Better.com
reviews and complaints

We chose Better for a 30-day close. Our first representative was great and the site was easy. We uploaded all of our personal/financial documents within days. We didnt hear from anyone for two weeks and assumed we were on track. When we later needed information for condo docs, we learned that our representative had changed. We often had to wait days for answers from our new representative and took to calling their overseas office at night. We still thought that we were on pace to make our closing until our representative was, again, changed days before closing. The new representative was out of the office during the final days leading up to closing. We were never told that we weren't going to be able to close on time. My partner was on the phone with yet another representative through the afternoon on our scheduled closing date (a Friday), clarifying very basic closing-cost information that had already been spelled-out by the title attorney. The representative said that he had to check something and would call right back. He never did.The following Monday, Better remained hung-up on the same closing-cost questions. After the title attorney repeated her clarification, we were scheduled to close that afternoon. While at the closing table, we waited for the wire until, fortunately, the seller agreed to proceed, presuming that funds were on the way. The next morning, I received a frantic call from title asking if I had heard from Better because they never sent the wire. Funds were not sent until 24 hours after our belated closing.My partner and I are both W2 employees, covered closing costs with two checking accounts, have 780+ credit scores, and have no student loans. If our loan was any more complicated, I'm honestly not sure we would have been able to close with Better. From experience, Better will be competitive (though not head-and-shoulders above competitors) in terms of rate and fees, but you're taking that money and buying a headache.

5/20/2022 Re: A big, special thank you to John Smith NMLS #[protected] Dear Better Mortgage Corporation and all homebuyers,

My wife and I were married last year and have been trying to find a nice neighborhood to purchase our first home in since then. We were renting and had to time our purchase exactly right to match up with when our apartments lease would end. We informed John Smith of this less than 3-month turnaround time and he informed us that with Better's current technology and process, we would be able to close in a very quick timeline. He was so right.

From March 7th, when our offer on our dream house was accepted to the closing date on April 29th, John Smith was there for us. John Smith was committed to making sure all the documents were in order and deadlines were met on the Better Mortgage side so we could meet our closing date. We had so many questions for John Smith, sometimes daily and throughout the day, and he always answered in a timely manner and was very patient, which was important for us since we've never bought a home before.

Our parents taught us to never settle for less than the best in life. Well, we purchased the best house, our dream house, but we couldn't have done it without the best loan officer John Smith. From the initial connection, expert advising, follow up and follow through, John Smith was dedicated to helping us land our dream house. For anyone reading this, John Smith is positive, easy to talk to, dependable, transparent, knowledgeable, and will work hard for you. We closed on our first house, our dream house, a month before our apartment's lease was up. Wow! This gave us time to decorate and move in comfortably. While everyone's timeline may vary with personal circumstances and seller, John Smith will collaborate with you to get you the house of your dreams. We highly recommend him for any first-time and experienced homebuyers. THANK YOU, John Smith!

All the best from new and first-time homeowners,
The Smith Family

listing. This caused confusion and a dispute between me and the seller during the closing process. I had to negotiate separately with the seller to ensure that the appliances were included in the sale.Furthermore, the closing process was a nightmare. There were constant delays and miscommunications between Better, the title company, and the seller. It took much longer than anticipated to close on the house, causing unnecessary stress and frustration.In the end, I regret choosing Better for my mortgage and real estate needs. The lack of local representation, poor communication, and mishandling of important details made the entire experience a complete disaster. I would not recommend Better to anyone looking for a smooth and reliable home buying process.

