Home Finance of America reviews and complaints

Charged illegally $500 for application.
Made me prepare a whole file, at the last minute the declined the loan an kept the money.
They are a rip off.

This is the worst company ever! Don't use them. There workers are under paid and work as if they were in a sweat shop! Everything may look good online but its not. They will scam you and once you get to closing the numbers are not the same at all.

Home Financing of America is a scam, I applied for a refinancing in early May 2013, to which I notified the loan processor that I was 1 month away from being 2 full years on my present job, to which I sent [protected] W-2S as required for employment history, that first week of applying, she said that was not a problem..

The closing date was JUNE 25 2013 and on JUNE21.2013 the loan rep Linda D, calls to tell me the loan is turned down based on my work history, ( I WAS NOT IMPRESSED AND REALLY UPSET AS THEY WASTED MY TIME AND NOW RATES ARE1.5 % HIGHER )

Home Financing took my $450.00 Appraisal fee and $13.00 credit check fee 3 weeks into the loan process, to which I'm now told may or may not be refunded, wel I will get it back as I believe this is Fraud and negligence on their part

STAY AWAY FROM THESE CROOKS
Gary
FT. Lauderdale Fl

Home Finance of America said my loan would allow me half of any drop down in rates before closing but they did not lower my rate.

2nd.. huge commitment fee of 1200!

THEY SUCK

I had a very similar experience (as did two other members in my family). When I first applied for a refi I was told I would get an email with some information to fill out. Never got the email. Two weeks later I got a packet in the mail to fill out, which I filled out and emailed back. Was always told how important it was I do it quickly because my rates could change. So I did just that. Then the next three months were emails asking for more information. After multiple "final lists" I got annoyed and ended by relationship with Home Finance. I went to the lender I used three years prior when I bought my house and found out the interest rates were lower there the week before, which Home Finance did not tell me. I also found out that I was charged $425 for the home assessment fee but I qualified for a Fannie May program where I pay $75 instead. Home Finance never mentioned that. I am still trying to get refunded that money due to malpractice and fraud and the head of the company verbally agreed to do so. Sadly, he too lied and only credited me $65. I will be contacting the BBB about HFAmerica because there is even more that they did that they should get fined for, like sending paperwork for one person to the wrong house-oh, yes happened!
By the way, I am closing on my refi with Cardinal Financial in less than a week. Got same rate HFAmerica quoted me, cause I missed the lower rate while dealing with them, and I am closing in less than a month compared to their 3+ months.
Home Finance of America should be closed down because they are unethical and unprofessional.

Beware of Home Finance of America.

We have fantastic credit. We watched, shopped around and locked in at a great rate. After our appraisal was done which was a little low anyway, rates shot up. Home Finance of America promptly told us our appraisal was no good and under review even though they choose the appraisal company. They could give us no applicable reasons for our appraisal to be invalid. The field review they ordered then took enough time for our lock to run out. They pushed for us to lock in at a fair bit higher rate with points and fees. Of course they already had the markup from our original appraisal. They did have a significant markup since we talked to the appraiser.

So they made money on the appraisal and got rid of a loan without the desired markup. We were out the marked up appraisal fee and have to settle for a higher rate with someone else.

This woman has to be the most incompetant woman ever! Never answers emails, skips around questions, never bothers to read anything you send her, never follows though on word, doesn't fill out forms correctly, doesn't LISTEN to the customer, and what originator pawns the closer off to the customer to answer questions and resubmit information the originator already has but is too LAZY to do it herself.

AVOID THIS WOMAN AT ALL COST!

I hope this company goes out of business. They screwed me so badly on my home mortgage. After paying thousands of dollars on a loan for their fees, they never even acknowledged the 25.00 refund they promise. Please don't use them. You will have nothing but headaches. When you get to closing you will be slapped with additional money due.

DONT USE THEM YOU WILL BE SORRY.

As a former employee I can tell you that the bulk of the problem with this company is the training program. They give you materials to read, stick you in a room to read them, and then come back and ask if you have any questions. The problems snow ball from here. When the "loan officers" give out good faith estimates and miss any adjustments (ie escrow waiver) the underwriters ( who are nothing short of mindless ###s..I know because I lost loans because of them that should have gone through) pick up on it and then the loan has to be modified. The owner is laughable. Fake tan exotic car-driving gold chain blinging dork. The company is legit and does offer loans that do go through but more often then not there is a problem which causes the loans not to close. Everyone do yourself a favor and just deal with a real mortgage company. The .125 pt you may save by going here is not worth it

Ben,

This is great to see. Well not great to see that you are going through this and I'm sorry for that.

I can tell you that Home Finance is a joke and you watch know you already threatened the Better Business Bureau and they become very scared of that. I remember somebody else did that and they refunded everything immediately.

