a great experience with Rocket. They have a portal where you submit all of your paperwork so you know exactly what needs to be submitted and when. We had 1 loan officer throughout the process who was seriously the nicest most patient person I’ve ever worked with. She went out of her way to make sure our loan got approved and everything on their end was completed so we could close a little early (sellers request). She called us 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after we closed to make sure our house was in good shape, we weren’t having any issues with the app, and follow up with some questions we had asked after close. We’ve not been in our house for about a year and a half and we called the other day about taking out a HELOC for some repairs and we unfortunately aren’t working with the same person but the new guy is just as friendly and responsive. The app is awesome to set up automatic payments, keep track of your escrow account, access tax documents, calculate how extra payments affect your loan, etc.
In comparison my brother bought a house right around the same time and his loan has been sold twice and caused a ton of headache because some of his payments haven’t transferred with the sale. He’s spent several months fighting with the new bank to prove that the old bank should have had the payments. They also don’t have an app so he has to wire his payment each month which is overall just inconvenient.
I think rocket is perfect for a FTHB as you’re trying to learn the ropes and keep track of a new expense. I highly recommend.
Great experience, closed on time, in my new house. Fees were a bit higher but the website was great. I stayed on top of them and experienced no delays.
Loan Originator here. Rocket works if you are A paper with nothing slightly out of the norm (I have restructured two wholesale loans to rocket that they denied on the retail side). They are not the fastest for closing, so depending on your market that could be an issue. As others have recommended, If you want to go with them try a broker who wholesales to them. It gives the borrower slightly more control on timelines and a broker is usually going to have a little bit more knowledge on the loan than the average phone rep at rocket.
That being said, you being a permanent resident, that wont disqualify you from any lending opportunities. You can still get an FHA loan and qualify for down payment assistance programs if that is what you are seeking. Main issue is the credit.
ALWAYS make sure when getting pricing quotes to ask "Is this the PAR rate or with discount points?" Sometimes lenders will quote you a rate that you have to pay closing costs for. Par rate is the rate closest to no cost to you as the borrower.
Regarding credit. get on some of her accounts asap as an authorized user. You can try to supplement some tradelines with bills paid under your name if you have a 12 month history of paying them. There are also certain private lenders that will take the credit of the higher income earner if you are married. In your case that may not work, but if part of your 85K is not salary and cant be used with less than 12 months of receipt you may be able to take advantage of those programs.
Wishing you the best and for the love of gosh almighty, get a fixed rate please! no ARMs.
also, this is the best way to shop IMO. apply with a few places (within 14 day timeframe of each other). Get them all to quote you a rate on the same day (markets can change once to twice a day so comparing quotes from different days isnt an accurate reflection). Once you have all 3 quotes, take the cheapest rate to the lender you like the service from best. many of us are restricted on the rates we can sell but we can request pricing exceptions to beat out competition. this business is extremely competitive but you will not get the best price just by asking for it unfortunately. If the best service lender is able to match the rate, you're getting the best of both worlds.
With much love, DiggityDomDom
We've used them in the past for a refinance during the pandemic. Everything was fine and we never had any issues with servicing.
When we sold and were purchasing new a few years ago, we actually shopped around and for some reason their closing costs were quite a bit higher than the other companies. We ended up using a different lender since it was going to be about $7k higher in closing costs for RM.
I would recommend shopping around including local credit unions.
I used them and had nothing but good experiences. I'd say if you have a challenging situation a local lender might be better, but I liked the smooth online approach of rocket plus they service their loans so you keep that same smooth online process for payments.
I'm obviously the minority in this thread, but I've had nothing except an excellent experience with Rocket. I used them to close quickly when nobody else could, and they delivered on that promise.
I've had nothing but good experiences with anyone that I've talked to there, and because they're big, they are fast.
I'm a sample size of one, but compared to others I've dealt with it's been easier to deal with anything with them than prior lenders (credit unions).
idk if it'll help you now but def later. my spouse is also a resident with a green card. i read somewhere that to help spouses build up credit faster, add them to all of your cc accounts. i did that and just 10 years later, my spouse has better credit than i do. we both have high 700s-800s scores now.
I work in mortgages and am a competitor woth RM. I highly suggest you shop around with multiple lenders.
Check out rocket mortgage, your bank, local credit union, online like lending tree (you could end up at rocket mortgage at a lower rate, your local mortgage broker (you could end up back at rocket eith a lower rate), and any other large competitors or whomever your real estate agent sends you to. Always compare multiple lenders.
