Federated Mortgage

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Very easy every thing they said they did no problems no surprises

We found Mark Milburn through Angies list, due to his already great reviews, and had a really great experience!
Since it was our first home, we met with Mark when we first started looking at houses to talk about an amount for pre-approval. Mark didn't push us to spend more than we were comfortable with just based on our debt to income ratio. He really listened to us as we described our financial situation, and spent over an hour explaining the process to us.
We loved Mark, but couldn't over-look shopping for rates when it came time to finance our home purchase. However, in talking to several banks and brokers Mark came back with the most competitive rate, in the most timely fashion.
Mark has been such an asset throughout our closing process. He is exceedingly helpful, friendly, organized, and timely. We were always able to reach him with questions, and he always took the time to make sure we understood his answer.
Buying a house can be really stressful, but it helps a lot to have a great team working with you. I would recommend Mark Milburn, hands-down, to anyone looking for a home loan!

I had recently relocated to the Pittsburgh area and was working with a Howard Hanna real estate agent through my company's relocation service.  They offered mortgage services through the real estate company, but I investigated other options and chose Mark Milburn.  My previous mortgage experience buying my first home several years ago was dismal.  I explained the challenges that I had before to Mark, and he assured me that he would tell me everything that I needed to know upfront and that there would be no surprises at closing.  I had an out-of-the-country trip planned a week or so before closing, so I stressed to Mark that I needed to get him everything he would need before my departure.  He was true to his word and provided me with a detailed list of documents that would be needed and kept me informed of his progress on the loan throughout the process.  Compared to my previous mortgage guy, Mark was fantastic!  Everything went smoothly and I would not hesitate to recommend him to my family and friends.  Their rates were competitive with others in the market, but I would have paid more to have the peace of mind knowing that I was working with a true professional and that everything was being taken care of on the back end without having to babysit the lender.

Mark Milburn was outstanding. My wife and I were building in Squirrel Hill and needed a residential mortgage. Mark was kind, responsive, knowledgeable and professional. He was able to find us a fixed mortgage with competitive terms and minimize the pain of the mortgage process. He was also kind to our builder and other service providers. Mark earned my highest recommendation and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to friends/family!

Mark Milburn is excellent.. He was very helpful through a difficult relocation and always answered his phone or called back immediately. He even took time out of his vacation to work with me when I called. He is very knowledgeable about the mortgage process. My agent had never worked with him before my transaction, but commented that Mark was one of the best he had ever worked with. I recommend him highly.

Mark was great.  Would highly recommend him and use him again in the future!

I would recommend Mark Milburn's services to any of my friends and family.  I was 100% satisfied!

They were excellent, they're still working on the final actions regarding the land. I'm still working with them, it's fine and I'll be closing on the house in one month. I actually called a lot of people on your list, they actually gave me a fair deal and everybody else. There's a person there, his name is Mark Thornberg, he's usually good at his job and I enjoyed working with him and was happy with the speed of passing the thing and I was really satisfied with the way they did everything.

After calling several companies, Federated had the best rates.  Worked with Kevin who was very easy to work with.  Documents submitted via FedEx.  The underwriters came back several times with similar questions that really started to get frustrating but I don't think that Federated had anything to do with that.  Closed at my home on time.  No problems

We worked with Mark Milburn for our 15 year fixed rate re-finance.  Mark was very professional and prompt.  We were able to conduct most of the work via e-mail.  I was very pleased with the interest rate he was able to get for us (lower than original estimate). He came to our home for closing which was very convenient. We had an issue with receiving our rebate check from the loan ( I believe our mailman delivered it to the wrong address) and when I informed Mark he immediately stopped payment and issued a new check.  Our overall experience was very positive and I would highly recommend the services of Federated Mortgage, in particular Mark Milburn.

