I'm doing a cash out refi and my lender said I could lock in the interest rate now or wait until day before closing which will be about month if things go smoothly. 

I’m looking for step-by-step checklist of things to do to make the move go smoothly.

We achieved our goals in the closing but the journey was not smooth.

@Rodney Miller My partner and I recently used RCB Bank, I am pleased with the rates we were able to obtain and the process was really smooth. 

Haven't been able to apply it yet because we've only had inherited tenants to deal with, but now that the "problem" tenant is gone, we can put our tenants in there.The move out went smooth.  

Quicken/Rocket, United Wholesale, Homepoint, and so on, all being major wholesale mortgage players, all headquartered in/around metro Detroit (good place for cost effective hard-working workers, call it the Motor City work ethos of their parents still being around if you want, but good luck having good rates, low costs, and smooth operations, if your 8k or 20k workers are in San Francisco making San Francisco salaries, it's not like this is bread or chocolate where the wonderful Pacific ocean air is going to infuse into the mortgages and make them "taste" any better...).

New flippers end up coming to me after they bought some smooth talking, great numbers touting wholesaler shop and they got taken. 

We wrote up a contract and scope of work and began and for the first few weeks, things were going smoothly then he hits me with a change order 3 weeks in, which I hear is very typical, so I didn't think much of it and gave him the money for the pertinent items on the change order.

IMO they are clunky systems because they don't get paid to be smooth. 

This is for the entire ConnectMLS coverage area, so while it's a heck of a lot more tailored than what the public is hearing on the news, it still smooths over a lot of variation from the countless markets within.