I was referred to Karen at Landmark by our realtor. What a blessing in this chaotic crazy time…read more The mortgage process in itself, is not an easy process. Yet, Karen made it the simplest mortgage process I have experienced. This is the 4th and hopefully, final home purchase for my family. Karen made herself available anytime I had a question. She is professional and knowledgeable. She negotiated a great rate for us. I knew through the entire process that she was there for us. Seriously, if you need a Mortgage talk with Karen. I am pretty sure you won't be disappointed!!

I was originally referred to Tyler Westby at Landmark Professional Mortgage Company (in 2003) by a…read morefriend who is a real estate investor. I was told they would work hard to obtain the best mortgage financing, at the lowest rates. I have obtained 4 mortgages through LPMC since then. I appreciated the courteous attention to my needs each time. During my most recent mortgage I ran into a complicated HUD issue due to an unintentional error on my part during the title process. It would have been easy for LPMC to leave me on my own since their job was done. Instead, they stood with me through this ordeal (over 3 months) and, mostly attributable their efforts, the matter was completely resolved. LPMC has earned my business and my highest possible customer rating for their awesome service.

Very thankful of Bruno Lion, was a huge help for me with the insurances with the details and I…read morestrongly and highly recommend him

Great team! Great people! Took the time to listen and take care of all my needs. Definitely would…read morerecommend

We chose Michael as our realtor because of his in depth knowledge of home renovation. We were…read morelooking to buy a fixer upper as that fit best within our budget and, as Michael has fixed up many properties himself, he seemed to be the best choice for us. Michael was very knowledgeable and walked us (first time home buyers) through the entire home buying process. Michael was able to provide his experience and insight as to the amount of work a house would take and we appreciated his perspective. He made himself available to us at all hours of the day, weekends included, and was always able to answer questions that we had in a prompt manner. Michael was quick to get important documents to us and his speed allowed us to purchase our home as the market is quite tight. For example, we looked at our house at 6pm and by 9pm the same day Michael had already prepared and sent over the offer documents for us to sign. Overall, we had a great experience and are happy with our new home and would recommend Michael for anyone else in the market.

Shane was excellent! He called me on the phone when I requested it because I had some questions…read moreand quoted exactly what I wanted. I bought the policy from him and he even helped me with the phone app when I had an issue with it. I highly recommend Shane at Uptown Insurance!

I can't recommend Andrew's services highly enough! He's been so helpful, responsive, and…read moreknowledgeable. I have my homeowners, auto, and business insurance through Uptown, and he's been so quick to explain things clearly whenever questions have come up. The speedy responses are especially helpful with my business needs, as I regularly have contracts that arise that require updates to my business insurance. I've tried going the DIY route in the past with insurance, but never again . . .

Scott Gilbert, Melissa and Selisha are miracle workers! There is one word to describe this company…read more- integrity. The day before I was to close on our home with another lender, Freedom Mortgage, we were not able to close on the loan due to a title discrepancy. The movers were there and everything was boxed! It was a nightmare. I called Scott the following day and his underwriters researched the title and it deemed it clean with no issues at all. With Scott's lead, and with his vast knowledge and experience I was able to close on the loan two weeks later! Melissa and Selisha are wonderful to work with as well - speedy, warm, intelligent and kind. I highly recommend this company!

I can't say enough great things about Lighthouse Financial, and especially Scott and Mel, who have…read morehelped us sail through multiple transactions over the years. I was originally referred to Scott by my real estate broker while looking at investment properties in Salem and Keizer. I used US Bank in the past, but most of the big banks have a "mortgage guy" who seems to be asleep at the wheel. But when you work with someone like Scott, who can shop multiple lenders and give you brilliant strategic advice on how to structure deals for the best outcomes, you avoid the assembly line (and inevitable delays) of the larger institutions. What a night and day difference. He is very sharp and moves like lightning. My goals are very different from the regular home buyer, and so I rely heavily on consultative experts who can problem solve their way around obstacles. They know how to work a bigger plan and make sure we are hitting all of our metrics. If I fall short on something, Mel brings the urgency needed to get the deal done. I can't tell you how appreciated that is. That level of focused project management is worth every penny. They really work hard to see around corners for you, and to package things efficiently for underwriting to keep surprises minimal. They are truly masters of what they do. I highly recommend them to any and all REIs who want pros to handle their financing side. This market is too competitive and moves too quickly to have anything less than a top notch financing partner.