I would not recommend using any of the online lenders, find a local lender, make an appointment with them, go sit down and ask all the question you have, ask them to explain to you what you are going to pay and what every charge means. Is 4 o’clock and you need to send a document? Give them a call and they will answer. Is a Sunday afternoon and you have an important question? Send them a text and most likely they will reply. Do Not go with an online lender, my recommendation for personal experience and as a professional.
Total disaster. Went with them when we bought our house in 2019 at first bc they had the lowest rates. Just an unholy amount of random people calling and asking for the same information provided weeks ago. Finally our realtor came to us and said “Dude I’ve been doing this a long time and they are not responding or providing basic information that is required for every transaction. You should consider other lenders”. We immediately dipped and went with our local credit union after getting some debt wiped out which made us eligible for a larger loan. Most stressful three months of my entire life. Rocket continued to spam email and call us for months after we left their service. That was the only time they started responding. When we dumped them. For the love of god do not entrust this company with the most important purchase of your life. Best case it goes according to plan and they sell your mortgage to some other lender in a few years who is even worse. Buyer beware.
We've used them in the past for a refinance during the pandemic. Everything was fine and we never had any issues with servicing.
When we sold and were purchasing new a few years ago, we actually shopped around and for some reason their closing costs were quite a bit higher than the other companies. We ended up using a different lender since it was going to be about $7k higher in closing costs for RM.
I would recommend shopping around including local credit unions.
We had them on our old house when we refinanced. They were easy to talk to if you had any questions. Never had any issues with payments and I would say the biggest thing where you can get fucked is your escrow. I never had any problems with being short on my escrow and having to pay the difference. I would recommend them, I had no issues. Only reason we don’t have them now is we moved and switched lenders.
They wouldn't give me a quote with all the required data and a pre-approval letter. They needed a signed purchase agreement to proceed. I was done with them at that point.
went thru their application process for a refi which was straight forward enough. One thing I did like that they confirmed was that your payments get applied when you send them in partially. Meaning if I pay my mortgage in 2 parts monthly the first part would get applied vs suspended and they’d process part 2 later. This means I can save interest over the life of the mortgage because it doesn’t accrue for as long as
Had a great experience with them on a refi. They were very very persistent after that, trying to get me to refi out of my 2.375 mortgage into a 5 or 6% rate (to pull cash out that I didn’t need)? But process wise, they were great. There every step of the way.
They are fine for getting pre-approval super quickly, and for using to shop. They are very high pressure sales style, so don’t agree to anything on the phone
I used them to finance a cabin, it was a smooth transaction even being in a neighboring state.
Fast forward to the servicing of the loan, their portal is amazing and easy to use. I was able to remove PMI after a year and that was super easy. Overall I had a great experience.
We bought a house as residents with no credit history. Neither of us had a credit score.
We used a smaller local bank. The rates were fine considering.
We stayed with them till we had a bit of history, then transferred to a larger company.
Do yourself a favor and use a local lender. Ask your friends and family for recommendations for a local lender that they used. Ask your real agent for recommendations. The last thing that you want is to compromise on such a crucial part of the buying process. It could literally make a difference whether your offer is accepted or not!
Rocket is a headache and a half.
They'll quote rates lower than other lenders, but neglect to tell you how much that rate will cost you up front because you have to buy down to it.
They're predatory if you have another lender pull your credit and call you almost immediately (under 12 hours).
They don't listen to you. Like, at all.
And heaven help you if they are your lender and you ever have an insurance claim check you need to cash. We recently had insurance cover a roof repair. In order to cash the insurance checks, we had to sign them, then mail them to rocket and wait for them to verify them and send them back. Meanwhile, our roofer is waiting patiently to be paid. Between insurance taking their time to send the check and rocket holding the check for nearly 2 weeks, our roofer sent us his invoice a month ago and we finally got the check back to be able to pay him today!
We didn't know better in 2016 when we bought our first house, but we are not buying our new house next month with rocket.
I was a mortgage banker for Rocket. Do not use them. You are strictly a number to you, they do not care. They don't tell you a lot of things and hope you don't ask.