Despite the fact that we showed up out of the blue, Mr. Bubenheim took plenty of time to listen to what we needed to do as well as make suggestions to help us decide if doing the refinance was a good idea for us.  I had already done some research on mortgate companies, and was pleased with what I had seen about Federated Mortgage.  We decided then and there to apply for the loan - I had brought nearly all the paperwork we needed along, so it probably only took 45 minutes from when we walked in the door to speak with Mr. Bubenheim, decide to go ahead and refinance, set up the appraisal and complete the loan application.  Mr. Bubenheim was great.  We were able to fax the other paperwork that was needed.  The appraiser was quick and accurate - they were contrated through Federated Mortgage.  From beginning to end, the process was very smooth, and straightforw

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Mark is professional, patient and easy to work with. We shopped around for the loan, including two other mortgage companies from Angie's List and other big banks. Mark had the best rate and was super patient to explain all the fees up front. It turned out the difference between the estimate and actual cost is only 3%. He is also very efficient. From the time we sent him the application to the closing on the contract is less than 4.5 weeks, we were uncertain whether we can close on time or not, Mark made it happen and we are so happy! We will recommend him to everyone and will definitely use his service again in the future!

We had an excellent experience with Mark. He was professional, knowledgable, and patient. He lead us through every step of the home buying process and made sure that we understood the bottom line. He was easily accessible through phone, email, or fax and worked speedily so that we were able to close earlier than initially expected. As first time home buyers, we did not know what to expect but Mark was very patient with us and easy to work with. We had a particularly difficult time with the seller but Mark worked hand in hand with our realtor to make the process as smooth as possible. We would definately recommend Mark and use him again.

They are very easy to deal with. They are very flexible in providing the lowest interest rate. They are very patient with all the questions we asked.

I accidentally spotted Ferderated Mortgage from zillow.  I logged in Angie's List to see if there were any reviews about this company. Mark is in the Angie's List and I did not have any hesitation to call him right away on Saturday while I was waiting for a mortgage agent from a local bank who was planning to come to my house to sign the mortgage deal. Fortunately, Mark was working on the Saturday and gave me no closing fee for refinance and lower mortgage rate comparing to the rate the local bank offered me with closing fee. I called off the deal with the local bank and I appreciated the agent gracefully accept my short notice to cancel the deal.Mark had been wonderful, particularly my case was not as smooth as I thought, considering that I have high FICO and stable incomes. It turned out the trust fund my husband and I set up has something to do with the refinance. Mark contacted the lawyer for us right after we gave him our trust fund information and he saw through the process. Then it came with survey discrepancy. His company has survey staff in house and it makes easier to deal with this issue all together. Most of work was done through scan, emails and some phone calls to follow up. So we closed the deal on schedule as Mark set up for us in the first meeting. I submitted my first mortgage payment with the new lender without any problem. I could not help showing my appreciation to him and gave him a restaurant gift card from groupon and he took the other two colleagues with him to celebrate to close the deal with me. Sweet! I said.

Great experience.

Working with Mark was exceptionally easy form the start. He gave us a checklist, we sent him the information via fax and he kept us up to date every step of the way. The rate was locked in and we were able to close in about 6 weeks from the time I first spoke with Mark. He even came to our home to close after work. This was our 3rd refinance in the past 10 years and we felt we were dealt with honestly and fairly. There were no negative surprises (unlike with Quicken, the last time around), in fact the final numbers came back better than we anticipated. There were no hidden fees or increases in our rate.