We're in the middle of trying to do a cash-out refinance with Better right now, which we started several weeks ago. When we were initially shopping, their customer service was great. Tons of communication, super responsive to questions, etc. As soon as we paid our "lock" fee (which covers the appraisal), they became completely unavailable. We've had 6 "tasks" assigned for us for two weeks now that we are unable to complete (including accepting our rate) due to a stupid technical error on the website, which no one is able to help us with. Essentially, my husband needs to "e-sign" components of the paperwork, but is unable to do so because we are unable to add his email address to the application. We've reached out via the in-app chat, via phone, via text, via email several times over the last week. NO ONE WILL HELP US. The staff assigned to work with us shows zero availability to set up a phone call for the next two weeks, so there's no way to talk to anyone about it. The responses we've gotten via the online chat (it takes at least 24 hours and up to three days for anyone to even respond, if they do at all) are unhelpful- they repeat the same instructions over and over (telling me to click a button I've literally clicked 40 times already) and then disappearing into the void, with no follow up when I tell them it's not working. Beyond that, there's been little to no follow-up on the paperwork end of things. We are self-employed, own multiple businesses/have multiple revenue streams, and the documentation we are supplying is complex and needs more explanation than the online portal allows- but there's no room for nuance in the process- no ability to get anyone on the phone. It feels like Better is slowing the timing down artificially, and their unwillingness to walk through basic things at this stage of the process does not inspire confidence in their trustworthiness moving forward. Our appraisal was yesterday, but at this point we're contemplating walking away and seeking financing elsewhere. Reading these other reviews was horrifying and validating. At least we're not alone. I hope Better gets investigated for their shady practices. Totally unacceptable way to do business.

I would give Better mortgage zero stars if I could. Can this company just be transparent from the beginning? Horrible experience with Better refinancing. They need to be transparent from the beginning and not allow customers incurring costs and then later come back with unverifiable guidelines. I'm a nurse and I've been one for a long time. I decided to do local travel due to the pandemic a few months ago, prior to that I've had stable verifiable employment with no gaps. Upon initiation on my application, I explained in detail to my loan originator my current job status as a travel nurse, as usual they don't pay attention and still promise the world. They had me pay appraisal fees, calls here and there requested my life just for a refinance. They pre-approved my loan and submitted it to underwriting only to come back after almost 3 weeks of ups and downs, money and time wasting that my loan is denied stating the below.

1) The primary factor considered when our underwriters recommended your application for denial was based on the nature of your income. Because you have not been a traveling nurse with short-term contract placements for a minimum of 2 years, we are unable to use this income to qualify you for this loan based on our company guidelines. Our company guidelines do not state this, and I've had a stable nursing job for the past 2 years.

2) Making this type of decision is twofold: of course, one responsibility of underwriters is to assess risk for the company in accepting an application, but the second and more important is to ensure that we're setting you up with credit that's the right fit for you. We consider it our obligation to make the mortgage process better, fairer, and free from lending that takes advantage of consumers and puts them in hard-pressed places to meet their monthly obligations. I have owned my property for 3 years and never made a late payment, and you should have assessed your risk prior to pre-approving the application. Also, I'm a Registered nurse, I doubt I won't be able to meet my financial obligations at any point based on what I do for a living. Do not pre-approve a loan, make customers pay for appraisals that are not cheap, ask for all the documents in the world, and run around, then come back, oh by the way, we could not approve the loan that is pre-approved. Please do your homework first.

Working with Better.com was an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE that led me to almost lose the house of my dreams. At first everything was running smoothly as the team provided me with a pre-approval loan that was higher than competitors along with a great interest rate. I decided to bid on my property of interest using the pre-approval letter they provided and the price of the property was 15% less than the loan they had granted me. Once in contract, i provided the team with every document they requested within a week. During this time the Better team was very responsive and answered all my calls and questions whenever i needed help. They assured me that my loan was moving along perfectly and that no issues would arise in the processing of my loan. During the second week I removed all my contingencies with the exception of my loan contingency since the team still hadn't finalized my loan. The following week (3rd week in the process) was when my loan contingency needed to be removed. Throughout the entire week i called, left voice-messages, emailed, and Instant messaged the team every day in order to get an update on the status of my loan (this was the only step backing up the escrow process). During the last 2 weeks leading up to the loan contingency expiration date, i received no answers from the better team. They continued saying that they were in meetings, on a phone call, etc and would respond as soon as they finished (that never happened). My loan contingency expired on the 3rd week and they did not respond until the next day (once contingency had expired!) saying that my LOAN HAD BEEN CANCELED. I was surprised by this news and told them that i could provide them with any further support they needed in order to complete my loan. No matter how much i asked for an explanation or attempted to fix whatever issue popped up, they did not work with me. They simply said they couldn't give me a loan regardless of what support i provided and that the underwriter closed the case. At this point i scrambled to work with 2 other lenders that i had previously been in contact with and both of them completed and approved my loan before the 3 week timespan that Better.com had been granted. Neither lender could figure out what the issue could have been that led Better.com to decline me last minute. Needless to say, Better.com did not even refund me for the appraisal report they made me pay for $550. This company is TRASH.

