When we started our homebuying experience we were so excited. We decided to go through First Federal, as when I bought my first home 6 years ago everything went really smooth. However, that changed drastically as the day of closing got nearer. Esteban was the absolute worst communicator and he only had it out for himself and how to make sure he got a kickback from our loan. We were told we had a rate locked in and a month later found out we didn't. Rates had gone up almost an entire percent by that time (4.8-to 5.5%). When we told him he needed to fix it he blatantly told us there wasn't anything he could do, while also admitting to his screw up. He pushed and pushed for an ARM which we didn't want- but ultimately had to get because he didn't lock in our rate (ARM's stay at the bank and the lender gets a kick back). We were told "I'll do what I think is best" despite what we, the ones taking out the loan, wanted. That the change of rate was "Not that much money", but over the life of the loan would end up being over $28K more than originally agreed on. Esteban even told us that he would "Pay us $7k out of his pocket to make things right" (Pretty sure that's illegal!). By the last 10 days Esteban stopped communicating with us all together. We would have to call for updates hours after he told us things would be done at a certain time (ie, "Ill have everything ready for you by 5pm tonight", We call at 5:30, "I'll get it to you first thing in the morning", We call at 10am "Just let me do my job", we don't get the paperwork till over 24hours past when promised). He screened his calls (we know because we would have to call on other people's phones for him to answer) and most of the time we had to call his manager to get any kind of dialogue to happen. We would receive short texts telling us to do something without any explanation as to why or how to do said thing (example- "you need to pay XYZ"- we would ask why, and if we could have an invoice or statement to pay- no response or my favorite "that's just how it is"). When my husband would call to get straight answers- Esteban likes to talk in circles and confuse you- he actually got hung up on! We ended up having to have our realtor be our advocate for us, because she would (at first) get more answers than we would. And even towards the end Esteban would text her to tell us stuff instead of sending us an email, text, or call us. He not only almost cost us to be homeless- wanting to push back our closing date due to him not getting paperwork done- but he ended up postponing our signing by hours because he hadn't turned in completed paperwork. This may not seem like a huge deal except our house was sold and we literally ended up only having 4 hours to move and do final cleaning in the house before the new owners moved in. We won't be going back to First Federal for any sort of banking. The treatment we received was horrible. read more
