Better

Most Recent Comments

• September 2023 by Chris Bauer
  Do not walk - run away - from better mortgage.The highlights:Clear sexism in that my wife was unable to get a response from any of our contacts until I interceded. This happened so frequently that she would ask if she could use my email account to respond.I cannot stress this enough: Better is clearly inept and does not understand the local laws of the markets they operated in.We had a representative from the Midwest handling our closing (for a home in New York) and there were constant errors, omissions, and duplicated requests. At one point he called the insurance company for the new house and got the address changed to the wrong account. He then called the insurance company for our current house (in Montana), which they have no business interacting with in the first place, and got the address changed to NY too, which we found out next month. Had anything happened to the house in Montana during that time we would have had no coverage.Additionally for closing certain requirements must be met in the state of NY that aren't required in the Midwest. When we got to closing, Better and their attorneys had failed to do any of the work required of them which resulted in our attorneys having to pick up the slack and handle their responsibilities, which we were billed for. We requested that Better cover the costs (in excess of $1,800 which meant a lot to us but literal pennies to them) and they refused saying that the legal procedures followed by our attorneys were "unnecessary". Apparently Better's 'senior admin team' knows better than our real estate attorneys about how closings go in NY.We also experienced significant awful behaviors from all points of contact. At times they tried to pit us against each other, intentionally misrepresented facts that we provided them, and refused to read our accompanying documentation.We tried to buy a home in a normal timeframe from Better Mortgage. They basically screwed up at every possible step, and misunderstood every possible point of their own responsibility, to produce a huge and unnecessary cost to us in order to save themselves money. When faced with their own behaviors, they pretended that we had done unnecessary work to make the closing happen, and gaslighted us about our understanding of the process.At one point I had to draw them a diagram to explain how the math worked for costs incurred. A *diagram*.I would do almost anything to go back and avoid having used them in the first place and utilized a local lender.
• July 2023 by Rajkumar Meenashi Sundaram
  Just closed my Home yesterday and Better made the process really smooth and easy throughout. What I really liked about Better is their transparency. They put their best foot forward from the beginning and gave me the best rate. I was getting quotes from other lenders like Rocket, a local credit union and even had a mortgage broker. They gave me higher rates to begin with and only matched Better (couldn't beat it) when I showed them the Better rate. I went with Better because of that transparency. Their fees was also the lowest without any gimmicks or tag ons. Their process is pretty straightforward with everything happening online and my closing went without any issues. Only quirk I found was higher property tax rates for the escrow without consideration for the local market but they were able to rectify it after I mentioned I was unhappy about it. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better lender.
• July 2023 by Chxer Xiong
  My co-worker recommended better to us for first-time home buyers.The better mortgage approved us, and we went through the process. They declined us after we paid the appraisal, and days later, they got back to us wanting to finish the task they requested. Better mortgage prolongs the process and makes it very hard on us as the seller wants to close by July 20. They sounded very promising, but we wasted a lot of time with better mortgage. I hope that nobody has to go through what my spouse and I went through with better as frist time home buyers.
• July 2023 by Corwin S
  I can't thank Better or the team of loan consultants and coordinators enough. From pre-approval all the way to closing, my consultant was an absolute powerhouse. She was quick to answer any questions I had, call with updates, and get the required paperwork moving so that we could close on our new house as soon as possible. The customer dashboard is easy to navigate, the tasks are laid out clearly, and I never had any questions that weren't answered in the same day.
• June 2023 by Osama M
  I had good experience with better mortgage.. they are professional and communicative
• June 2023 by James B
  Better has a great online interface and is very transparent with the terms of its loans. When I asked for clarification on their float-down policy, they were able to tell me exactly when it could be activated (what publicly accessible index they monitored and exactly how much it needed to change to give me the float down), how much they would reduce the interest rate, and how much it would cost. One constructive criticism I have: they could have been more responsive and transparent about how they were conducting their underwriting. They decided to only verify the salary from my spouse for underwriting purposes without saying so or why. They're underwriting took longer than I expected, likely because our closing was further out than normal, but we could have used more check-ins. Otherwise, tracking and completing tasks for the underwriting was easy on their online platform.
• June 2023 by Michael H.
  I have worked with Better on two house purchases. Overall, it was a mixed experience. Working with the realtor was a joy and the real reason I returned: she was always quick to respond and even helped with an offer while she was on vacation (talk about dedication!)However, I can't recommend Better because of my experience with their loan coordination team. It was absolutely awful every step of the way:1. They were consistenly difficult to reach. One time my calls to both contacts weren't returned for over 24 hours. Even then, my call was only returned because I scheduled a time.2. They gave constant problems about required paperwork without adequate explanations why or what would be satisfactory. I tried getting answers via comments built into the paperwork submission interface on their website, but I guess they don't use that: I never got a response there, not even once. Ultimately my closing was delayed a week due to this constant back and forth.3. Website customer service is just as bad. About all they could do is put in a request for the coordinator to call me back. Not helpful.4. Once I talked to a different loan coordinator who provided conflicting information. Never a good sign. Who am I supposed to believe?5. Even with closing delayed, I got a last minute rejection (two days before closing) on a previously accepted form. This is something I had submitted in the first week of the process! I had to scramble to provide something they would accept.6. The day before closing, they provided an incorrect wire transfer amount, and so I was out of balance with title escrow when it came time to close.One of these mistakes could be overlooked. Two might be annoying. The constant stream of mistakes and the total lack of accountability was unacceptable. It was ALWAYS someone else's fault--title's, underwriters, etc. I would advise extreme caution in dealing with their loan coordination team!