HORRIBLE TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE My amazing father has dementia…read moreand my family is dealing with the many challenges that come with this disease including the loss of his drivers license and the decision that he can no longer care for himself. It was time to sell his home and he would move to a place where meals are provided and other care that he needs is available. Mind you my parents have only purchased 2 homes in their lifetime and still reside in my childhood home. They are not savvy or knowledgeable about anything related to selling a house. I was ultimately referred to the realtor's broker Melina who contacted me about my requests for fliers and/or a QR code and using social media to promote the house and specifically that in the walkable neighborhood of Englewood where my dad's house is located is a great way to inform people about my dad's remodeled and quaint home. I was told that fliers, social media and other suggestions for advertising were NOT within the advertising agreement that my dad signed with my mom present. They are responsible for signing the agreement but they also didn't know that for the agent/broker commission that all they would essentially receive is staging for a tiny 2 bed 1 bath home, pictures of the property and an open house (neighbors by invitation) the open house was self serving as a way to meet new potential clients and let looky Lou's snoop around the house. I was appalled and shocked no hustle, no strategy whatsoever to make this house move quickly. I believe the house had been on the market for not even 2 weeks and when Melina the owner of this company spoke with me she was a NIGHTMARE think Devil Wears Prada Linda Wintour kind of pompous, rude and condescending. I was hurt, felt disrespected and very upset by her actions and how she treated me. It led to a total breakdown in trust and confidence in her and her agent. I'm not sure if she had even the slightest twinge of care about my family and caregivers fatigue from caring for a family member. Selling his house included the dismantling of my dads home, belongings and it's a painful experience for him and our family. Hiring a realtor and a broker is supposed to take the responsibility and stress away from the family turning it over to "professionals" who happily collect commission and that is when we decided this was not a safe or honorable place to place our trust. The worst part is that I informed Melina owner/broker that my dad didn't have a copy of his signed contract nor did my mother. The broker said that it must be in a box from his move....ummm....No. Electronic email is standard for sending a contract. I did speak to Melina/owner-broker again and I was hoping for a chance to move forward and unfortunately I was again met with a communication style that was abrupt, harsh and her goal is about winning and being right instead of seeking to understand and find common ground. On the complete opposite spectrum our agent remained positive, kind, caring and compassionate. I highly recommend her and hope she's able to find a brokerage firm that matches her energy and professionalism. We appreciate her dedication to our family.

If you are even considering buying a home in Salem/Keizer, I need to tell you a story about an…read moreamazing woman and realtor - Melina Tomson. My Mom recently passed away from brain cancer. It was my job to "handle her affairs", one of which was to sell her home. We interviewed several people based on YELP reviews. We chose Melina to sell Mom's home. We had NO IDEA what a good choice we made. She staged the house just beautifully. Within days we got our first offer. But there were problems on the horizon. Essentially, my Mom's home (which looked beautiful) had a fair amount of deferred maintenance. Here's what we faced 1) sunken oil tank, 2) old roof, 3) heater air-conditioning needed to be replaced, 4) water main to the street needed to be replaced, 5) electrical panel needed to be replaced. That, combined with clouds on the title and some other "issues" meant that we had two "failed sales". Through all of this Melina was "as cool as a cucumber". She always had the answers. More than that - she always knew exactly the right person to call in to help. And, since she's worked with all these contractors before, she was able to get them to do the work with the expectation they would get paid at closing. She did all this with a super positive attitude. The house sold in a fairly short period of time considering the challenges. I don't live in the Salem/Keizer area so there is just no way we could have done this without Melina's finesse, knowledge, and hard work. If you are considering buying or selling a home in the Salem/Keizer market, your first move should be to pick up the phone and call Melina. I'm not a huge referral person, but I would take a phone call from anyone that has any questions. Melina is a rock star! Thanks! You are a friend of the family...