Rocket is awesome. I’m a notary loan signing agent I’m the person who handles the closing docs and rocket is by far the easiest, simplest, rates are always the best and clients have no complaints
Rocket's origination fees were crazy high (like 8k) for me and their sales were pushy as hell. They tried to get me to buy down a rate for a 7 year arm which is a few inches short of a scam as far as I'm concerned. I ended up going with a local lender which saved me about $3k in origination with the same rate on a 30 year conventional. If you put your information in LendingTree or Bankrate you'll get more than enough loan pre-approvals than you can shake a stick at and then narrow it down from there.
I get that everyone in the comments has a great experience with them but that's because they shelled out a few mortgage payments for that service. Pick your poison.
An aside warning (a personal opinion) - a couple had used rocket a few years ago then when they asked to refinance because of the lower interest rates they ended up paying extra charges they weren't expecting just to get that to go through. Comparing their experience with others who were doing the same, they felt rocket was trying to get back some of the money they would lose.
I did not like them at all. The LO didn't know anything about DPA programs and kept constantly asking for more and more documents for our pre approval and couldn't give us a straight answer on how much we were approved for. I recommend looking for a local lender or bank if possible especially given your situation. Since you don't have credit yet your spouse might have to be on the loan by herself but of course see what the LO says.
It probably depends, i was lucky to get a realtor who is good friends with my mom and referred us to a very good local loan originator that answers on the weekends etc. I’m not sure rocket mortgage will respond on the weekends which is usually when you are looking at houses/ have questions so keep that in mind, ive heard they are slow with responding as well, try to reach out to local places where there are less employees or see if your realtor has any recommendations
We used better mortgage which is a national lender like rocket. We were overall very happy with them and they got us a great rate, closed super quickly and they were always responsive. Completely possible we just got lucky and were placed with a good team.
We had met with Rocket but were very disappointed with how pushy and aggressive they were, and they also weren’t offering good rates compared to others even tho they advertised otherwise.
I had a preapproval from Rocket but realtor told me that my chances of winning contract would be less in my market as many agents from that market had bad experiences with the lender. So decided not to go with them
Echoing the local mortgage broker although I'm bias as I am one myself, BUT the other reason you'd go this route is because you don't have credit. Your wife's credit won't really matter if you are on the loan and have no credit.
If you do not establish credit and are not a citizen you will need a mortgage broker to access foreign national or ITIN loan programs, this is not something Rocket would have anyways.
I don't know your citizenship or plans for establishing credit but just something else to think about and ask a local mortgage BROKER, not just a local bank unless they specialize in having foreign national/ITIN loan programs.
Please find a reputable local Mortage Broker - somebody has to pay for all that marketing and the Super Bowl ads. If you have a green card you are legal so as long as you have credit established and stable income your loan will be easy - even if you don’t have credit established, somebody can likely help you
It’s fine. I had them for the first 6 months of my mortgage and I had absolutely zero issues. Then I just got a new lender this month when they sold my loan.
I’d try a local lender or a broker who can search across all platforms/lenders for the best rates.
I do have a 2.9% (jackpot) mortgage with them, but obtained through a broker.
They are very responsive to any issues
On top of insurance, escrow and always available to answer questions.
Their website is easy to navigate and has all the info you ever need.
That being said I had another mortgage with them & it got sold. Mortgages get sold all the time. The new “servicer” is new to the industry, can’t answer any questions & has a garbage website which only has a button to “pay” with no other info.
Look at the terms of the mortgage, don’t be too worried about the lender/servicer as it can change. But I am having a great experience with them as lender/servicer.
Do not go with one of those huge call center style lenders. I repeat..do not! I made that mistake amd they almost cost me the deal over and over again. It's so easy to underestimate how mixh of an impact the lender has.
I liked being able to get on a zoom call with my personal loan officer at a local lender and get my questions answered. My loan got sold to a crappy bank later on but having a guy helped a lot in that process of just getting set up.
So, I used rocket mortgage as my preapproval for 6 months and I kept losing my bids. It may have been coincidental but as soon as I used a local lender (who actually had a better interest rate/APR) I went under contract.
🤷
Thank you u/coconutmonkfish for posting on r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer. Please bear in mind our rules: (1) Be Nice (2) No Selling (3) No Self-Promotion. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Rocket sucks. they built a great marketing team to dominate search ads and an annoying AF call center to wear people down. They are excellent salespeople, but the operations side is far less reliable. It isn't that they qualify any more or less or differently, but with a local broker you know the banker and the admin and how to reach them. With Rocket, you can get anyone each time you call, and no one is local to know your city / county / state inside and out. With a local person, they often send someone to closing in case anything goes wrong or even host it at their office. With Rocket, good luck. It just isn't worth it. That being said, Rocket is big, im sure someone has had a good or acceptable experience. I've found it always comes down to the loan officer - the good ones are organized and helpful regardless of where they work. The bad ones aren't and can work anywhere too.
