Stearns Lending

I Have to say that I am extremely confused about some of the bad reviews given on Unilocal about the Stearn’s lending team. I feel that if you decide to use Unilocal as a resource to research home lending agencies and mortgage brokers, its truly important to read all reviews and keep in mind that there are people in this world that do not take accountability for there own problems, mistakes, and actions in life and that is the reason they use a website to discredit the reputation of the Stearn’s lending team; now with all that said I would like to comment on my experience with Amy Battin and the Stearn’s lending team. I was provided with outstanding service, Amy Battin was direct, thorough, honest, compassionate, friendly and most of all knowledgeable. I am truly touched by her kindness and professionalism she made getting a home loan easy and made us feel safe and secure throughout the entire process. Amy Battin never left us out of the loop she contacted us day, night, and weekends, she cared more about our confidence level then approving us for a loan, she explained everything in so much detail, she never made us feel pressured into getting a loan, she provided us with several options for making our purchase, she provided excellent referrals for services that we needed, and she even had our home re-​keyed so that we felt safe and secure upon moving in. By the way Joe Soltys with assist lock smith LLC. was great as well, he was responsive quick and very friendly. Back to Amy though, I still cannot believe how great our experience was with her she made buying our first home so comfortable for us and the fact that she made some personal sacrifices so that we could get our loan approved was truly heart warming. There are so many options out there for mortgage brokers but I am so happy I had the privilege to work with Amy Battin she truly is an exceptional person and I will forever be grateful to her and the Stearn’s lending team. thank you Amy you are an amazing woman!!!

I can’t say enough about Aaron Reed. He is wonderful! Aaron has followed through 2 months past closing. I never thought I would own a home again. He walked me thru each step and made it happen. No matter how stressed and skeptical I was, he was there to explain the process. He is a shining star with Stearn’s Lending. I don’t know what experience some individuals have had with Stearn’s lending, but it certainly was not with Aaron. He is the real deal and absolutely earned every one of the 5 stars. You will be in good hands placing your mortgage with him.

We used them for our orginal loan and our refinance. Ricky knows what he is talking about he is knowledgeable and anwsers questions. He did a couple things that made me upset I told him and he fixed them and made everything right. He has an awesome team working for him. They are patient and always anwser your questions. If they are unsure of an anwser to your question they will find out the anwser and call you back. They where quick with getting our loan done also. Will use then agian!

I cannot even describe the frustration and disappointment with this lender. Stay away. My realtor tried to warn me, but it was a referral from a friend, and I had done business with Sterns Bank (totally separate apparently) and so I thought I was in good hands. Aside from the actual approval, nothing was easy. It was like pulling teeth to get info and numbers when I wanted, the loan officer didn’t lock me in when he should have, I had to ask for everything two and three times, the process took twice as long as promised (simple matter of overpraising and under –delivering), and they made a mistake on the amounts at closing, caused me to lose out on a $ 300 credit, and so I had to go back the next day and transfer money. NOW 2 months later I found out that they messed up my condo insurance!!! DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE! ABSOLUTELY THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE & NO ACCOUNTABILITY.

Virginia Fargo is one patient amazing person! She was extremely helpful and aggressive at helping us get a loan for our new home. Highly recommend her!

I wanted to say stearns lending team made it happen I had 3 homes that were given back in 2008 I have work diligently on my credit since then and paid my rent on time; needless to say I’m a happy home owner! Yes it was hard to type letters explaining my situations to underwriters and provide documentation along with working dinner sports, kids, ect but it’s all worth it now that I’m BBQ in my own back yard and not my landlords thank you Ricky, Jennifer and the Stearns lending team. Oh yes Laurie with Remax!

This place deserves ZERO stars. The negative reviews are here for a reason and the first indication to run. Not only are they unethical, lying and stating things to «others» and they know what I mean by «others» that are not true or when we said we started the application process or verbal approval to run credit or to submit our loan to others without our knowledge. It was a horrible process to go through and am reporting what they did to those «others» so they are aware of what this company really does. There are laws that must be followed and this place takes the cake in NOT FOLLOWING THEM. Stay clear of this place to avoid stress, anxiety and all. No one here answers their phone or returns any call back timely. For some reason they are always in meetings.

