Author Topic: USAA mortgage  (Read 6194 times)

Atlas92

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USAA mortgage
« on: August 22, 2015, 02:08:10 PM »
I'm thinking about using USAA for a mortgage.  I use USAA for all of my banking and insurance and couldn't say enough good things about them in those areas.  However it seems like their mortgage department may have issues.  The reviews that they post on their own website are pretty awful, but you never know about random reviews.  I've been a long time lurker on this forum and know I'll get real deal here.  I'm looking to go conventional with at least 20% down.  I am drawn to USAA because part of my qualifying income will be reserve pay, which hasn't started yet because I'm on terminal leave until the end of September.  So right now in addition to my new civilian job I am also receiving my active duty pay.  It gets complicated because I want to pre-qualify now but my pay will be a totally different situation when I close later this year and I figured USAA would have navigated this type of situation before; however those reviews are really bad.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.

MilStachian

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2015, 06:51:46 PM »
Atlas,
I'm in the same boat.  Leaving the service next spring and will be purchasing a home.  We intend on using USAA as well, but as you noted, they have very mixed reviews.  I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone on this forum has had experience with them.

ender

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2015, 06:58:39 PM »
I bank with USAA normally.

I suspect we'll use a credit union to do our mortgage whenever we get to that point for convenience.

ditheca

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2015, 11:42:57 PM »
I bank with USAA, but when I ran the numbers on a mortgage they came up short.  My mortgage is with a local credit union that was recommended by trusted friends.  $300 closing costs and a fantastic rate.  It pays to shop around!

Terrestrial

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2015, 08:30:59 AM »
I bank and insure with USAA and in those two departments they are great.

I have never held a mortgage with them but the 2 times I have bought a house I did get quotes on rates/fees...they were not the lowest either time.  Not to say that will be the case every time but I have always found better deals elsewhere....usually a smaller and local outfit.  In your context I get your concern about the mil transition but someone should be able to figure it out and the benefit of using someone local is you can sit down with them and work through oddball stuff.  One of the times we bought a house my wife was changing jobs at the same time (generally not a great thing to do when trying to get a mortgage) but all we needed was her new contract and a couple calls to the employer and it was sorted out...I don't think you'll have a ton of trouble. 

The over riding concern needs to be getting your rate and fees as low as possible and like I said before I have never had USAA quote me the best rate for a mortgage.  Even 1/8% higher is thousands of dollars over the life of a loan...a steep price to pay for maybe some additional convenience of less explanation of your unique circumstance.

As long as they can process all the required up front paperwork and not screw up your closing I wouldn't worry about the service too much, both of my mortgages have been resold at some point to a different servicer, one time before I had even made the first payment, and you have no control over that.

« Last Edit: August 23, 2015, 08:38:43 AM by Terrestrial »

Rubic

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2015, 09:15:18 AM »
I'm a USAA member and would NOT recommend going through their mortgage department.  It simply isn't one of the areas of their core competency.

I actually used a USAA realtor (good guy) and after USAA screwed up the mortgage -- just before closing date -- he begged me not to downgrade his performance review based on the failure of their mortgage department (I didn't). 

Wells Fargo now holds my mortgage and I've had a good experience with them overall.


I'm a red panda

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2015, 09:23:54 AM »
My first mortgage was with USAA.  They sold it off pretty quickly, so we didn't deal with them for long.

One problem we had with them is they 'forgot' (literally the word used by the CS rep) to transfer the downpayment money. So we were at closing being told the money hadn't come through.  It got straightened out, but took a few hours of stress.

We went with a local credit union the second time (who also quickly sold it off)- but the best part was we just wrote a (giant) check for the downpayment, so there was no worry about wire transfers!

Emg03063

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2015, 07:23:57 PM »
Used them for my first home purchase (VA), and a couple of refis, without issue, but that was many years ago.  Haven't found them to be competitive recently when comparison shopping.

muckety_muck

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2015, 08:39:15 PM »
I think their rate was around 3.25 when we were looking to buy. Got a much better rate through our local credit union.

Had them for a past mortgage and they farmed it out (to a servicer) pretty fast. Didn't really have any issues with the company they sold it to, but it was neat to see the mortgage balance on my USAA homepage.

thd7t

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2015, 06:54:37 AM »
With a mortgage, as with any large purchase, you need to shop around.  Try local banks (or credit unions), USAA, and use the internet for comparison.  It's more important than being loyal to a financial institution.

GoldenStache

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #10 on: August 24, 2015, 07:07:32 AM »
I tried out a local guy and he kept telling me APR was the only thing that mattered.  Banks are legally required to give you the APY as well but he did not.  I could not tell if he was trying to pull a fast one on me or if he was just that dumb that he didn't know the difference.  I should have reported him but was too busy buying a house.  It ended up being a huge difference (over 1.25%) so went with USAA and couldn't be happier.  The paperwork was taking forever (locally) and they were able to get everything done on their end in less than a week, it would have cost me a ton if I would have moved the date back. 


thd7t

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #11 on: August 24, 2015, 07:38:52 AM »
I tried out a local guy and he kept telling me APR was the only thing that mattered.  Banks are legally required to give you the APY as well but he did not.  I could not tell if he was trying to pull a fast one on me or if he was just that dumb that he didn't know the difference.  I should have reported him but was too busy buying a house.  It ended up being a huge difference (over 1.25%) so went with USAA and couldn't be happier.  The paperwork was taking forever (locally) and they were able to get everything done on their end in less than a week, it would have cost me a ton if I would have moved the date back.
He was trying to pull a fast one.  He had a bad product to sell (1.25% higher?!).  It's ridiculous to think that he didn't know the law if he is selling mortgages.

oldfierm

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #12 on: August 24, 2015, 07:59:14 AM »
I've used USAA for two mortgages now and had zero issues both times.  One was a VA loan and the other was conventional with 10% down (Washington, DC). 

Lindy Hop

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2015, 09:05:02 AM »
I've bought two houses using USAA. In both instances they sold my mortgage before the first payment. Both times to the same provider with whom I've had zero issues. However, I will not use USAA for a mortgage again unless things really clean up. The second time I had many issues and almost missed my closing due to their department not meeting deadlines. I love USAA for many things and am a loyal customer but bottom line is they are not good in the mortgage arena. Shop around!

nedwin

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2015, 11:52:06 AM »
I would suggest shopping around.  We financed our most recent home purchase with USAA and it was difficult, to say the least.  The processor was non-responsive to emails and voicemail.  They always came back for more underwriting documents after saying we had submitted all that was needed, and they came dangerously close to missing several deadlines for the closing.  We were lucky that we were buying a short sale that took 90 days to close, if it was a conventional sale the problems would have been much worse.

I also used to insure with USAA.  I shopped around the last time the premium for my rental went up by 50%.  I found comparable insurance from other providers that saved me about 50% for auto, home and rental insurance.  I have also had significant problems with USAA auto loans and USAA's practices with regard to auto-debit.  Most egregiously, USAA auto-debited my checking account for a home policy that I had cancelled and had never authorized them to debit for.  All this has led me to drop them entirely, I have no more dealings with them whatsoever.

MishMash

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Re: USAA mortgage
« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2015, 11:58:36 AM »
Not sure if anyone is aware but wells fargo has a military advantage program, no origination fees, reduced rates etc.  We've bought two houses with it and they were actually awesome, our last one they were able to do everything in 3 weeks.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!