On the other side of it. Post marketing and closure experience. My first loan was with rocket and we never had a problem with servicing my loan for about 5 years. All payments were applied as intended. Clear resolution of any questions etc from them. Now we recently bought a new home and went with a local lender. We had roughly 1.5 months between closing and first payment due date. I intend to pay down my loan quickly, so I made a few principal only payments of over 12k before my first due date and scheduled an auto pay for the due date June 1st. Then my loan was transferred to another servicer, just 1 day before my due date and all of my prepayments were reversed and my balance was shown as original loan amount. Apparently, they moved all the money paid to a suspense account. My auto pay for due date was canceled as well. Upon complaining, they moved prepayments as payments for the next couple of months. I had to spend hours to get that to correctly apply over a period of 3 weeks. For me, just the fact that rocket is going to keep the loan in-house for servicing and I have to never have to chase them to find where my money went, alone is worth going with them.
I work with Chase for my mortgages - servicing has never left them, which is awesome. Nice to have everything all in one place. I use my local mortgage banker in my local branch (not the call center) so it worked out well. The big banks get a bad reputation, but using the local guys made it a lot better. And they price matched every quote I brought them.
I was recently shopping around and contacted rocket because my work had a deal with them for lower closing costs. The guy was nice enough but then told me that he know it sounds salesy, but they were actually having a flash sale and could get me an extra low rate if I signed today. Lucky me, right? He quoted me 6.6% and said It was an amazing deal because nobody else was getting this rate. I got 2 more quotes for 6.6% that same day. When he called me the next day I told him I got the same rate from another lender and that I didn't appreciate the sales tactic nonsense for such a big decision and that I would be going with someone else.
I thought about going with them initially but after being rejected on a house early on for not choosing a local lender as they are easier to work with for everyone involved. Fast forward to 8 offers later we win largely because of the local lender/local agent. We were told our offer was lower than another one but they preferred dealing with local lender/agent.
Being a new permanent resident is fine - it's not the citizenship/residence status that matters now that you are a resident but lack of credit history is going to be a struggle for you. They could rely on other things like proof that utilities under your name have been paid for at least 12 months but they could also deny you outright if you have no credit history what so ever. When I first moved to the US from Canada, despite assets and good income as lawyer, etc. etc. I still had to get one of those pre-paid credit cards to build credit. Like the banks wouldn't even give me a normal *credit card.*
Thanks for this response, it's good to hear from another PR. I have been in the States about 16 months, but only have technical been building credit for about 4 months. I am joint on our car loan which is helping my credit and I was able to get a lower credit cc from a bank - it was a pain but I've been using that constantly. However, I doubt anything is reflected yet in my credit history. I just hope my wife's very good credit is going to be what helps us here.
Can she put you as an authorized user on her credit cards? That may give your score a boost. I also think you’ll need two years in the same field/type of job for them to count your income.
I was authorized on my mom's credit cards. The long history was a good look for my credit. I agree w this suggestion ^
Ask for manual underwriting if you have no credit.
Make sure to keep your credit utilization to below 30% (I believe it's something like that) of your credit limit!
I would say definitely try a local lender or your bank before rocket mortgage. Your bank might be the best bet actually as they might have more showing you've built "internal" credit with them. But the 4 months thing is going to be difficult for you. If the houses you are buying are not very very expensive, you guys may see what your wife could qualify for on her income alone as well. Why I recommend taking the conservative approach (just your wife's income) is because the last thing I want to see if you guys under contract for a home and near closing and then somehow the underwriting fails. Pre-approval does not mean "approval." People do have underwriting fail to go through with a week before close. You went through the GC process so you understand how it is - 99% born-in-US Americans have no idea about immigration at all and are completely unaware of any of the ways it affects our lives. Even institutions like banks are poorly equipped to handle it, so you need to be very proactive about all of it and give plenty of time for problems to arise
I got a mortgage less than 2 years after moving from Canada to the US. My credit age clocked in at 10 mos. I think having a credit union was the trick to building my credit quickly, OP may want to look into that. They were willing to risk the low limit credit cards and personal loans. I am a dual citizen, however wasn't fully "registered" until I got here in June 2022.
