We started the mortgage process with Georgia's Own Credit Union but it was apparently being sold directly to Member First, so we worked with Member First on the underwriting. This was unexpected. Member First made us jump through an insane number of hoops on our documentation, nothing like we've ever done before. They kept coming back wanting more and more. Apparently a credit score of 800 doesn't mean as much as it used to. It was down to the wire for our closing by the end and we still never felt like they were going to accept it. We've never had such a stressful experience! We'll never deal with them again if we have any say in it.
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Initial correspondence was pleasant. However, all interaction after was less than desirable. Buying a new home is not pleasant and as a first time buyer, I expected something more than the experience I had. For some reason, it took around 4 months for my application. The seller became very impatient, and MFM didn't seem to care, or had no desire to approve my wife and I. We were approved, and because the process took so long, the seller had relisted our home. Luckily, it was only listed for a few days so no complications arose from that. During the first couple months, everything piece of paper and information had to be faxed. MFM is located in GR and I live along the Lakeshore. Driving there every couple days to drop off a couple documents was just not economical. Finally after two months of driving to the bank and other places to fax (who the hell faxes these days) we were finally told emailed attachments were acceptable. Where was this information in the beginning? The underwriter seemed intent on making everything difficult from the start. Of course I realize the mass of paperwork involved. I could handle that, but the condescending attitude during correspondence left me irritable and honestly, multiple times I considered rescinding my offer on the house and withdrawing my application. 6 months after the application was approved, we received a check from my insurance company, stating the account was "overpaid". After a couple days, I decided to cash the check. Thinking ahead, I held onto the money expecting a problem to arise. Three months later, I receive a frantic voicemail indicating our escrow account was in the red and that "We had better pay the money back!", with a tone that implied we had stolen the money. I waited a day to cool down before calling back. I first explained how dissatisfied I was with their lack of accountability and seemingly ability to run a multi-million dollar company (mortgages are worth a lot). After that I was essentially threatened. My response, "how can you expect me to have confidence in your company, when my escrow account has obviously been overdrawn for MONTHS and you are just now realizing it. To top it off, your response and answer is to treat me like I stole the money!".
Long story short, I do not recommend this company.
Seventy seven (77) days and counting. Deal is still not closed. Pre-approval granted only to find it was not an accurate credit prediction. Changed buyer to spouse only to find that there were other issues not discussed earlier in the process (needed an additional comp, title updates, etc.). Any and all could have been worked on when the appraisal was completed six weeks ago. Lack of organization. Chasing our tails. Seller is requesting compensation to stay with the sale. Negative stars.
We ve had the opportunity to work with Member First Mortgage on several property purchases and refinances. I can say with confidence they re a first class team. Always responsive to questions, and always advocating for YOU! Thank you MFM for another smooth transaction...
Beverly Burik was not very helpful as I was exploring options for my family with a refinance and a rental property. The responses via email were very short then she totally ignored me. It was very rude and unprofessional. There are many other companies out there and that s no way to treat potential customers.
Applied for a preapproval and did not hear back for months. We contacted everyone and anyone trying to find an answer. Not only did they pull my credit score once, but twice...Finally someone reached out to us apologizing but after that contact I have not heard much from him. I would not recommend.
I have been with Members First for about 17 years and they are the worst, they don't value their customers at all. I made a payment through bill pay on my credit union website and the day it was due was a holiday (presidents day) so it wasn't posted until the next day and I was penalized. They go out of their way to make things difficult on their patrons. I would have refinanced long ago if it wasn't such a hassle. It may be time to bite that bullet.
Had a great experience with Members First. From Appling to close it went very well. They kelt is updated at every step of the way. I would highly recommend them.
Made my refi easy during a pandemic. Gave me a great interest rate, dropped my pmi, fees were reasonable. The ladies I worked with along the way, rep, underwriter, closer, were all super helpful. Did 90% of my communicating via email, that worked great for me as well. Closer came to my home. Easy peasy!
Great people, and better rates and lower fees than the flashy, fast-talking guys on TV. Take a little longer than a "Rocket Mortgage," but there's a lot less hype and pressure. I'm a satisfied new customer.