Absolute GARBAGE.Better Mortgage seems great up front, with competitive interest rates, quick response from employees, ability to close on time...BUT IT'S ALL A LIE.About half way through the process, Better started asking us (the buyers) and our real estate group for the same paperwork so we were double submitting. They had so many different people reaching out to all of us, we couldn't keep track. Then when you wanted to ask a question, it was insanely difficult to know who to get in touch with. We submitted all paperwork 2 weeks into the process. Then, THREE days, yes...72 hours...before CLOSE they notified us that they couldn't provide funding for our loan because the house had patio damage ($1000 repair) and needed electrical grounding ($600) repair. The seller doesn't live there, its a vacant house, so the seller credited us $1600...but Better said it needed to be fixed. We offered to escrow the $1600 to prove we'd fix the "safety" issues, but Better said the only way they'd fund it is if the seller fixed it first. Mind you, they've had the inspection for TWO WEEKS and no one ever said anything? But three days before close they were like "oh by the way...". Our "processor" John Doe should have noticed this. Along with his incompetent assistants he has working for him. Why did no one catch this sooner? Also, can we discuss what a POOR business decision it is from where they are standing? Are their under writers idiots? They are throwing away a $370,000 loan which will provide them a significant ton of money in interest/selling to a big bank... all for a $1600 repair? Like who is making that call? A junior under writer fresh out of college trying to prove he's a big boy? Not to mention the business they will lose due to our MEGA realtor brokerage blackballing them after this fiasco.So now it is less than 72 hours before I was supposed to close on a house. I am scrambling to find a lender to be able to close quickly and not charge an arm and a leg for good rates, I am postponing all of my moving I had scheduled (furniture delivery, appliance delivery, movers and moving truck) to an unknown date, and I am praying the seller will still let us be in contract and find a new lender so I won't lose the house and my $8,500 down payment and $1,000 in survey, appraisal, and inspection. You best believe if I lose my $9,500... I will be coming after Better Mortgage.Better? More like Worst. Literally, stay far far far far away from this company.

Worst experience of my life! Stay away from Better they will do everything they can to mess up your loan and blame everyone else as to the delays and problems. Absolute horrible company to deal with! They ask for the same information multiple times, and are very difficult to contact when you really need help. I applied for a jumbo loan and at first all seemed good. They conditionally approved us quickly and were easy to deal with at first. Come closing time everything changes. They failed to previously look into the property taxes and struggled to understand how property tax works with new property in CA. They then stalled our loan on closing day and stated we needed to come up with almost $100,000 more in deposit to make our debt to income ratio less than 43%. If they had calculated the property tax correctly they would know that our D to I was actually in the mid 30s they then dig in their heals and refuse to move forward unless we front up the extra cash. They knew we had it so we had no choice, our EMD was now on the line. Assuming we had now met their ridiculous last minute incorrectly calculated requirements we thought they would now send docs out for signing. They manage to send docs out late, we sign and expect funding the next day next day comes and no funding? It seems they decided to fire our loan officer along with 900 others ***. Zero regard for how existing customers will be handled during this layoff. I find out the news by reading tech crunch, call up, wait on the phone for two hours only to be told there are more documents that need signing since when were more docs required after signing? Theyre meant to be funding already they stall, more docs still to sign then nothing from the better team as to if funding occurred? Three days later from signing still no funding , they now need us to prove our employment again? We scramble to do that as they wont fund unless thats done again, all the while I managed to get through to a manager who was the only helpful individual at better. I spent quite literally 4 hours on the line with this manager pushing the funding team to fund. Finally they fund three days late. Now they refuse to give us the 2k guarantee to close funds because in their mind it was title that delayed us thats an outright lie. Long story short, if you want to go through hell with a company that disregards both its employees and is customers use better. Otherwise dont touch them with a ten foot pole. They get two thumbs firmly down for me.