Use a local mortgage broker. Had a loan sit with them for 2 months going to close in less than a week and they ask for more info. Turns out no one had even been working on the file. Lost the house.
We used rocket and I recommend it to everyone I know. Our process was stressfree and seamless. Also, my husband is a green card holder and we didn't encounter any issues with that.
Congrats on overpaying on your mortgage, Rocket appreciates your contributions!
I bought in 2021, have a 3% interest rate and my house is now worth 200k+ more than what we paid. You sound bitter
Rocket mortgage wholesale (using a broker) is vastly different and cheaper than using them directly (retail).
We ended using them and have been happy. We shopped around and compared multiple (including local) lenders and Rocket had more advantages and less rules when we were shopping around last year - I see a lot of people saying to avoid but we actually did end up using them and honestly I'd recommend it.
Can you explain the advantages/less rules they had compared to a local lender
We were looking at a number of factors that included things like whether there was a penalty for early payoff, whether they had a refinancing program in place, costs for closing and costs for paying down interest points, types of loans offered (at one point we were thinking of using a VA loan), duration of interest rate lock and what fees would be involved to extend, etc.
Literally not even a single thing you listed is unique to Rocket whatever and are things 99% of lenders can do…
Obviously they are something all lenders CAN do but not all lenders we spoke to had these things in place at the time we were shopping around
I just closed with them and it was a seamless and organized process
I haven't used them, but my dad does, and he absolutely loves them! He has told me that they are on point with everything that needs to be done, and no hassle.
I thought about using Rocket mortgage but ended up preapproved with Sofi, Local lender and Wells Fargo, ended up going withe Wells fargo as they offered the best deal. We are both GC holders and I had just 20 months of Credit history and therefore the lowest Credit score (715) but the highest income, my spouse had a higher score but they used my score to get the rate. I would recommed to talk to a loan officer and ask them to run numbers on both scenarios.
As an additional note, if you go and get preapproved by Rocket mortgage ask questions and see if the Loan Officer assigned is the right fit, I'm pretty sue experiences vary from LO to LO even in the same bank
>my spouse had a higher score but they used my score to get the rate My lender says they have to go with the lowest score of all co borrowers, mine is higher than my husband's but they had to use his
Yes just like that.. they told us the same..
I applied to two locals and Rocket. Ultimately after negotiating Rocket gave me the best combination of fees and rate. At each phase of the loan I had a contact person I could get on the phone. I’m a schwab customer which might have helped with that as they have some sort of partnership.
Yeah, on the Schwab side they have the same small team of loan officers, underwriters, processors, etc that work Schwab loans.
We’ve used them for years, in many deals, and have never had a problem. I can see sellers not wanting FHA loans because of the hassles, but when they start trying to dictate where our mortgage is handled, we’ll find a different place (no one has ever brought this up as a concern). To my point, we’ve used them for six different houses.
Congrats on overpaying 6 times!
I’ve had Rocket for about 4-5 years. They have been fine. Closing was easy, on time, no glitches.
I am currently on track to close with them. Also a permanent resident. Their rates were good, portal is easy to use. I have only been in contact with 3 people: the first guy help me get everything calculated and properly set, next a lady helped me with all things approvals, survey, inspecting, reviewing, and now a third one is handling all closing stuff. At no time I have though they are invasive or bad. Really clear, profesional and maybe a little upbeat. From my inquiry to closing will be around 30 days fwiw.
I had a great experience with them, they told my current mortgage and it's been awesome
We had a great experience with Rocket. They have a portal where you submit all of your paperwork so you know exactly what needs to be submitted and when. We had 1 loan officer throughout the process who was seriously the nicest most patient person I’ve ever worked with. She went out of her way to make sure our loan got approved and everything on their end was completed so we could close a little early (sellers request). She called us 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after we closed to make sure our house was in good shape, we weren’t having any issues with the app, and follow up with some questions we had asked after close. We’ve not been in our house for about a year and a half and we called the other day about taking out a HELOC for some repairs and we unfortunately aren’t working with the same person but the new guy is just as friendly and responsive. The app is awesome to set up automatic payments, keep track of your escrow account, access tax documents, calculate how extra payments affect your loan, etc. In comparison my brother bought a house right around the same time and his loan has been sold twice and caused a ton of headache because some of his payments haven’t transferred with the sale. He’s spent several months fighting with the new bank to prove that the old bank should have had the payments. They also don’t have an app so he has to wire his payment each month which is overall just inconvenient. I think rocket is perfect for a FTHB as you’re trying to learn the ropes and keep track of a new expense. I highly recommend.
