We worked with Justin Thayse (who claimed to be the owner's son) after meeting him when he was…read moretrolling for business at an open house that his wife was showing (not her listing, just showing it for another agent) We informed him that we needed a 30 year FIXED rate mortgage with a payment under $1200/month-including PITI-and that we absolutely would not go above that. After we found a house (FSBO, but still paid his wife commission to be nice) we went to fill out the paperwork. First red flag: under the financing contingency, she had put 2 yr. ARM instead of 30 yr. fixed with a HIGH interest rate. When I balked, she said it was just the standard, but not to worry. We got our offer accepted and went back to California to pack and move. Two weeks before closing, I called Justin to say that we were about to pack up our office, so I needed to know if there were any other papers he would need. He informed me were all good to go. In the middle of our move (in Oklahoma, to be exact) we received a call from Justin asking for some odd papers. I informed him that it would have to wait until we got into the house, as they were in the moving truck. He then called back and said without those papers, "the bank" was insisting that because my husband was military, he needed to provide a letter from his command stating that he would be stationed in Wisconsin for the next TWENTY years. When I replied that that was both impossible AND illegal, he informed me that "the bank" was changing our loan to a...yup...2 yr. ARM with a high interest rate. Yes...just days before closing, while we were in the middle of a cross country move. This "change" put our house payment up over $1700/month-more than $500 more than we said we could pay-and would go up to over $2100/month in two years. When we got to the office for the closing, we were informed that the closing would be pushed back a couple of days because of the changes "we" made. Luckily, the current owners had moved out, and were kind enough to allow us to put our stuff in the garage, because we had a moving truck to return. Closing was pushed back a few more hours on the new closing day, but eventually we closed on our home we could no longer really afford. Called the next day to ask some questions and am still waiting to hear back. I never heard from him again (and he refused my calls until I gave a different name at which point he said he'd call back...he never did) Upon getting to know our neighbors, we found that they had had pretty much the same issues (only moving from Kewaunee, not California) but with a different loan officer, and eventually lost their house when the ARM rate adjusted. We had to sell before our rate adjusted and ended up doing a short sale because the market crashed (with snakes like these guys, is it any surprise?) It's been years, but I will NEVER...EVER even considering using that company ever again. If they allow their employees (or worse, co-owners) to do such things, they deserve to be out of business. We were able to sell, but people lost their HOMES due to the greed of this company. FYI: It's them and many like them are what caused the market crash, lowering everyone's home value and making it more difficult to get a mortgage.