This was my first experience with Better and I am sadly disappointed. I selected them for their great rates, online process, and the philosophy of no more frustrating mortgage experiences. Betters online process is generally pretty simple and steam-lined, but the process behind the scenes is a mess. I had received pre-approval and locked in my rate in early August, expecting to close in mid-October. ~ 7 weeks into the process, in late September, I am notified that they can not offer the loan to purchase the properties as outlined in my purchase agreement. No one had read and understood the purchase agreement closely, even after I called attention to some uniquities in our agreement. So we work through that by amendments to the purchase agreement, and its just been one thing after another since that. 6 revised purchase agreements later, 4 appraisal revisions, revising the loan structure twice, surprise decreases in promised lender credits, uncertainty on status of title search. I am beginning to think they really wanted me to cancelmaybe they arent making enough off of my $500K loan. I was scheduled to close on this loan tomorrow (third closing date because the first two couldnt be met due to delays). As of 6PM, I still have not obtained a copy of the final closing disclosure outlining settlement costs. Ive been asking for it all week since Ive already experienced closing get rescheduled twice. I was told by my loan agent that final balancing was underway (for 2 days), and then never updated again. Needless to say, I am not going to closing at 9 am tomorrow because I am walking away from this lender. The service was terrible and no one with authority was accountable to me as the customer throughout this process. I got a bunch of apologies. I did appreciate the positive attitudes of the people I dealt with though-out the process, they were very polite and apologetic, but this organization is poorly managed. I am probably the profile for the ideal borrower - stable employment, high income, well documented cash and assets, near perfect credit report, etc. Their process is over-reliant on third-party affiliates whom they have no control over. I would say that I pretty much drove the processing of this loan through the entire process. Was really willing to give this new company a try. Started out great, but in the end Ive spent too much of my own time to get through the process. No call back on status at 12 hours before settlement is an absolute disgrace for customer service.

I had started to work with Better mortgage 11/03 to fund a home purchase. I had an extremely frustrating time working with the underwriters. Multiple times I had to reupload the same document to provide financial proof of my transaction history. The underwriters failed to read the documents and required my explicit statement to provide an explanation. Example, I had liquidated stocks from a brokerage account, I uploaded the statements from the brokerage account and my bank statement showing the transfer and yet I received repeated notice that I had failed to show liquidation of said stocks. The brokerage statement I had uploaded showed the liquidation, but also including approximately $20 that had been sitting in the account that was transferred in addition to the liquidated funds (ie. They failed to look at the transaction history of my uploaded statement and see the added $20). If he doesn't plan on using them, what's the additional $20 debited on 11/15 and then deposited as a credit into the Chase account. He liquidated the funds and put them in a Chase statement but didn't provide the Chase statement. That's why the bank statement task was sent back out. I've specifically asked for accounts where the funds were transferred to.-Inaccurate above, I had uploaded said statement in addition to linking my chase account via plaid.com In addition, I had provided upfront that I was also going to liquidate $25,000 or so in bonds. I provided the bank statement, the transaction receipt from my bank along with the recording of the value for each bond being deposited. I submitted the forms twice, providing that these were the only forms I had. These same forms I had submitted to two other loan companies, whose underwriter accepted as valid. Approaching 1 week prior to closing, I continued to receive notice from Better's underwriter that the forms I submitted were not acceptable. As an alternative the option I was provided (1 week prior to closing) was to liquidate assets from my 401k/IRA in that the underwriter would refuse to accept the forms I submitted related to the bonds. As provided the ongoing frustration through the process and limited confidence I had in working with Better mortgage I decided to use Rocket Mortgage who had been much more efficient/responsive and clear with communicating with me. Better.com did have a better rate and total APR, but I lacked the confidence in their services.

In positive: - was willing to negotiate terms related to loan rate and points - attractive website design - responsive loan officer

