Pulte Mortgage

If there is one thing we could change with the entire home buying process, it would be using a different lender instead of Pulte Mortgage. Working with Pulte Mortgage has been stressful, expensive (they are not competitive and have high fees), caused us undue stress till the end, loss of reputation among friends and peers, as well as loss of money for the events we had planned.

While we understand the importance of thorough assessments to determine risk and coverage, my recent interactions have left me feeling incredibly frustrated and disheartened.

We also value a process that is efficient and respectful of the time and efforts of the applicant. As a customer, we had anticipated a smoother and more transparent experience, and the current situation has left us questioning the efficacy of Pulte mortgage's underwriting procedures.

They are incompetent. Never return calls and if they do is 4 days later.

The never answer emails and if they do they don't answer your questions. Had I known this I would have not applied. It took them over three months to approve my loan. At first they asked for a whole lot of documents and I provided every single one, then three weeks later they asked for more and I provided them again only to wait another 4 weeks and again they asked for more documents some they already had.

They are so incompetent they don't even know what they have. Many times I received emails saying they would call and they never did and many times they said loan would be approved by Friday, they just never say what Friday.

I don't recommend this incompetent people, they may not be crooks but sure they are new hires from the street that don't know what they are doing

We purchase our home from Pulte last year, and made the mistake of going with their in-house lender, Pulte Mortgage. The sales agent Eric Barker told us that going with Pulte Mortgage will ensure that our transaction will go smoothly and save us from issues that other clients have run into with outside lenders.

They also offered us a great incentive, and agreed to match our other lender's rates. So we turned down our other lenders (who have already approved us), in order to take advantage of the great deal and to ensure that our house closes on-time. Well, that was probably the biggest mistake we've made to date. First off, we are from California.

Their agent Susan Bettale is from Colorado. And as mentioned in many Yelp reviews, the communication was terrible. When it came time to sign, we noticed the rate was significantly higher than promised. My husband and I questioned Susan about it, and she responded by threatening us and our realtor, and then hung up.

When we complained to Eric (with the Notary who was commissioned by Pulte and present during the signing as our witness), he agreed to get someone else for us. The second loan agent was Amber Tranum, and she was very pleasant and apologetic and promised to take over and fix Susan's mess. This time I told Amber and Eric that we'd need to receive all paperwork prior to signing so that we can go over them with our realtor to make sure everything is correct before we'd sign. They told us they're all aware, and not to worry.

Then one day, while I was driving, I got a message from Escrow asking us to set up an appointment to sign for the same day. I told her we have to schedule for a different day because my husband work in a different city and has a CE course that night, so he won't be home until after 9pm. She said no problems, they can send a notary out to us at 10pm! I said I still haven't received any of the paperwork.

So she emailed me 3 pages of summary (keep in mind that the contract is over an inch thick). Upon review, I noticed that the rate was still high, and they were using some of my realtor's contribution TO US to pay for fees that were previously the seller's responsibility. I questioned Amber about this and she told me that Pulte was using MY realtor's money to pay for the points buy down in order to bring it to the rate Pulte initially promised us. I said that doesn't make sense.

It's our realtor's money given to us, and should be used for our benefits, not Pulte's. Amber tried to reason that since all of our closing costs were paid for and there was no where else to spend the extra fund on, it would just "disappear" even if Pulte didn't use it. First of all, it was our realtor's money for us, so if she used it to buy down points, it should be to lower our rate FROM the rate they promised us, and NOT TO the rate they promised us (for example, if Pulte promised us 3.7%, then the buy down should bring our rate from 3.7 to 2.7%, NOT from 4.7 to 3.7%). Secondly, how can money just disappear in a Real Estate transaction?

Even if there were no other buyers' cost to apply the extra money towards, then it still shouldn't go to Pulte; it should be refunded to my realtor, it's rightful owner. Nonetheless, Amber persisted that the money was nonrefundable to my agent. Eric echoed the same. When I disagreed, Amber refused to answer any more of my questions.

As a result, I told Eric that we weren't going to sign any papers until we've had a chance to verify everything with our realtor. Eric then told me that if we don't sign, then Pulte will charge us $300/day for delaying the closing. It was ironic, because at the time he was threatening us for delaying closing, our house was still not yet done, and we hadn't signed off on the final walk-through either. Then, the next day, after we have already signed all papers and wired the money to Pulte, Eric informed us that we had to sign another addendum before he could give us our house keys; a signature that would have added hundreds of dollars more to our closing cost.

I said no more. We have had it, and I was going to have my realtor look into all the questionable stuff and cancel the contract. Unsurprisingly, Eric contacted me minutes later to tell me that the form was a mistake and we didn't have to sign it. Really?

Shortly after the house closed, we got a letter from a different mortgage company informing us that Pulte had sold them our loan. Our mortgage payment has gone up every month after that. When we questioned them, they said it was because they had to increase our escrow to cover for the home insurance policy. When I told them we already had insurance, the agent required that we send in a signed waiver request form and proof of insurance in order to have their version of insurance removed from our escrow account (even though all this information was previously provided to Pulte and approved).

After I've emailed them everything they asked for, they sent us a denial letter, claiming that we are obligated to pay for insurance through them for the first year - something we never agreed to when we signed with Pulte. In fact, we specifically OPTED OUT of purchasing insurance through escrow, and Pulte gave us the option to purchase our own insurance in writing. Now they won't acknowledge it. They are trying to make us pay for an insurance policy through them even though we already have one of our own.

And the thing is, they've never given us any information about this new policy that they're trying to force onto us; we have no paperwork to refer to, not even a policy number or company name.

Somehow I have no doubts that they're getting some sort of kickback or benefit from this insurance company that we know nothing about, but are forced to pay for through the nose. HIGHLY UNETHICAL