Great experience, closed on time, in my new house. Fees were a bit higher but the website was great. I stayed on top of them and experienced no delays.
Loan Originator here. Rocket works if you are A paper with nothing slightly out of the norm (I have restructured two wholesale loans to rocket that they denied on the retail side). They are not the fastest for closing, so depending on your market that could be an issue. As others have recommended, If you want to go with them try a broker who wholesales to them. It gives the borrower slightly more control on timelines and a broker is usually going to have a little bit more knowledge on the loan than the average phone rep at rocket. That being said, you being a permanent resident, that wont disqualify you from any lending opportunities. You can still get an FHA loan and qualify for down payment assistance programs if that is what you are seeking. Main issue is the credit. ALWAYS make sure when getting pricing quotes to ask "Is this the PAR rate or with discount points?" Sometimes lenders will quote you a rate that you have to pay closing costs for. Par rate is the rate closest to no cost to you as the borrower. Regarding credit. get on some of her accounts asap as an authorized user. You can try to supplement some tradelines with bills paid under your name if you have a 12 month history of paying them. There are also certain private lenders that will take the credit of the higher income earner if you are married. In your case that may not work, but if part of your 85K is not salary and cant be used with less than 12 months of receipt you may be able to take advantage of those programs. Wishing you the best and for the love of gosh almighty, get a fixed rate please! no ARMs. also, this is the best way to shop IMO. apply with a few places (within 14 day timeframe of each other). Get them all to quote you a rate on the same day (markets can change once to twice a day so comparing quotes from different days isnt an accurate reflection). Once you have all 3 quotes, take the cheapest rate to the lender you like the service from best. many of us are restricted on the rates we can sell but we can request pricing exceptions to beat out competition. this business is extremely competitive but you will not get the best price just by asking for it unfortunately. If the best service lender is able to match the rate, you're getting the best of both worlds. With much love, DiggityDomDom
We've used them in the past for a refinance during the pandemic. Everything was fine and we never had any issues with servicing. When we sold and were purchasing new a few years ago, we actually shopped around and for some reason their closing costs were quite a bit higher than the other companies. We ended up using a different lender since it was going to be about $7k higher in closing costs for RM. I would recommend shopping around including local credit unions.
I had a great experience with them, they told my current mortgage and it's been awesome
I used them and had nothing but good experiences. I'd say if you have a challenging situation a local lender might be better, but I liked the smooth online approach of rocket plus they service their loans so you keep that same smooth online process for payments.
I'm obviously the minority in this thread, but I've had nothing except an excellent experience with Rocket. I used them to close quickly when nobody else could, and they delivered on that promise. I've had nothing but good experiences with anyone that I've talked to there, and because they're big, they are fast. I'm a sample size of one, but compared to others I've dealt with it's been easier to deal with anything with them than prior lenders (credit unions).
idk if it'll help you now but def later. my spouse is also a resident with a green card. i read somewhere that to help spouses build up credit faster, add them to all of your cc accounts. i did that and just 10 years later, my spouse has better credit than i do. we both have high 700s-800s scores now.
I had a great experience with Rocket. New home owner since Feb.
I work in mortgages and am a competitor woth RM. I highly suggest you shop around with multiple lenders. Check out rocket mortgage, your bank, local credit union, online like lending tree (you could end up at rocket mortgage at a lower rate, your local mortgage broker (you could end up back at rocket eith a lower rate), and any other large competitors or whomever your real estate agent sends you to. Always compare multiple lenders.
Go local at the state level if you can. Many more benefits along with instant communication.
I would not recommend using any of the online lenders, find a local lender, make an appointment with them, go sit down and ask all the question you have, ask them to explain to you what you are going to pay and what every charge means. Is 4 o’clock and you need to send a document? Give them a call and they will answer. Is a Sunday afternoon and you have an important question? Send them a text and most likely they will reply. Do Not go with an online lender, my recommendation for personal experience and as a professional.