Traci is a very sweet lady and my only intent for this review is to share our experience and…read morehopefully give some constructive feedback so other clients do not go through what we went through. My fiancé and I just got a new house. Our realtor (a coworker of mine) referred us to Traci for our mortgage/ financing. We knew from the start that buying a house would require us to jump though many hoops and is not an easy to do. We figured that Traci would shed some light and give us some direction because all of this was very confusing, and we kept an open mind during the process. We were not that impressed with Traci's services. Little did we know, another coworker of ours also went through Traci and had a negative experience with her but we were not aware of that at the time. We were under the impression that Traci would take good care of us and keep us in the loop, given that she has so many 5-star reviews. Instead we felt that we were treated poorly. For example, Traci is very hard to get a hold of over phone. All my calls would go to voicemail and most of our communication was done over text (which can be hard to interpret and is not the best method of communication because she would take up to a day to respond). Our intention of hiring Traci was to be able to call her up, give her some numbers to crunch ASAP, and then put in an offer (all of this is very time sensitive) but on many occasions, she would take hours to get back and told us to use her app to crunch numbers ourselves (which we were not comfortable doing). Instead of being 1 step ahead of things, we felt like were always 2 steps behind. Traci never gave us any heads up or checked up on us during this process. She would send us cute and informative check lists way after we needed them or after that step was completed (which was no help to us at all). We did take COVID into consideration, but she mentioned that she sent our closing kit (what to expect when closing) late. She also misspelled our names on letters multiple times and that made us feel like she did not pay close attention to detail (we have emailed and texted her numerous times and they have our signatures with our names). She would also give us deadlines with no heads up. Given that we were trying to close on the house and needed to request paperwork during the week of 4 of July (most offices are closed for the Holiday) which gave us a super small time frame (about a day) to get papers in and drop our Escrow check. We wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt because she came highly recommended but what really upset us was the fact that our Escrow office NEVER received any of our paperwork. On the day we were supposed to receive our phone call to make our appointment for the closing table, we never received any call and found out that Traci had once again dropped the ball and never sent our paperwork to the office (which could have messed up the entire closing process and potentially make us temporarily homeless). Even after we called and requested her to send our papers off, she sent them 30 minutes before the actual escrow appointment (when typically this sensitive information is sent 2-3 days prior to the appointment so they can catch any mistakes ahead of time). I feel that we were not treated with any kind of priority and that we did more work than she did. She also gave us inaccurate information regarding payment methods and refund checks (which isn't a huge deal) but could have caused a delay for us. In the end she did send us pizza on our move in day along with a blanket as a welcoming gift (which was very thoughtful), but I am still not comfortable recommending her to our friends, family, or community.

Traci was absolutely wonderful! When anything came up during our house buying process she remained…read morehelpful and hopeful. She also sent us little gifts in the mail just to let us know she was thinking of us. She was so thoughtful through the whole process, patient, and kind even when my frustration levels were at their highest. She was seriously the best. I would highly recommend her help with any of your house buying needs.

I have known Ryan for nearly 20 years - when he got into this industry years ago, I knew he would…read morebe fantastic and his clients would love him. However, I was set up with USAA and given their reputation for being the most cost effective provider I never considered another option. Ryan was patient and would check in on my from time to time, and finally this summer, I agreed to let him review my policy and I am so grateful that I said yes. Not only was I able to increase my level of coverage without an increase in cost, but it was the first time I experience this top shelf, personalized level of service as it pertains to my insurance needs. I was blown away by the process. It has been amazing. Not only do I trust Ryan as a great friend, but I have complete confidence in my family's protection knowing that Ryan is looking out for our best interest. 5* all the way! In addition, I had the pleasure of working with his colleague Tiffany who was an absolute extension of Ryan's approach in every way. Her service was on point, her availability for my myriad of questions, scenarios, etc. She is amazing as well. They make a pretty killer team!! You are definitely in great hands with Ryan & Tiffany!

Excellent customer support! Always available to answer questions. I highly recommend themread more