Need advice on mortgage lenders for purchasing a house

[Jake M.]

I could use some advice and feedback on a few mortgage lenders, and servicers. I am shopping for a conventional conforming 30 year fixed mortgage for a primary residence. Fico's over 740, no debts currently. Doing a joint application. Trying to get a loan for 250-300K. We have to put 50 percent down just to be able to afford to get into a house near the Seattle area. We are looking in the 600-650k range total. I have spent much time trying to research lenders and the process. What we want is someone who is honest about accurately disclosing the fees and the loan process, is competent, that can work with us and communicate through the whole process. I have no patience for incompetent and dishonest loan agents and processes where they keep asking for you to submit the same documents repeatedly, and the fees are different than quoted, and then you get bounced from one agent to another, or they are not responsive to communications. We previously had a Union bank loan. They serviced the loan also. They get bad reviews but their servicing never messed up our tax or insurance payments, or anything else. We could always call and get answers for questions we had when we sold our house. Cant get ahold of them now with the covid situation though. We had previously applied at Movement mortgage, and the document uploading process was pretty smooth. Never bought or closed with them so I can't say how that would go. I know they don't service their own loans and immediately resell them. We are talking to someone at Guild mortgage. Looks like they do in house local processing, underwriting, and service conforming loans for life of loan. They are said to close in their own name with their own funds. I don't know how functional their servicing department is. I have heard they still sometimes sell loans right off which is contradictive to their claims. Some of the info we were given seems odd. They quoted a subsidized or concession loan interest rate of: 2.625% no points no origination fee. Just a standard flat fee of $1600 for processing and underwriting. Plus $750 appraisal. Title and escrow is based on the purchase price. Agent gets fees on back end from secondary market. Said they can't tell us accurately the fees until we apply which looks like it will cost $1600 to do. But we are not clear what it will cost to do an application and get a pre approval letter. Hard to get ahold of them now. When I do research on Guild I find: Average origination fee charges include $350 for underwriting, $295 for administration, $275 for document preparation and a $500 processing fee. All told, that’s $1,420 in total lender fees. So it appears the agent is saying there is no origination fee, but their standard fee appears to be an origination fee he just isn't calling it that. A realtor we know recommended Umpqua bank. I don't see much good about them and their loan agent seemed to be not real clear either. We have relationships with BECU, BOFA, and Chase, none of which get very good reviews for mortgages. I don't think we want to do a mortgage with them but I am not sure. So currently considering: Guild, Movement, NBKC, Academy, Baker Boyer bank, and Banner bank. Don't want to have to get a bank account there to do business though. We are pretty happy with Chase for that, BOFA not as much. Prefer a direct lender, or mortgage banker that services their own loans. Not looking for a mortgage broker. Also, do not want to end up with our loan or servicing at Dovenmuehle (DMI) Yourmortgageonline.com. I know there are a lot of people and businesses here that deal with lenders, so I thought I would ask the question here, and see if people have any relationships or referrals for mortgage loan officers and could shed some light on the subject? Thanks.