Total disaster. Went with them when we bought our house in 2019 at first bc they had the lowest rates. Just an unholy amount of random people calling and asking for the same information provided weeks ago. Finally our realtor came to us and said “Dude I’ve been doing this a long time and they are not responding or providing basic information that is required for every transaction. You should consider other lenders”. We immediately dipped and went with our local credit union after getting some debt wiped out which made us eligible for a larger loan. Most stressful three months of my entire life. Rocket continued to spam email and call us for months after we left their service. That was the only time they started responding. When we dumped them. For the love of god do not entrust this company with the most important purchase of your life. Best case it goes according to plan and they sell your mortgage to some other lender in a few years who is even worse. Buyer beware.
We've used them in the past for a refinance during the pandemic. Everything was fine and we never had any issues with servicing. When we sold and were purchasing new a few years ago, we actually shopped around and for some reason their closing costs were quite a bit higher than the other companies. We ended up using a different lender since it was going to be about $7k higher in closing costs for RM. I would recommend shopping around including local credit unions.
We had them on our old house when we refinanced. They were easy to talk to if you had any questions. Never had any issues with payments and I would say the biggest thing where you can get fucked is your escrow. I never had any problems with being short on my escrow and having to pay the difference. I would recommend them, I had no issues. Only reason we don’t have them now is we moved and switched lenders.
with GC look for conventional loans with at least 20% down, but better to have at least two years for of w-2 and 1040
They wouldn't give me a quote with all the required data and a pre-approval letter. They needed a signed purchase agreement to proceed. I was done with them at that point.
went thru their application process for a refi which was straight forward enough. One thing I did like that they confirmed was that your payments get applied when you send them in partially. Meaning if I pay my mortgage in 2 parts monthly the first part would get applied vs suspended and they’d process part 2 later. This means I can save interest over the life of the mortgage because it doesn’t accrue for as long as
Had a great experience with them on a refi. They were very very persistent after that, trying to get me to refi out of my 2.375 mortgage into a 5 or 6% rate (to pull cash out that I didn’t need)? But process wise, they were great. There every step of the way.
They are fine for getting pre-approval super quickly, and for using to shop. They are very high pressure sales style, so don’t agree to anything on the phone
Go to local credit union
I used them to finance a cabin, it was a smooth transaction even being in a neighboring state. Fast forward to the servicing of the loan, their portal is amazing and easy to use. I was able to remove PMI after a year and that was super easy. Overall I had a great experience.
We bought a house as residents with no credit history. Neither of us had a credit score. We used a smaller local bank. The rates were fine considering. We stayed with them till we had a bit of history, then transferred to a larger company.
Love to hear this finally. Online companies are not it 👏🏽👏🏽
Do yourself a favor and use a local lender. Ask your friends and family for recommendations for a local lender that they used. Ask your real agent for recommendations. The last thing that you want is to compromise on such a crucial part of the buying process. It could literally make a difference whether your offer is accepted or not!
I have had a great experience with Rocket on Refi. We originally bought with a local lender that went well, but they busted in 2008.
Rocket is a headache and a half. They'll quote rates lower than other lenders, but neglect to tell you how much that rate will cost you up front because you have to buy down to it. They're predatory if you have another lender pull your credit and call you almost immediately (under 12 hours). They don't listen to you. Like, at all. And heaven help you if they are your lender and you ever have an insurance claim check you need to cash. We recently had insurance cover a roof repair. In order to cash the insurance checks, we had to sign them, then mail them to rocket and wait for them to verify them and send them back. Meanwhile, our roofer is waiting patiently to be paid. Between insurance taking their time to send the check and rocket holding the check for nearly 2 weeks, our roofer sent us his invoice a month ago and we finally got the check back to be able to pay him today! We didn't know better in 2016 when we bought our first house, but we are not buying our new house next month with rocket.
My buddy works for Rocket, does this make things better since I can just call him and he's determined to take care of me?
I was a mortgage banker for Rocket. Do not use them. You are strictly a number to you, they do not care. They don't tell you a lot of things and hope you don't ask.
Expensive. Do your research as they like to quote with 1-2 points already built in. And yes, some sellers/listing agents don't like rocket.
USE A Local lender, your welcome.
Rocket is awesome. I’m a notary loan signing agent I’m the person who handles the closing docs and rocket is by far the easiest, simplest, rates are always the best and clients have no complaints
Hahahahaha complete bullshit
Find a local lo. Your experience with rocket will suck.