I left reviews on ComplaintsBoard.com, Yelp and Google this morning, the date of my escrow close. I should have waited, as closing did not end up going well at all. As instructed, prior to closing, I went on your web interface to schedule a signing date for a remote closing and filled in my preferred date and time. I never received a confirmation. More than a week before the signing was supposed to take place, I reached out to my closer, Laura M, to let her know I still had not received confirmation of an appointment date and time. She assured me that she was coordinating with the title company, they had all of the information, and that they would be scheduling. The following week on Tuesday, 48 hours before the signing was supposed to happen I reached out again and included the contact at the title company. The title agent had no clue that she was supposed to be scheduling a notary for signing, said it was up to me to procure one, and if I wanted her to schedule a mobile notary it would cost me extra. Laura insisted it is usual and customary for the title company to schedule a mobile notary, title company said absolutely not, and after much back and forth and confusion, a mobile notary was scheduled and Better refunded the fee to me. The information that then populated my account page and which was also relayed to my agent incorrectly stated that the signing would take place on the 16th, not the 15th when it was actually scheduled, which caused more confusion. Then Laura called me the night before the closing and left a message that I should "remain in the building 45 minutes to an hour after signing so that the title company could review the documents to make sure there were no corrections that needed to be made"...this after a full day of drama over scheduling a mobile notary to come to my house for a remote signing. Finally, today, at the 11th hour on the day the loan was supposed to fund and close escrow, it turned out that your loan documents had a typo in them. Much confusion once again ensued with the people at Better at first insisting that the entire package needed to be re-signed. The title company was finally able to move forward with just a new closing disclosure, but my husband and I were out and had to return home to print, sign and scan the new closing disclosure to make sure the loan was able to fund today. To say that I am disappointed with this experience would be an understatement. My experience with my processor, Cole, and with Abanoub, my closer for my refinance were both excellent, but I felt that Laura lacked attention to detail which resulted in unnecessary confusion, anxiety and delays.

I do not trust these people whatsoever! I was referred to this company by ***.com - I just wanted to see what rates are available. I had not decided to refinance for sure yet. They have you fill out an application which has 14 or more things they need information wise. As you include information on each item it then closes and you move on to the next. One question was do you agree to having a credit check run for your loan? I answered yes, but I never submitted the application. The next morning all my credit alerts I have on my accounts were all going crazy - even my cell phone had a dozen or so alerts! Then my email inbox is full of all these people from Better.com emailing me to get 'my loan' moving! (My credit score, before they ran my credit, was 850 on Experian - as high as it goes. So now there are all these shark like people fighting to process my loan I guess. Then some guy calls me and acts like we are best buddies - someone I have never talked to before and didn't call. But he is from Better.com he says and asks me for my birth date 'Just to make sure he is talking to the right person.' He was not anyone who had emailed me and I don't give out personal information over the phone.. I'm not stupid enough to give any information to a possible/probable scam artist. I ended the call. I then get an email from the guy who had already emailed twice before and he says the guy who called works for him. (Hey, ho about an email that says the guy will be contacting me?!) He says I shouldn't be upset my credit report had been pulled because I had clicked the box on the application (that I never clicked on 'submit' to send it in for processing) and besides any mortgage company can now run my credit and it will only count as one hard hit on my credit report. I was so mad that I called that guy back at the number he had left but the receptionist said he was very busy and could not talk to me. I explained I had five properties to possibly 'refinance' (some had no mortgage as I had paid them off) and why the heck would run my credit before anyone even spoke to me? She left a message for him explaining things and that I wanted that credit inquiry removed as I hadn't authorized it. No phone call or email back from anyone! Ok, so my point to you is that I don't trust anyone that 'misleads' the customer. They believe they can do what ever they want so long as you have started an application with them, even if you never submit it to them. If you read other complaints on here you will find that these guys are not entirely honest. As for me, I will go with another TRUSTORTHY mortgage company. I do not in any way recommend Better.com!

Terrible service and virtually no communication on my refinance process, unless I initiated it. I provided ALL communication, signed documentation and supporting documentation within a few hours of request. For some documents I had to send it in multiple times. I received multiple extensions, no clear explanations to financial changes, and ultimately received nothing but stress. There are too many examples to list, but I will give a couple of issues that transpired throughout my experience.During my first attempt at refinancing, it was found that my ex husband had two judgements out against him in the house. After pumping the brakes on the first attempt, I took him to court and received a court order that any payout I owed him from refinancing would be reduced by a payout to settle these debts through the refinancing instead. During the second attempt I not only provided the court documents but also the two judgements in order to expedite the process and research in their end. Towards the end of the fourth week of this, I was sent screen shots of the judgements I sent in that the underwriting team had and said they were working through them. I asked for explanation, the mortgage agent stated that they were trying to locate it. I said I didnt understand since he had emailed me copies of the judgements that I had already uploaded, which is why they had them. I sent two additional email throughout the next week with no response. I finally called again after he second email had gone without response for two days and asked for an explanation of the delay. I was told that the underwriting team was trying to locate the judgements. I shared that they were public record and could easily be found, as I had found them, on the county clerks website. I asked for an email address that I could sent them to and that I could have them sent within five minutes. I sent them again. 6 hours later, the response I received was, I have provided this to both your Coordinator and Underwriting team. Hoping to hear something back from them today on next steps and a timeline for closing. They are now closed and I still do not have a response. Ive had to refinance a home before with Rocket Mortgage, and there was not appraisal process required. This was a requirement and upfront cost for Better.com, and was given a response that it was illegal for Rocket to not require it. Rocket has a long standing track record as an expert in this space. I highly doubt they operated in a way that would be illegal. I wish I would have returned to them instead of believing reviews of this newer company.At the end of the day, if theres a delay, then I would understand if there was better communication and understanding provided to the the client. But at this point the representation of Better.com to me as a consumer is that they dont care to do so, not have invested resources to properly move through this type of service offering. I would not and will not recommend them to friends or family.

