Quicken Loans Do not give them $500 Washington

 I have a loan through quicken loans and I had a relatively easy predictable experience with no surprises.

I have been reading many of the complaints about QL and there seems to be a recurring theme: people overvalue what their houses are really worth, and they generally have little or no equity in their home.

If you are breathing today, you must know that since the real estate meltdown of 2008, things have changed and lenders are very cautious to make sure the potential borrower has enough income to easily pay the mortgage.

So, if you have little or no equity, you must come up with 20% down. Most lenders won't even talk to you if you put down less than 20% or for refi, if you have less than 20% equity.

As important, is knowing the REAL appraised value of your home. You must realize that your home is ALWAYS more valuable to you than to a stranger. That is why most people complaining here are complaining that the appraiser "didn't value the house properly".

That is nonsense. The appraiser has no axe to grind and by law is independent of the loan company. The appraiser has a job to do which is to supply the loan company with a realistic value for the property.

As far as the $500 "good faith deposit" goes, if your loan goes through, that $500 is applied to your closing costs, so there really is no cost to apply if approved.

The people complaining here mostly have  been turned down due to the reasons stated above.

I had no problems because I took the time to go over in detail with the Loan Originator (the first person you talk to)

all relevant information, such as income, assets, true amount of equity and most importantly, a realistic assumed value of my home. (As it turned out, the appraisal came in $7500 less than I had thought, but it had no impact).

Once I gave them this information, they were able to run the numbers and determine (before I gave them any money) that as long as what I had told them was accurate (and it was) there was no reason why I shouldn't qualify.

That is why my application had no real issues or surprises and went smoothly.

Learn this lesson for the future and you also will have no problems. By the way, quicken loans has been the highest consumer rated loan company in the country for the past few years and they could not have earned that status if they were guilty of doing what these people imply. The applicants all had no idea wht their homes were truly worth.