If you want a lender who knows how to answer the phone, return a email or really do anything in a timely manor I would recommend against using Members First Mortgage. Its really is a shame that credit unions who do not have a lending department farm their mortgage services out to a company with this poor of service. As a real estate professional I now know to never let a buyer of mine or a buyer of a home I have listed use this company.
My time spent with Members First Mortgage was very good with a few delays but with covid 19 and all the people re financing what could one expect. I would use them again any time! Thank you again for getting us in our house Kevin McLenon.
Brent was extremely helpful with getting a mortgage to buy our home!! He is very knowledgeable and every question we had we got a quick response. He definitely simplified a stressful process and was enjoyable to work with.
James Rogers from Member First Mortgage was awesome! We had a tight deadline and James and his team helped us meet the tight deadline. This process is not easy but James was straight forward and helped calm us down when things were getting stressful! We greatly appreciated all the collaboration :D!
Thought we had a loan being processed. Found out that it was not even done after 3 months. The credit union that they underwrite for no longer does business with this mortgage company. This place is real bad. I hope for the sake of people buying a house they can get there act together.
Took forever to get loan processed, I know the excuse is going to be Covid-19, but what actually happened was a miscommunication between First Mortgage. I almost lost the property I was trying to purchase because First Mortgage was dragging their feet on the processes. If I wasn t so fat along I would have changed companies. Very horrible experience. I just wanted someone I could talk to that wouldn t give me the run around and I didn t get that with them.
Not really good service. Tell you they will call back and never do. Hard to understand how they lend money for homes if they don't want to work for you and that would include calling prospective buyers back.
By far the worst banking experience ever, no call backs, took forever to get email responded too, and kept asking to resend sensitive bank documents. Never again with this bank, nor would i recommend them.
I had a great experience with Member First Mortgage. I was able to cut my interest rate, get rid of my pmi, and cut my monthly payments by $400 a month. They were very easy to work with and I would recommend them to anyone.
Even after I was quarrelsome by phone about the required cushion in my escrow account and after I sent an unsparing cancellation letter, the escrow department at MFM was polite, professional and quick in responding to my later requests. I probably would have been more tactful if I had realized how much help I'd need from them after cancelling my escrow account (sorry). But they were helpful and fast anyhow, and I'm sincerely grateful for it.
Totally unacceptable. I logged in to check/make a payment to see they raised my payment $400 with no notice or so much as an email about system issues occur. I immediately left a voicemail, and email to them to call me immediately. 2 days later I get this: "There is an error on the disclosure that you received, Due to our conversion back in June the winter tax information is not pulling correctly. Our escrow department is working to get these corrected and mailed out by the end of this week. Please disregard the disclosure you received and wait for the revised on to be received."
I immediately responded stating I need to know the correct payment amount for my loan since due date was coming up. No reply days later. Get it to together people, this is the largest asset you are handling for people, TERRIBLE website, horrible customer service and major errors. At least pick up the phone when I requested a phone call back in both voicemail and email.
I have been a member at Credit Union One since I lived in Rochester Hills in the mid-90's and so when my wife and I decided to purchase a new home it was an easy application with the bank we trust.
Terrible company. Run like hell. They put us through hell for months and months. I hired a new company and closed in 25 days. Jason Smith is a liar, they make money off the non refundable fees, double what everyone else charges. I'll never forget the pain and heartache they put my family through for no reason at all. My credit union said there was no reason at all to not close on our house, none! I also left genisys credit union out of principal for referring these clowns.
This has been one of the worst mortgage experiences we could have possibly had. My husband and I are very qualified buyers and 5 weeks after the accepted offer on our new home we were told by our mortgage consultant that we should have looked around at other mortgage companies because we still don t have a closing date. All we ve asked for is communication and the more we ask the more retaliation we get from our consultant. This experience has been a total nightmare and no one at member first seems to care enough to get it resolved.