What they are doing is making money on these non-refundable fees. There is no employee training whatsoever and they have employees who are not licensed in certain states forge signatures to process as many application fees as possible. They are the only company who charges an upfront "application fee" and they also slip in that appraisal fee.

The Good Faith Estimates are outdated and pointless and don't take in to effect of state taxes. It's really sad how this continues to happen and really hope the best for you Ben in what you need to do.

This is the first complaint I have ever posted: I'm in total agreement with the negative comments regarding Home Finance of America. I had a "total lender fee of $2, 350". Then a Good Faith Estimate (they are not good or done in good faith) for $2, 465 where the cost went up due to interest. Then we spoke on the phone on January 23 at about 3:45 where I told Linda A. Deegan-Deuber, the person I was working with at HFA, that I wanted to use my own attorney to which I was not disabused of this idea. Then they added in an additional cost, a penalty, for not escrow-ing my taxes and insurance with them. Then I got a revised Good Faith Estimate where they added in their own attorney fees. The email exchanges that followed were comical Linda avoiding my questions about attorney fees and which attorney was to be compensated, mine or theirs. This is a wily, unscrupulous, dishonest bunch of people and they still have my "nonreturnable" deposit of $350. Linda continually insisted we talk on the phone, the one time that I did resulted in misrepresentation of our discussion and obliteration of same from her memory. If one is, sorry, but dumb enough to want to conduct business with HFA, I do not recommend that you talk on the phone but conduct any dealings with them by email. I have called my attorney and they will be handling this, I don't care if it costs me 20 times my deposit amount - their business practices are the kind of predatory behavior that have brought us into a recession, lost people their homes and put families on the street- in my experience they are untrustworthy, dishonest, unscrupulous. I will be speaking with the Better Business Bureau, my congressman, a friend in the Boston Globe etc. Any one interested in a class action law suit?

Phil,

I'm sorry that had to happen to you. I can tell you first hand that the good faith estimates are useless to this company. They provide employees with outdated forms and never fully instruct the major differences per state for a proper good faith estimate.

As for the complaints well I know for a fact that instructions for complaints to upper management are sent to voicemail and they do not respond. I would suggest going to the better business bureau or a higher authority to seek your reimbursement. YOU WILL NOT GET IT BACK FROM HOME FINANCE!

This is a terrible company and all the complaints are very true.

Home Finance of America...Beware of the hidden and last minute fees not listed on the Good Faith Estimate. I was ripped off by this company to the tune of approximately $1200 in hidden and bogus fees. They charged me .25 of a point to NOT Escrow when I stated on the first day I did NOT want to Escrow. No mention of a charge for NOT escrowing was divulged until the day before closing. In my closing package they included temporary payment slips to Country Wide where my loan had been assigned. I made my payment as directed and approximately a week later I received notification in the mail from JP Morgan Chase bank that my loan had been assigned to them by Home Finance of America. Home Finance of America never notified me that there was a change from what was included in my closing package. Luckily my check to Country Wide had not processed and I was able to put a Stop Payment on the check for a $32.00 fee at the bank. I have faxed all my information detailing the stop payment charges to Linda Deuber, my loan officer, at Home Finance of America. I requested reimbursement of $50.00 to cover the Stop Payment Fee & my time & trouble to correct their error. It has been a week and I have not gotten any reply from them.

The best advice I can give is Don’t waist your time or money with this company.
They advertise low rates but kill you in hidden fees that get you at the last minute when it is to late.

Not a problem Sherrill and Chloe...and Del...lets keep it up!

Have any of you been burned by Home Finance offering a lower rate or less points to buy to that rate than others, like Countrywide, then finding that Home Finance wasn't telling the truth? Please tell your story for the rest of us so we know. Thanks!

Worst experience of my life. I have purchased 3 other homes before dealing with Finance of America for my 4th. I have great credit and a good paying job. They put me thru the ringer as if I was a criminal with only 2 cents to my name. I also was given repeated "bad" information all along the way. The loan officer I had was atrocious, she would tell me something and then 2 days later, tell me she made a mistake. She also did not reply to my calls/texts/emails until I sent at least 3 or 4 of them! The there was always an excuse, no internet or phone problem, etc. This went on the entire 3 months I dealt with her. She set me up for closing on a particular date, but did my rate lock expiration date for a date BEFORE the closing date. She told me she couldn't change it. In the beginning she told me she could! After repeated requests for a list of "what is needed" to send in tot hem, I finally got a lit of 18 items, the day before my movers were coming.. I stayed up for hours getting it together and sent over asking for confirmation. She never replied, until I sent 2 more texts/emails. Then at 5 pm she sent a reply and said she needed like 5 additional items! This company obviously does not employ experienced people ot they don't' invest in proper training. I will NEVER do business with them again or recommend them.. My closing was 2 days later than scheduled, because the loan officer/Insurance dept. did not understand the paperwork they already had been given, to this day a month after my closing, they are still bothering me for items. I emailed the loan officer and again got no reply for 2 days, until I emailed again. I'm told she is looking into it. THERE IS NOTHING TO LOOK INTO< JUST FORWARD THE DOCUMENT TO THE OTHER DEPT> DO YOU JOBS! sincerely disgusted with this company!

