AMERICANA MORTGAGE GROUP

I needed my house valued "high" so that I could afford the refinance. I was going to have to put some monies in to get to 80% of value. They definitely did a good job getting my house valued much higher than Wells Fargo(my current lien holder). Keep in mind, when you play this game you are probably going to have to go with a less competitive lender. I paid 4.5% on a 20 year fixed, most competitive rates are around 4%; I totally understood the deal I was making. 90% of the way, Americana was very good and communicative, at the end though, it felt demeaning. They brought my loan to Hudson City and that was the devil we had to deal with. I understand that everyone is refinancing but the loan took too long too close, 3 months, and problems with title company. I was able to prove that their search was wrong but that wasted a couple of weeks. I was then forced into a closing date I did not want and couldn't get a hold of the lawyer to review the closing. I was told i'd have the closing costs a few days before and in reality did not get until I badgered everyone and then received at 5pm and I was closing at 11am the next day. closing costs were about 4K more than i expected. From the time Americana passed off to the lawyer, I was blown off. basically, yes, my mortgage was done but I was p*****. Figures were wrong and I couldn't get a call back from anyone. I walked into the closing, said I didn't have all the money and forced them to take the prepaid taxes out of the deal. I never felt ripped off, just treated poorly at the end. If i had to do this again, I'd spend the money to go through to sources for mortgages at the same time. Making the company's compete to close and finish off the process would have been worth the extra money (about $700-$1000) for the hassle at the end.