I started the process to buy a home for the first time, I filled out the application to get pre-approved. They called me right away to finalize the application (awesome! I thought) well I was wrong didn't hear back from anyone else, I literally called 8 times, emailed and never hear from them in over a month, also got a beautiful hard inquiry on my credit score.. 2 months later (today) I receive and email frome someone on your team "reaching out to me".. are you serious? I take a hit on my credit score, no call back no emails Nothing.. I cannot dispute it cause I signed it saying they can pull my credit (some people wouldn't mind losing 18pts, but others that have worked hard to get a good enough score, it sucks). Waste of time. Thought I let you know, that I found a house, and my mortgage company I'm working with is amazing, and I close in just a couple weeks..
The worst ever!!! I feel like they are very bias playing like they were helping us but wasn't. Applied for a very small loan under 50k put us threw hell to get it and 5 months later some BS and still didn't get it,my sister applied at a different lender and closed on 200k in less than 2 months( no cosigner) we got played 3 days before closing... I would never recommend people I know here....
Performed a refinance with this company through my credit union and it was the worse loan process I have ever undergone. It took 2 months to complete the process. I understand there could have been a "backlog" due to higher than expected volume in Refinance applications. However, there was no communication by my Loan officer or his team on where the process stood or what to expect next. I would have to send weekly emails to ask what's the status of my application/process. Even after the appraisal was completed, the company waited until the last minute to request documents from the HOA. Despite having more than a month and half to communicate with myself or the HOA about these needed documents it ended up pushing the closing an additional 2 weeks. If the rate had not been the most competitive I would have taken the lost of the appraisal and took my services elsewhere. Even at the closing when the attorney said that you should have already reviewed the final documents prior to this moment, I had informed him that I did not and that numbers had changed since the last time I received anything. We both just sat there awkwardly in silence about how alarming this was. Regardless, I would not recommend anyone use this company. I can only hope that I will not be burned on the back-end by holding my mortgage with this company. I hope my credit union chooses another 3rd party to facilitate or manage their mortgages.
Member first was on their "A Game" throughout my mortgage! I worked with Kevin and Briana they were amazing! The service I received make me feel like I was the only person getting a mortgage, I always got quick responses. I will 100% tell everyone about my amazing experience.
My loan officers were with me every step of the way and made sure all of my questions were answered timely. I couldn't ask for better for my first experience.
This is our second experience with Members First. They provided efficient, direct, clear, educated information to me as a consumer. They offer more loan options than other lenders I looked at. The title company comes to your home to complete paperwork, so they're Grand Rapids location is a non-issue. Overall, we got exactly what we wanted, process completed, in 3 weeks time from my first contact. They do not sell your loan to another lender, that's a huge plus considering the fiasco of the last market bubble.
I am rating them as a real estate agent. This ocompany is now on my Do Not Use list. Delay after delay, high fees for the buyer (ex. $525 appraisal fee and an unwarranted $150 re-check due to the half-witted under-writer), and repeatedly lost documents that were re-requested no less than 3, and in one case 5 times. A nightmare of a deal that took 3 addendums and a cut in commissions to close. If I see a pre-approval letter from them, I will ask for another lender. This company is unacceptable. The poor communication within the office and the lack of any urgency alone would make me hesitate. But when you can t work through a textbook FHA deal, then its time to close your door. One last thing, they were insistant on a 7 day TRID, when lending rules clearly states 3. I feel I m leaving out a few more issues, but hopefully have shared enough to help you make an informed decision NOT to use this company.
Greg Coury was amazing. I have had numerous mortgages in the past. This experience was by far, the simplest and most straight forward. He delivered on every promise.
They were extremely slow to reply to inquiries. The coordination for closing was very poor, and there was very little correspondence that did not require additional follow up. I would not recommend them.
I replied to their response below 2 business days ago. Still no reply from them.
Jeff is absolutely amazing! He makes a tough buying process, easy and fun! I will never go anywhere else for the simple fact of the customer service of Member First Mortgage.
It is a rarity when one would care enough to form the opinion that you wish your mortgage would get sold. However, Members First has brought this opinion out in me. Incompetent, unwilling to listen to reason has been the most recent. This is not across the board. Several of the initial contact people have been friendly, apologetic and kind. It seems the problem arises in the 'higher levels' of the organization.