It appears that this company must make its income by charging application fees of $295. I applied on line, paid the fee, then became wary when I read some of the complaints against them. I was told on a Friday that a hard copy was being sent by second day Fedex. This is the following Friday and I still have not seen it. I emailed them to refund my application fee. Good luck. If they cannot timely mail an application, how timely would they be at closing?

Update:
HFA did get us to closing as planned on 8/27. They also credited us $250 off our closing costs.
The second appraisal came it at almost the same exact value as the first.
Unnecessary stress, but they did get us to closing.
I would recommend them only to someone who is more interested in saving money with a low rate and is not on a tight timeframe. If I hadn't posted a complaint on this board I doubt they would have gotten me to closing.

We decided to go with HFA for a 30 yr conventional on the purchase of our fist home due to their rates. Both my wife and I work for large consumer banks, yet we chose to save a few bucks instead of just getting a loan from one of our employers. Big mistake.
We were on a tight timeline to close in 30 days, due to the fact I was starting a new job and we were buying the house so I could start that. All the paperwork looked to be in line, the appraisal came in above the agreed sales price, we worked through underwriting questions about funds on hand. No complaints.

Then one week from our closing date, our mortgage rep calls to tell us underwriting was asking for another appraisal. I was stunned. They had signed off on the initial appraisal a week before I get this bomb shell.

They had questions around the comps used, which is fine. I'm upset that they sat on it for a week. It does not take a week to review an appraisal.

Now it looks like we are not going to make our closing, and we are already turning in our keys to our apartment. We may be sleeping in our car just because an underwriter didn't do their job in a timely fashion.

Right now, there is no way I could recommend using this company.

After reading the comments here, I choose to go elsewhere! Disgruntled employees are like disgruntled ex's. How you handle the split says a lot about you and to see a back an forth here says enough about the professionalism or lack there of.

Not interested in dealing with the drama - especially at my expense. I will stick with my local bank.

I recently used Home Finance of America to purchase my first home. I worked with Eileen. The only reviews I read came from these posts, but I decided to chance it anyways because the fees were a good $1000 less than the other company I was looking at, and the rate was cheaper too. I must say that I was VERY satisfied with the company. Eileen was always available when I called or emailed. She would get back to me very quickly. Furthermore, she floated down my rate during the month it took to approve my mortgage.

Fee wise, the good faith estimate was pretty accurate. You can't avoid paying things like taxes, so those can be off, but there weren't any hidden fees. Basically it was application fee and some other document fee, but they tell you upfront that's what they charge. Usually this seems much cheaper than a loan origination fee.

The only thing I would say that kind of caught me off guard is that they do try to get you to sign up right then and there. But I still took my time and went with this company, and my realtor and I were both very pleased.

I read my name being mentioned as of my posting was a fake made up compliments to home Finance of America. I truly had a marvelous experience after a horrible experience with another mortgage company (read my post /URL removed/

and you can see my name there just to show my post above who "Mike" sneered at, was a real post from what I have submitted to HFA.

Home Finance of America pull through in less that three weeks and my compliments remain, especially to Jacque Green my loan officer. Some of these posts were from 2007. It is possible in 2008 the company shaped up and became better.

Can someone recommend an honest, reputable company with a low complaint history. i think I am gonna just rent some land somewhere and pitch a tent. this ^%% is crazy!

I also was excited to see the rates. H A HA good luck . With a perfect credit score these people still found a way to deny my loan. After of course the non refundable fees.. RUN FROM FRAN. I was denied my loan because a comp couldn't be found within 10 -15 miles. I live in Rockwell N.C where the closest store is 15 miles. Come on people if your out to screw people open a [censored] house.

Well thank you Shane and and Chuck for once again very predictable praise of Home Finance of America.

You know I really wonder why all this praise comes up on this thread and not on the other negative ones toward this company. I have the feeling it is because I have struck a nerve with company but hey it's the truth.

My favorite is too see how many people reference me when they do this. Why do strangers feel this need to refute my comments? Its because they are not random customers they are employed by Home Finance. When I worked there I actually remember discussions from management about websites like this and what to do. Epinions also has negative comments about the company and a "former employee" goes on there defending them.

They know what they are doing people and they are very sneaky about it. You can go back and read my previous post and see all whats wrong about the company most people have heard it before and made the right decision.

For people in the middle of disputes with the company always remeber to threaten to go to the Better Business Burea and watch them fold so fast.

As for prospective customers...STAY AWAY!