We bought our ATX home with a local lender ~4 yrs ago - United Lending. They did a good job, especially considering we were 1st time homebuyers and had spent the previous 5 working years overseas (more difficult to prove past income, taxes, etc.).
We refinanced a year and a half later (changed from 30 to 15 year and slightly better interest rate) and United was slow to respond to us with rates, so we used Childress Mortgage Group located in DFW (Frisco). They are a small, family run brokerage and seemed very on top of things, very customer service oriented and eager to move towards closing. No issue with them being outside of Austin. Rates were competitive as big banks at the time.