Let me begin by saying shame on us for closing with them in the first place. The writing was on the wall, however, from the time of lock in rate to having a closing (right at 90 days) the rates went up and 90 days, yes 90 days had past with us jumping through hoops. One such hoop included them loosing all of our actual identity information--yes, copies of licenses, SS cards were our main concern. So, shame on us.
Now, years into the loan, clean history of payments, we have had an occurrence. Our payment was rec'd late to their location in Michigan--this is important because snail mail and snowy state. Before we go farther, I know you are wondering why this payment is mailed in the first place; well, they had lost of confidence when our personal financial data was lost in the inception of the loan, therefore, we were reluctant to give them access to our bank account, therefore we have our bank mail the payment each month. So, our payment was rec'd a day late. However, when we reached out via phone, were told that all was fine, no late fees would be incurred. Only then, approx 2 weeks later, did we receive a letter with late fees. Again, we reached out explained we had already spoken to someone, but we were told that late fees had been placed on our loans (yes, two, we have a small vacation home). After some discussions back and forth, they said the fees would be waived. By this time, by the time they mailed us the late fee notification (again, snail mail from them to us), guess what had already transpired? The payment on both loans was already mailed from our bank to them, again, with the change in snail mail delivery due to weather, we could see it would be late again.
We immediately called and notified them of this. They could see that again, it was 2 days late. Once we could see what was transpiring, we decided we would have to sign the papers to allow for direct withdrawal to prevent this from happening; obviously, snail mail from GA to Michigan was simply no longer reliable and reasonably so, there are better ways for paying; however reluctant we are to trust them.
We realized waiving two sets of late fees within 10 days of each other is a big thing to ask. However, we have paid TWO loans with them without fail since the inception of the loans approximately 4 years ago. Our tract record is impeccable and we called them to let them know what was happening and because the payment was sent through the bank, there was little we could do to stop it or speed it up. By the time their snail mail letter to us arrived, our payment for the next month was already under process.
Final result; will not waive late fees a second time. Now, since we did not have the good sense to just walk away and loose the lock in rate of that time, I should have at least demanded they pay for the Lifelock that we had to purchase after they literally lost the hard copies of our identity records.
Final advise: go elsewhere. We loved being with Chase in the past. Very organized, very responsive to inquiries and follow through.
Horrible experience. We were referred by our Credit Union on the oposite side of the State. All seemed well at first. We were constantly reassured there were no roadblocks, even after asking. We were preapproved for an amount and moved forward. We even tried borrowing nearly 30k less than our approved amount. We ordered a home inspection, appraisal, and had the water tested. Apparently my position through my contract house was deemed temporary employment and we did not receive our loan. This, after a couple of months, left us scrambling for a loan as we had less than a week to secure a loan, or lose out on our house. It took two separate mortgage lenders and LO's 3 days to tell us the same thing it took members first 2 months to figure out. We were also told, by both potential lenders after Members, that Members did it all backwards. We should never have been given an amount prior to verifying all information, including employment. Another tidbit, the other potential lenders did this BEFORE we paid over $1,000 to have inspections and such as members kept reassuring all was well until zero hour. They could not believe Members operated the way they did. Two seperate lenders were baffled! If you get stuck with members, make sure they are doing things correctly as their lack of knowledge and procedure burned us out of too much money, and valuable time. Now we still have no house, and had to explain to our kids why they cannot have their own rooms. A lot of false hope from Members. I see a positive post on here about one LO in particular. Sounds like he learned from his mistakes at least. Does my family no good however.
The entire mortgage loan experience with Member First Mortgage was very smooth and efficient. The loan officers were quite knowledgeable and explained the process each step of the way. I would definitely refinance with Member First again.
Our agent was top notch! We were 1st time home buyers and didn't know anything about the process. She was very patient with my millions of crazy questions and walked us through the process. She was always very quick to respond as well.
Obtaining our mortgage through 4 Front Credit Union was a breeze. Great rate, great service, seems to be the norm with any interaction at this Credit Union
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