When you get your mortgage financing through a VA home loan, it’s really important that you have a an expert lender and a good agent. I was really lucky to have Amy Battin work my loan. She seemed like a true expert and explained everything to me throughout the entire purchase process. I was nervous about a lower credit score and being a first time buyer, but Amy made much of the process as painless as possible. She was direct about the pros and cons of my VA backed mortgage. She made sure it was the best route for me to go. Then, she found a grant that gave me $ 5,000 towards my home. She always answered any questions I had. She offered to explain anything about the entire process I didn’t understand, even if it wasn’t really lender related. She explained that she’d been in her business for 13 plus years and could often help explain common problems that bubble up in the buying process. She helped immensely when my seller got skiddish and I had to eat a number of repairs in order to satisfy my VA appraisal requirements. I experienced a few of the common issues that arise around a VA loan and she was almost always the person with a solution. She had my loan done before closing. My agent was constantly really impressed by her. Every time she quoted me a monthly payment, it was the actual monthly payment. She didn’t omit escrow or any other fees. She told me my payment would be $ 773 and that is what I pay. Also, when I first filled out an application, I told her I didn’t want to pay more than $ 800 per month. So, I’d say she did a pretty good job, since she helped me get approved for a house that was $ 10,000 over my initial prequal limit. Additionally, she always promptly returned my agent’s and my phone calls (most of which were on weekends or after work hours). All in all, I felt like she was really capitalizing on my veterans benefits in order to help me get the exact home I wanted. She takes care of veterans.

I really want to be able to recommend Stearns Lending, but alas I cannot. We initiated an application for pre qualification on a nonconforming loan around March 1. We are 2 years and 7 months past a foreclosure with extenuating circumstances, but aside from the foreclosure itself, we are great candidates for a loan. Today is April 12^th and the application package has gone through every step except approval from the Director of the Exceptions department. I’ve been given various dates by which we would know, including the promise that approval was imminent that day or the next day at the latest. Every deadline has passed. The app has been with the Director of the Exceptions department for at least two weeks and he won’t respond to calls or emails from from the agent of this local branch that has been trying to help us. While I’m sure it’s not her fault, if Stearns’ own agents are powerless to move an application through the machine of this bank over 6 weeks, you should take your business elsewhere.
Will edit this review if we ever get a response.
UPDATE 5÷30÷13
Shortly after I wrote the above review, we contacted another lender who gave us a prequalification letter within 48 hours. To Amy Battin’s credit, she provided us with a copy of our file so we could do it a little faster. With that lender’s prequal letter, we went shopping for houses and found one we liked within a few weeks. While we were looking, I stopped calling Amy every week for updates. We had sort of given up on Stearns by then. After a couple of weeks of no calls, she contacted my husband to say that another lender might be able to help because they had recently changed the guidelines to requiring only two years following a foreclosure to approve a loan. Just so we might have options, we resubmitted updated information and let the process with Stearns continue.
Once we had an accepted offer on the property, I emailed Amy to say essentially that it was now or never. She emailed back with another positive response «I might be receiving a loan approval for you!» and requested the purchase price and adress on the property. No approval came. What did come was a private email on May 15 titled « Unilocal Review». Apparently another potential customer made her aware of my review and had chosen to take their business elsewhere. She was unhappy and although none of the review was factually inaccurate, she wished I hadn’t posted it. Coincidentally, on that same day, «Shania N.» became a member of Unilocal and posted a glowing 5 star review of this company. «Shania N.» has only posted one review and I suspect that she was created to boost their star rating.
Two days later, we received a final email declining us on the loan. That decision came 10 weeks after we initiated an application for a mortgage loan through Stearns. We close on the house today through another lender.
***Although I felt I thoroughly explained that we are NOT a typical straightforward loan candidate, Amy Battin felt that it was not clear and even unfair for me to post a review based on our experience. She vehemently maintains that our case is not representative of her usual performance. This is probably true for good candidates without a foreclosure/​bankruptcy/​short sale or similar mark on their credit report.
PROS: Amy was very positive, was a pleasure to talk to and always responded to phone calls and emails within a day. In some weird way, if she hadn’t made me believe early on that we were great candidates and that this could totally be done and kept giving us hope week after week, I would have given up and waited until we hit the 3 year mark to apply for a loan instead of approaching another lender. Also, Amy did say that she really went to bat for us arguing our case and calling daily to the people who were in charge of making the decision.
CONS: It’s never a good thing to overpromise and underdeliver. We heard a lot of «we’ll hear by X day» and once even told with excitement that our approval was impending by the end of the day (just gotta get with some guy who’s in a meeting) and then no one called back that day or the next. I just think 10 weeks is too long to get a denial.
Upon consideration of the whole experience and given that we ultimately did get a loan because Ms. Battin said it was possible, I probably would have bumped this review up to two stars, but since I strongly suspect that «Shania N.» is a plant given the timing of her review and lack of review history, I’m going to stick with my one star.