I wish I'd gone with Better from the beginning. When working on buying my home I was convinced to use another lender besides Better.com. I had both applications open, but it seemed like the other lender had the better deal. I was wrong. We only found out the rate of the second mortgage when we started signing the papers. It was much too late to back out and go with Better at that time, so we signed anyway. Only 8 months later, rates had gone even lower, so I went straight to Better. They had the best rates all along (I was only duped into thinking the loan officer had found a better rate until I went to sign). With their near $0 in fees, it's hard to beat Better. The only hiccup with Better happened when calculating how much my loan to value ratio needed to be. After the appraisal, they said I'd have to buy down the loan with a significant amount of money. It didn't make sense since I had a 74% LTV. I was very disappointed, but I talked with Better about it, ready to quit the process. The initial application had not stated that I needed a buy down, and nothing had changed (the appraisal was exactly the same number I estimated in the application). It turns out there was something wrong in their system about the status of my second mortgage (a home equity line of credit, aka HELOC). They had recorded it in a way that changed the terms of my loan (the first loan officer strikes again with his bait and switch loan, now making it hard to refinance). To her credit, Jayme at Better worked on the application with her manager, trying to solve why it was requiring 70% LTV when it otherwise seemed like it should have been fine. They came back to ask if the HELOC was used entirely to buy the house. Yes it had. With this info they changed the terms and approved the loan with no buy down AND financing the closing costs. This was GREAT! The new loan cost me nothing and saves me nearly $600/mo. I'm leaving 4 stars (should be 4.5) because this should be a standard process and they could have avoided some pain. I spent an entire weekend in the dumps because I thought I was stuck with my terrible HELOC at prime + 3.5% rate (6.49% variable) compared to Better's 2.99%. My initial application and documentation clearly showed the HELOC balance used to pay for the house in the closing summary. I assume many people would have walked away after being told to buy down their mortgage $47,000, so the fact this was erroneous could have saved me some pain. I hate to take a full star, but I believe they should know this needs a fix. (Additionally, Better should adjust their bid to show this buy-down BEFORE you pay for the appraisal if it IS going to be required. That was my first thought when they told me I'd need it since my application estimated value exactly matched my appraisal, so you couldn't blame an "over-optimistic" home value.) My experience was otherwise flawless and I will continue to use and recommend Better.com to everyone. Very happy with every other part of my experience.

