GUARANTEED HOME MORTGAGE CO

We found this company on Bankrate--ok, our bad. It was our first home purchase and first mortage. They had the best rate at 2.5%. They had a very complex and long online submission proces, even for just the preapproval. They sent terse, URGENT emails every day about documents they needed. Ok, I'll send you my pay stub when I get paid next week! Their office was in Jersey, main office in New York. Close enough, I thought. If they're going to advertise nationally, I figured they would understand the different state and municipal details about tax rates, etc. but they got the tax wrong, and they acted like we were doing a refinance, instead of a new mortgage. They didn't discuss the locking procedure until a week before closing when I was like, hey, don't we need to lock the rate? They sent the "lock email" that I was supposed to return 45 minutes before it was due. It wasn't good enough that I sent an email earlier in the day saying I wanted to lock. I was in a meeting-- yes, I happen to have a job--and missed the lock deadline. Then they slipped in a part of a point for the 2.5 rate at the end; they never mentioned the point and it was not written on any of the many documents we read and signed. The rate was still worth it, but it was slimy of them to do that, especially when we had to be very precise about how much cash we needed. Then at the closing table, it turned out that they hadn't completed their parts on several documents. When the closer of the title company tried to contact them, she had to call 5 different numbers in three different states to get someone on the line. I was apologizing to everyone that I had chosen this company. Everyone they interacted with had a negative reaction: my realtor, title company, my spouse, a friend who happens to be a mortgage specialist... In retrospect, we wish we had gone with Shannon Rose at a local company. She was super helpful, a good communicator. Explained everything. For the preapproval, I didn't have to do much work at all. I felt like she was taking care of me. The rate was higher at 2.75% ( I know, still pretty low), and I don't know if the rest of the mortgage process would have been as easy, but I can't imagine it being worse than Guaranteed. Within a week after closing, we received notice from Guaranteed that they had sold our loan to Wells Fargo. That's what they do. I'm just so relieved we don't have to deal with them any more. I learned that service and communication is just as important as the rate.