USAA mortgage pre-approval issues?

[Anonymous]

We are looking for a home and have our pre-approval for the mortgage through USAA. They were the lender for our last mortgage, too, and we had a good experience. We would be happy to use them again, but are not married to it.

One of the agents we recently interviewed was very negative on having pre-approval through USAA. He even said that in a multiple offer situation, he would advise a seller to not choose the offer using USAA.

Has anyone else run into this? What are the issues with using USAA? Do we really need to get another pre-approval? If so, any recommendations?

[Anonymous]

We did but many years ago. We used who ever our realtor recommended and then switched to USAA. They were terrible to refinance with and they had sold our mortgage after saying they don't so we switched to pen fed. We had issues with them and paperwork too - they lost a lot of our financials.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like the agent you interviewed may have had another bank they wanted you to use. So they are trying to steer you away from USAA (or whatever other bank that isn’t their buddy or affiliated organization). I’d stay with USAA but steer clear of that agent. Side note, I’ve always found Penfed to have the best rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like the agent you interviewed may have had another bank they wanted you to use. So they are trying to steer you away from USAA (or whatever other bank that isn’t their buddy or affiliated organization). I’d stay with USAA but steer clear of that agent. Side note, I’ve always found Penfed to have the best rates.

Most agents get kickbacks so they push you using their person saying USAA will not close on time, which isn't true. We had that happen.

[Anonymous]

Our agent said similar about USAA but did not discourage us at all from using our local credit union. She said she had too many clients who had delays/problems with USAA. We use USAA for a lot of stuff, and did shop them for our mortgage, but our credit union had a far better rate and we went with them.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Agent X above. Kickbacks are illegal. Lenders occasionally host parties or will take you to lunch, but that is it. What good lenders do is help your clients close on time, meet deadlines as needed (appraisal and finance contingencies), help clients throughout the application process, etc. We have an affiliated lender through my broker, but we don't even use them as they aren't as reliable as we want. They don't do their loans in house, so sometimes it just takes too long to get the underwriting done and/or other issues addressed. I much prefer to use lenders who are independent from my company, but that's just because the one at my company isn't great.

I've had USAA car and homeowner's insurance forever. They are my bank. I love them for all of those services. However, they didn't make me the loan on my house for two reasons. First, they weren't local and I couldn't be assured they understood this market and could be as responsive as needed. They just don't get the need for quick turnarounds. Second, they offered me a much higher rate than the two other lenders I applied with. I've also heard multiple times that they do not close on time, which is a huge issue and puts your ernest money at risk.

Take the time to find a good local lender. It's definitely worth it and a strong lender makes your offer stronger!

[Anonymous]

Interesting. We purchased last year and our agent strongly discouraged Navy Federal for the same reasons but had no problem with us going with USAA (even though he strongly pushed a local lender). We closed in 30 days and had zero issues.

[Anonymous]

I use USAA for everything else and fully intended to for my mortgage. However like PPs I did not find them responsive nor in tune with the local market. I scrapped them and wound up using a local lender and I think it was the much better choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We purchased last year and our agent strongly discouraged Navy Federal for the same reasons but had no problem with us going with USAA (even though he strongly pushed a local lender). We closed in 30 days and had zero issues.

We used USAA four years ago and also had no issues.

[Anonymous]

We love USAA and use them for lots of things.

We did one mortgage with them and it was a CLUSTER. Never again.

Use someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We purchased last year and our agent strongly discouraged Navy Federal for the same reasons but had no problem with us going with USAA (even though he strongly pushed a local lender). We closed in 30 days and had zero issues.

+1 Same, but we had heard bad things about USAA's mortgage services, even though everything else is fantastic, so we steered clear. We went with Navy Federal over the advice of our realtor for a number of reasons, but mainly because they had the lowest rates at the time. We also closed in 30 days and there were zero issues. They were responsive, efficient, and delivered everything to the title company the day before we closed. I honestly think it depends on the people you end up working with though.

[Anonymous]

USAA doesn't do jumbo loans so that may be an issue if you want a SFH in the area. I've never had an issue otherwise using them when buying a home though.

They do tend to sell the loan though after you purchase and that can cause some issues with things like escrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We purchased last year and our agent strongly discouraged Navy Federal for the same reasons but had no problem with us going with USAA (even though he strongly pushed a local lender). We closed in 30 days and had zero issues.

We've had multiple issues with Navy Fed from mortgages to bank accounts. Our USAA mortgage was done a few days in advanced and they gave me the best rate at the time. We used Pen Fed to refinance as USAA had sold our mortgage after telling us they don't and Pen Fed rates were better at the time.

All relators push their lender. We used them for preapproval but they could not match the rate so we went with USAA. Our relator did basically nothing because we didn't go with her people, which was fine. She got kickbacks.

[Anonymous]

My SIL is an agent and she mentioned to me in passing the other day that she really dislikes it when clients use USAA because they don't have the scale to keep up with the speed at which things move in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting. We purchased last year and our agent strongly discouraged Navy Federal for the same reasons but had no problem with us going with USAA (even though he strongly pushed a local lender). We closed in 30 days and had zero issues.

+1 Same, but we had heard bad things about USAA's mortgage services, even though everything else is fantastic, so we steered clear. We went with Navy Federal over the advice of our realtor for a number of reasons, but mainly because they had the lowest rates at the time. We also closed in 30 days and there were zero issues. They were responsive, efficient, and delivered everything to the title company the day before we closed. I honestly think it depends on the people you end up working with though.

Is this USAA problem or just the presumption that if you are going to use USAA and/or Navy Federal that you will be using a VA loan with Zero down. I successfully bought in the area with a VA loan but i did run into negative comments from several seller's agents about the VA loans being a little tougher through the inspection process (i.e. Depending on the issue they will demand its fixed before granting the mortgage, then its a negotiation between the buyer and seller and if the seller does not want to fix you either have to walk away or get it fixed yourself) and 100% financing with the VA can turn seller agents off as they tend to see earnest money as an indication of the buyers seriousness/readiness to buy (and zero is not serious at all, and if the financing falls through you just walk away while the selller has some lost opportunity costs). When I moved here six years ago I did not realize the earnest money issue so it was not a problem for me to come up with a suitable amount but being a country bumpkin was completely clueless).