We have taken out two mortgages in our time and this is the third time we have refinanced properties. Things started well and then there were many frustrations before it did end well. 1) The online portion is fantastic. It's clear and easy to use. The people for the first leg of the journey were very helpful, available whenever and very good at explaining things. Up until lock in, it was a 5/5 stars. 2) We were refinancing with a certain interest rate in mind. If we hit that interest rate, we would refinance. The folks I was working with knew we had our credit locked and said that we would need to have it unlocked to proceed after we locked in. That was not true. We needed our credit unlocked to lock in. Had I known, I would have unlocked our credit earlier. I tried and tried to lock in, but it wouldn't work, found out why later on. It was a lot of frustration and wasted time. They were apologetic and did notify us when the rate went down again (which we appreciated) and we were able to lock in a couple weeks later. 3) Everytime you get to a new step in the process you get assigned to a new contact person. The communication of who the next person is is clear and seamless. What was NOT seamless (likely because it was summer) is we got a new person and then that person went on vacation basically the next day or two without even informing us. Emails were not answered before they went on vacation and I would send a follow up email and get an out of office automatic reply. Why we were assigned to people who were immediately headed out on vacation didn't make sense to me. The unanswered Emails and adding in yet another person for the back up while the primary contact was on vacation increased the number of people we were dealing with in an already 'people intensive' process and it was unnecessary. This happened multiple times. 4) Our home needed an appraisal before we could refinance. Part of the agreement was Better said they would set that up. Better waited 12 days to contact the person for the appraisal. That person was booking out two weeks and then the report was going to take several business days to come through. That put us past our closing date. This resulted in two problems A) Better told me that we would have to pay $50 a day to keep our current rate or we could terminate and not do the refinance at all. This did not make any sense to me, because if Better set up the appraisal on the day I paid for it, it would have been done in time for the closing date. I did tell Better that it was ridiculous to have us pay the price of them not calling and scheduling in time, so they did give some compensation and we did not have to pay. All these conversations took quite a bit of time and energy. B) The other problem with not scheduling the appraisal right away was we were scheduled to be on vacation out of state the week following the closing date. Because the appraisal was not set up in a timely manner by Better, the closing date was pushed back, but not scheduled, we would likely close when we were on vacation. It was determined that we could close out of state. On our vacation, we do not have internet access, so everyday on vacation, we had to drive to get internet to check the status of Better mortgage. Had Better scheduled the appraisal the day we paid, we would have closed the week before vacation. 5) We were relieved that all the ducks were in a row for closing. The communication for the closing on the part of Better did not go well. Before we left for vacation, I Emailed three times to ask what documents we needed to bring with us. The first Email was not answered, so I Emailed again. The second Email indicated that we were all set and she would let us know if we needed anything specific. I didn't hear anything back so sent another message before leaving the state and got an out of office automatic reply. We were not told that we needed two forms of ID for closing until we were at closing (even though I asked multiple times, I got no answer). Thankfully we happened to have a second form of ID with us. Back up to scheduling that closing. We were out of state at our camp with no internet. The day before closing, I drove to get internet to fill out the form of what times I was available to meet for closing. I clicked every box from 10am and on to 5 or 6pm. It said I was going to get a confirmation on the time of the closing. I drove to internet two more times and got no Email confirming. We had to drive to a family member's house for closing, but had no confirmation. I decided that we ought to just go at the 10:00 time I has said I was available and wait until the person arrived. The day of the closing, I still had no Email confirmation on time and drove to my family member's house at 9:15 and the closing guy was already there, wondering where we were. He had a confirmation of 9am. We had no confirmation and hadn't even clicked the 9am box. It was embarrassing because we are not the type of people to miss appointments. We never did get that confirmation Email that was promised.6) Closing went really well. The man who came was knowledgeable, friendly, did all that was needed to be done. The communication after closing has been consistent and clear. All in all, the beginning and ending of the refinance went well. The middle was muddy and I think there are things Better could do to not have things be so muddy in the middle.

Better.com, a company that Cannot Uncheck a Box

A FAIR WARNING

In full transparency, I'm writing this review out of bitterness from my first, and what will be my only, experience with Better Mortgage. They burned a great deal for me in one of the most difficult times to find a home for a decent price.

For context throughout this review, I believe it helps to provide a directional idea of my finances and mortgage scenario. I was applying for a $615k loan and putting 20% on a home in ***. My credit score came back 807 and I have zero debt with roughly $1 million in assets. Zero dependents, liabilities, or other causes for concern. I own a couple businesses so my income is inconsistent but has been well into the black for the past six years and is currently trending well post corona. I'm also someone who is exceptionally organized and keeps all documents/info in an easy to access manner.

On surface level and during the initial phase of applying for a mortgage they appeared to be a wonderful solution. The user experience and user interface were great on the site, employees were helpful, and they provided some of the lowest rates available. I was able to get a preapproval letter almost immediately and all was trending well. After that, the process started to head in a negative direction and then really went off the rails by the end.

The first problems that arose were with their document submission interface. I was having to repeat tasks and submit forms three times on a regular basis. Some tasks were just checking boxes which isn't a problem but many were asking for full pages of details on businesses or other info. It quickly became exhausting and time-consuming. It seemed there was no connection with submissions and the people who review them.