• May 2023 by Jake Goldie
  I recently bought a home with better. Stressful process, but it all ended up working out. I got an amazing rate but the closing costs are pretty high (about 5%). I worked with a few different people due to my original point person going out sick. The other staff members did work with me, and were very attentive and on top of things. The title clearance was horrible through better and took about double the amount of time then other companies (3 weeks). The home buying process is difficult. I feel like the pre approval process through better is extremely dangerous. theres alot of factors that can change your qualifying income. So if someone knows this year they will make about 60,000 with overtime, you will pre qualify that person in 3 minutes. Then they put in a bid on home, put forth a good faith deposit and you haven't even "officially pre-qualified" them yet. Lets just say this person recently switched over jobs and is projected to make $60000 with overtime. Overtime only qualify's when it could be shown consistently over two years. This isnt explained in the beginning. Or maybe they own a business and its hard for them to provide all the needed documents to qualify their income. Now at this point, Better actually gets an accurate DTI a couple weeks later and this person can loose there house if there is an issue with qualifying all their income. And all in this time the "30 day" rate lock is expiring because no one ever buys a home in 30 days in any attorney state, and this is costing the seller possibly more money. I think before providing a pre approval letter there needs to be a more in-depth analysis of there income along with a better education to home buyers on issues around qualifying overtime.
• May 2023 by Julio G
  I was working with another provider and interest rates were over 1 percentage point higher and the fees were almost triple for that rate than what I was able to get with Better.Also, the Better process is so good they should change their name to "The Best". So effortlessly and all completely electronic. They verify income and expenses almost instantaneously. As mention before, we were working with another provider and we were under contract so it was critical to switch to someone dependable that would process things fast. This is Better in a nutshell. You now what is going on when its going on. Nothing is hidden like the other provider. They are completely open and if you have any questions, there are a myriad of people waiting to help you out. All in all my new home purchase was only possible thanks to better and their great process of getting loans from beginning to end.Sorry to say this again, but there is no one "Better" out there.
• May 2023 by Brian J
  Was great on a previous refinance in 2021, but not so good on a recent purchase. I used better.com on a previous refinance about 2 years ago an it was a smooth, excellent transaction.I just closed on a new home loan with them last week and this go around wasn't so great. While we did ultimately close on time, there were a lot of last minute things that added stress to our lives. The website and customer portal is great and easy to navigate, but actually contacting a live person at better is a nightmare. My loan expert was very unresponsive to emails and we could not schedule any actual phone calls with her as her schedule always had unavailable for all of the time slots. If you call the general phone number, you will wait on hold for at least ***** minutes if anyone even picks up. Then you are connected to a call center where the agent can only relay messages at best.Was my loan ultimately funded and closed on time? Yes. But as far as customer service goes, I can no longer recommend this company.This was stressful to me and I have purchased a home before. Had I been a first time home buyer, I would have been absolutely freaking out with how down to the wire they made this transaction.
• March 2023 by John C
  Echo the reviews on communication. My primary contact ******************************* was amazing, others not so much. They need to understand this is not something their clients do every day. Cryptic messages that don't specify what is really needed to move the process forward are frustrating. My ace was having ******* correct errors on their side and explain what I needed to provide resolved a lot of the issues. If you understand the entire process and are tech savvy they provide excellent rates and reasonable fees. I would use Better again if I purchased another property.
• March 2023 by Sandeepkumar M
  I just closed my dream home with Better.com. Team at Better has done a Fantastic job in getting my loan processed thoroughly and quickly. Special mention to ******* and ***** who have been communicating each and every step of the process. Better.com portal also seems to be very easy to use. Overall it's an amazing experience working with Better to procure my loan for my dream home. Thanks team. Keep up the great work!
• March 2023 by Aaron Lyons
  Admittedly the website itself was very nice to use but I would still never recommend this mortgage company to anyone. I’ve actively told friends not to use them. Better had many of the annoyances of all large mortgage lenders, including being ready to sell my mortgage immediately. But more than that Better has been extremely non-responsive through the whole process. Frankly it’s impressive how hard they made it for me to get approval so I could give them money. I called multiple times to clarify some Tasks and never received a call back. I assumed it was just with me but both my realtor and title company had complaints throughout the process. Separately my main point of contact was out for over a week sick while I was trying to expedite the approval process and I received no notification from anyone with the company and was not given an alternate contact.
• March 2023 by A O.
  How do they get your information? They just deducted money from my account!!! I am NOT A CUSTOMER!!! THEY ARE THIEVES!!
• March 2023 by Feona Wilson
  First off, better is an online lender which means a lot of the communications are done through online portal, if you’re young and prefer a seamless more tech savvy process, better is 10000% your first choice!! For old people it might seem frustrating with sometimes they ask for the same docs more than once, I’m assuming there might be more than one staff that’s reviewing your file this way they make sure your documents are not biased when there’s only one person working on collecting your documents, or simply they’re just rotating your file, I don’t see that as a big issue since you already have it in hand, just a few more clicks on the button won’t hurt.Secondly my loan office Adam is extremely knowledgeable and open minded. I told him about my situation where I got screwed by another online lender, and I’m not sure if my loan will be approved and I don’t feel like paying for appraisal again just to find out they can’t approve the loan, so Adam suggested to hold off the appraisal and let them go through my income assets and credit first, then they will order the appraisal. I felt so relieved because I have talked to about 6 other lenders and all they did was to rush me to pay for the appraisal, which is extremely annoying and uncertain, the thing is you can’t get your appraisal money back and if you go through another lender they want their own appraisal! I was very happy with the solution Adam gave me and it went smoothly with no worries of throwing money out of the window.Last but not least, better gave me an extremely competitive rate and was able to get me a closing date for less than 30 days!! Underwriting/process team was very attentive as long as you do what they ask!!