Chase Mortgage Nightmare

[Aaron Wong]

This is a rant about the nightmare that is getting a conventional mortgage at Chase and I'm not sure if this is the right place to do it but I want this to be a warning to any other investor that may be looking to use Chase especially on a deal that has a tight closing window. I won't use the names of the people I've interacted with as I believe this is more of a reflection on how Chase home lending conducts business than each individual person.

tldr; Use Chase home lending for a mortgage on an investment property if you want to suffer and risk losing your deal.

I got a pre-approval from Better.com. I've used Better as a lender before and they are great but thats another story. I used that to make an offer on a single family property that was accepted on 6/3. In order to get the best deal, I did some shopping around. I called a Chase branch near me and was set up with a home lending advisor. Due to the seller wanting to close by 6/30 and due to the home lending advisor being out of office, I went to a different branch that had a home lending advisor available on the morning of 6/4. 

This is where the first red flag happens. As I am speaking with the home lending advisor of this second branch, I get a passive aggressive call from the home lending advisor of the first branch. The second home lending advisor was patient with my questions and provided top notch customer service so I was keen to stay with the second home lending advisor. I made this clear on the phone call with the first lending advisor. To my surprise when I get home, the second lending advisor calls me to tell me that the first lending advisor's manager forced him to give up the loan application to the first lending advisor. (I understand the need for these rules against internal competition, but who cares about the customer experience, am I right?) I thought as long as the loan goes through without issue I don't really care who the lending advisor is so I didn't give it much thought.

The home lending advisor that I end up working with is fairly responsive and we get through all of the initial loan process fairly quickly. I am also assigned a client care specialist who as far as I can tell is the bridge between me and the underwriter of the loan. Again, this person is fairly communicative. However, as we enter the final weeks of the closing process they fall off the face of the earth. Emails from the title company that we are working with go unanswered. Whenever I call, I can only reach voicemail. In retrospect, this should have been a huge red flag and I should have started escalating. 6/30 comes and goes. Title company blames Chase for being unresponsive and Chase blames the title company for being unresponsive. The closing date gets extended to 7/2. Again on 7/2, the title company attempts to get confirmation of closing and required documents from Chase but again the Chase team falls off the face of the earth. 

On 7/6, the client care specialist reaches out to me to confirm closing on 7/9. On 7/7, the title company reaches out to me to tell me that yet again, Chase is unresponsive so at this time I start escalating the issue. I reach out to the manager of the client care specialist and am only ever graced by the sound of his voicemail. The home lending advisor's manager phone number is not even in service. I reached out to Chase home lending customer service who then redirects me to a new home lending advisor that promises to reach out to their closing department to get them to contact the title company. They also attempt to get the client care specialist's manger's manager to call me back but I never hear from her. On 7/8, the title company has still not heard anything from Chase so I again reach out to customer service who sends me to yet again another home lending advisor. This person reaches out to the closing department and then calls me back to see if the closing department reached out to me. They did not so he promises to reach out to them yet again to have them give me or the title company a call. I never hear from anyone from Chase again on 7/8. 

On the morning of 7/9, the title company again reaches out to me to tell me that Chase has not confirmed closing and that they have not received the required documents from Chase. Furthermore, my RE agent tells me that the seller at this point is considering backing out of the deal. I reach out yet again to Chase customer service who then sends me to the escalation department. It takes the escalation department to get a hold of the client care specialist's manager who finally reaches out to the title company to provide them with what they need.

I haven't yet attempted to look into the Chase mortgage guarantee of $2500 cash back if they don't close on time but I suspect they are going to use any excuse to avoid paying out. I will update this post on how that goes...

Lesson learned: I need to stay on top of the whole closing process at any sight of miscommunication. Shameless plug: I was too spoiled by Better's fine-tuned effortless loan process.