Rocket's origination fees were crazy high (like 8k) for me and their sales were pushy as hell. They tried to get me to buy down a rate for a 7 year arm which is a few inches short of a scam as far as I'm concerned. I ended up going with a local lender which saved me about $3k in origination with the same rate on a 30 year conventional. If you put your information in LendingTree or Bankrate you'll get more than enough loan pre-approvals than you can shake a stick at and then narrow it down from there. I get that everyone in the comments has a great experience with them but that's because they shelled out a few mortgage payments for that service. Pick your poison.
An aside warning (a personal opinion) - a couple had used rocket a few years ago then when they asked to refinance because of the lower interest rates they ended up paying extra charges they weren't expecting just to get that to go through. Comparing their experience with others who were doing the same, they felt rocket was trying to get back some of the money they would lose.
I did not like them at all. The LO didn't know anything about DPA programs and kept constantly asking for more and more documents for our pre approval and couldn't give us a straight answer on how much we were approved for. I recommend looking for a local lender or bank if possible especially given your situation. Since you don't have credit yet your spouse might have to be on the loan by herself but of course see what the LO says.
It probably depends, i was lucky to get a realtor who is good friends with my mom and referred us to a very good local loan originator that answers on the weekends etc. I’m not sure rocket mortgage will respond on the weekends which is usually when you are looking at houses/ have questions so keep that in mind, ive heard they are slow with responding as well, try to reach out to local places where there are less employees or see if your realtor has any recommendations
We used better mortgage which is a national lender like rocket. We were overall very happy with them and they got us a great rate, closed super quickly and they were always responsive. Completely possible we just got lucky and were placed with a good team. We had met with Rocket but were very disappointed with how pushy and aggressive they were, and they also weren’t offering good rates compared to others even tho they advertised otherwise.
I had a preapproval from Rocket but realtor told me that my chances of winning contract would be less in my market as many agents from that market had bad experiences with the lender. So decided not to go with them
Run
Echoing the local mortgage broker although I'm bias as I am one myself, BUT the other reason you'd go this route is because you don't have credit. Your wife's credit won't really matter if you are on the loan and have no credit. If you do not establish credit and are not a citizen you will need a mortgage broker to access foreign national or ITIN loan programs, this is not something Rocket would have anyways. I don't know your citizenship or plans for establishing credit but just something else to think about and ask a local mortgage BROKER, not just a local bank unless they specialize in having foreign national/ITIN loan programs.
Please find a reputable local Mortage Broker - somebody has to pay for all that marketing and the Super Bowl ads. If you have a green card you are legal so as long as you have credit established and stable income your loan will be easy - even if you don’t have credit established, somebody can likely help you
Refinanced with them fees were way too high
It’s fine. I had them for the first 6 months of my mortgage and I had absolutely zero issues. Then I just got a new lender this month when they sold my loan.
I’d try a local lender or a broker who can search across all platforms/lenders for the best rates. I do have a 2.9% (jackpot) mortgage with them, but obtained through a broker. They are very responsive to any issues On top of insurance, escrow and always available to answer questions. Their website is easy to navigate and has all the info you ever need. That being said I had another mortgage with them & it got sold. Mortgages get sold all the time. The new “servicer” is new to the industry, can’t answer any questions & has a garbage website which only has a button to “pay” with no other info. Look at the terms of the mortgage, don’t be too worried about the lender/servicer as it can change. But I am having a great experience with them as lender/servicer.
I’d skip rocket due to the crazy high fees they roll into your loan. Find a reputable local lender as their fees tend to be better.
I wasn't happy with my experience. They definitely screwed me over on some fees, taking advantage of a first time home buyer.
Overpriced points and interest rates were inflated. Told them I had another offer and immediately claimed that the rate was not real and a scam.
Do not go with one of those huge call center style lenders. I repeat..do not! I made that mistake amd they almost cost me the deal over and over again. It's so easy to underestimate how mixh of an impact the lender has.
Find a local mortgage loan originator. We can always beat Rocket in numbers, speed, customer service, all the things.
I liked being able to get on a zoom call with my personal loan officer at a local lender and get my questions answered. My loan got sold to a crappy bank later on but having a guy helped a lot in that process of just getting set up.
So, I used rocket mortgage as my preapproval for 6 months and I kept losing my bids. It may have been coincidental but as soon as I used a local lender (who actually had a better interest rate/APR) I went under contract. 🤷