A couple years ago, I was buying my first house and I asked my real estate agent to recommend a mortgage lender. My real estate agent's partner had recommended Jim in the past, so Jim was the person recommended to me. Jim offered me a mediocre rate, but acknowledged that because they have overhead and local premises, they can't offer rates as good as online mortgage lenders.
OK, fine, I can understand that.
He then went on to convince me that it was worthwhile having the lender nearby in case of any problems, peace of mind, blah blah blah. So I foolishly decide to go with Commerce Home Mortgage.
One of the few good things I can say about working with Jim Bailey and Commerce Home Mortgage is that the process of getting the mortgage was pretty straightforward. It was not a hassle to get the loan at all.
Everything's fine for a while, I've got the auto-pay thing set up, I don't even have to think about my mortgage payment, all is well.
Then I find out that Commerce Home Mortgage has decided to switch to using BSI Financial for servicing their loans. How do I find out? The automatic withdrawals have stopped and I'm late for a mortgage payment.
Quick aside, but if you aren't familiar with BSI Financial, they're probably the worst loan-servicing company in existence. Do a quick Google search for them and you'll see endless one-star ratings at sites like Consumer Affairs and so on. Basically, if anyone starts having you deal with BSI, it's the mortgage world equivalent of being told, "Fuck you." as they spit in your face.
So I go through the process of setting up automatic payments with BSI and everything's fine for a couple months until, oh wait, "Your mortgage payment has increased $100/mo." Get online, try to modify my automatic payment for the new amount, everything looks fine. The next month, no automatic payment. Thank God I've been paying attention to my balance ever since Commerce initially screwed me over by switching to BSI.
I call BSI and they're like, "Oh, your automatic payments were suspended, we'll get them enabled for you."
"But why was it suspended in the first place?", I ask. No response. Ever.
The next month, shockingly, there's no withdrawal again. Call BSI up, "Hey, my automatic payment didn't happen AGAIN."
"Oh, well, our records show you called in about it and they told you that your automatic payment was suspended, but didn't reset the account."
"But...they said they were enabling the automatic payments again."
"Well, they didn't."
If you want to roll the dice on whether you're going to end up with late mortgage payments because of someone else's incompetence or you enjoy worrying about whether your mortgage got paid every month, then Commerce Home Mortgage may be an acceptable lender for you. If, on the other hand, you want a better rate and competent servicing of your loan, straight up avoid Jim Bailey and Commerce Home Mortgage. read more