Around this time is when the poor communication started and this was possibly the most frustrating part. When presenting the interface issues, it was incredibly difficult to get anyone via phone, email, or text. They were always in a meeting or at lunch and would not call back for hours if at all. My representative would provide a short response that typically did not solve any problems at which point I would call and be told he was out to lunch. The team was also on PST and wouldn't touch base until around 3:00 EST (my time zone) or much later. I repeatedly asked for a team on the east coast but this request was never met. Despite them being aware of the time difference, the bulk of outreach was done at 7:30 pm EST which made it difficult for not only me but also the agents and seller. There were plenty of automated emails that never did much in the way of help but getting a person on the phone who could take action on my loan was like trying to reach an A-list celebrity.

After having to extend my escrow period due to lack of communication and inability to get anything done in a timely manner, I asked to have my case sent to a different team again. This time they finally sent me to a resolutions manager who was no more helpful. The woman was nice on the phone the 3-4 times we briefly spoke but she did not help the process progress despite me repeatedly emphasizing the deadlines. She was also based in *** also and nearly impossible to get a hold of also (I have email, text, and phone records for those who are curious).

I was initially denied because there were two ADUs on the property but local ordinances clearly defined they weren't ADUs. After presenting this, I was good to go again. It was if the representative denied me without even taking the time to investigate the matter. Then I was denied a second time for not having consistent income. It took from July 14th to August 6th for them to figure that out. For context, I went to another lender (after Better) and they were able to complete the same set of tasks in three days that took Better 24 (this was after what comes next with Better).

Once denied the second time, I decided to bring on a cosigner and stay with Better since I had already done all the form submissions, credit checks, data entry, asset disclosures, etc. At this point, I had my cosigner (my father) go through the same headache of a process with them repeatedly uploading documents, etc. There was also a load of other tasks to take care of on my part.

This is where the "uncheck a box" bit from the title comes into play. After submitting an egregious number of documents and forms, my Better experience *** me we have to start a new loan. My temperament is on the calmest end of the spectrum but this information really got to me. Apparently, in my haste, I did make a mistake and where I thought it was asking for my cosigner's marital status, it was asking if the cosigner was married to me. On this section, I made the selection that said married and as a result, it started a workflow that, according to the representative, could not be reversed and we would have to start from square one. At this stage in the process, I have one week until the buyer is walking away or I lose my *** money. I don't believe I have time to go to another lender and at this point am willing to do anything I can to save the deal. All of the Better employees are more than aware of the deadline and I push them to move as quickly as possible on the loan approval. They tell me they have everything they need and that it's in underwriting and that they should be able to meet the deadline. After not asking for other documents throughout the week, they tell me at 5:00 pm on August 18th, the day my *** money will have to be forfeited, that they need me to submit more documents not for the cosigner but for myself. Throughout this process, the employees seemed so utterly unmotivated it was baffling. This could have not been timed worse or more poorly managed. I'm beyond frustrated and cannot risk the $6,000 on top of the $1,000 that I already spent to get another denial from Better despite my cosigner having a few million in assets, zero debt, and easily enough steady income to cover the loan. As soon as we ended the contract, I went to another lender which was able to accomplish in three days what Better could not in over a month. The new agent/company informed me a roundabout way informed me they pick up many people who have terrible experiences with better also and that from speaking with others the employees don't have the financial incentives to be motivated. It certainly seemed that way when working with them. They were basically friendly on the surface but slowly walking through the motions without any effort to make a $600k loan happen. I lost a house that I loved and was also a great investment due to lack of motivation, communication, and simply being decent. If you have the most generic and vanilla of situations where you have a good credit score, work for a large company in a safe industry, and do not have a single obscurity outside of an ideal profile, Better Mortgage may be for you. Be prepared to upload a lot of documents multiple times and for the employees to be nice on the phone but less than helpful or motivated in reality. For any other situation that has the smallest nuance to it, I can't recommend enough to go to a different lender. I can promise you will have people that are willing to work for the amount of money a mortgage brings in and will make an effort to help you get your home. Better Mortgage, the company that can give you a low rate and poor service in cookie cutter scenarios working for volume over value.