Things started out great, but turned sour at the end due to no fault of my own. The lack of knowledge by Federated caused me to miss my window to refinance (again - due to no fault of my own) and ended up costing me an additional 0.5% interest rate and $32/month for the next 15 years as I ultimately refinanced through a different company. Basically here is how it went down: I called Federated to explore refinancing my FHA mortgage. I was approved, however, I was told that I'd also need to have an appraisal done. I knew that I would have to finish several incomplete projects around the house before the appraiser came. I told the loan officer this, and told him that it would take me several weeks to complete them, and I was reassured that we had plenty of time to hold the lock on my interest rate. About 3 weeks later, with my projects all finished, I called to schedule an appraisal. I had been watching interest rates slowly rise, and I asked again whether or not we still had enough time to close before the lock expired on the interest rate. Again I was told that we had plenty of time. The appraiser finally came out and his appraisal was completed about a week later. Everything was excellent. In fact, my house had appraised high enough to take some cash-out as well. Now all that was left was to finish up some paperwork and close the loan. As rates continued to rise, I again asked if we were still on track to close successfully. Again I was told that everything was on track. I beleive it was around 12/15 at this point and he told me that we had until mid-January to finalize everything and close. He told me that in the worst case, we could pay a little extra to push the lock on the interest rate further to buy even more time. So I'd say about another week passes, and I get all the paperwork to them. Now everything is in the hands of their underwriter. Apparently the underwriter was concerned that my home's value had increased significantly over a couple years and they wanted to look into it further. Again, no big deal because I'm thinking I have at least 3 more weeks to sort everything out. Then about one week before the end of the Year I get a frantic phone call from my loan officer. He tells me that some FHA rule was changed, and that if we don't close before the end of the Year, then the loan will not go through. (However, he offers me the ability to re-lock with a different bank at a HIGHER INTEREST RATE!!!! This of course is total BS!!!) Long story short, he tells me (I'm not sure he wasn't lying to me) that the appraisal got hung up in a higher level review, and therefore we cannot close before the end of the month. Thus, the loan falls through (along with the great interest rate I had locked in!). Again he offers me another deal at a higher interest rate (rates had increased about 0.5% since I originally locked). But I was scared to end up in the same situation again, and I declined. Had Federated been informed about the mortgage industry, they should have seen this issue arise long before 1 week until the deadline. I asked at least 5 times whether or not we were on track and at least 5 times they reassured me that everything was great. Only at the last minute, when nothing could be done to correct it, did they tell me there is a problem. Federated completely screwed me out of my loan due to their lack of knowledge. I was forced to switch to a different company at a higher interest rate out of fear that if I stayed with Federated, I would just get screwed again. Federated's incompetence will ultimately cost me $5760 over the life of my new loan. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!

Top notch - excellent and smooth.

I used Mark Milburn several years ago and decided based on that experience to use him again. Mark's very experienced and totally takes care of every detail. I would definitely recommend using him again in the future. Prompt, courteous and extremely knowledgable.

We called Mark Milburn of Federated Mortgage when we were unexpectedly dropped by Amerisave. He was strongly recommended by a friend and I'm happy to repeat that recommendation. Our situation is that we are not US citizens and although our credit score is OK we have limited items on our credit report, which is what scared off Amerisave. We have a high income to debt ratio, and in this crazy world a lack of debt counts against you. Mark was prepared to work with us and find alternative ways of proving our credit-worthiness such as utility payments, rent checks etc. All the way along he was patient and took the time to explain any hurdles we would face (such as not being citizens), while providing solutions and always having a back up plan in case things went awry. In the event, the mortgage was approved and the paperwork ready in advance of all of the other closing paperwork (which I believe is unusual). Federated Mortgage's fee for the mortgage was a very reasonable $750 and we got a good rate, taking a rate a 0.25% higher than the standard in return for $2000 of broker credit. All of the costs came in either in line with or below those set out on the GFE. Prior to working with Mark I had been suspicious of Mortgage Brokers, believing them to be as predatory as used car salesmen. In the case of Federated Mortgage at least, this fear was completely unfounded: they were upfront about the costs and expenses, were efficient with the paperwork, did exactly what they said they would do and worked hard on my behalf. All in all they completely justified their fee - in fact given how much trouble I was to them I think they deserved more.

Mark Milburn was fantastic from beginning to end. I was very skeptical of mortgage brokers because of so many horror stories I had read, but Mark was honest and knowledgeable. I had been working with a different broker for a few months, but was wary of the closing costs in my GFE's and worried that my broker was getting confused with the USDA requirements, so I comparison shopped and found Mark. He and another company both gave me a lower rate estimate and lower closing cost estimates. My original broker told me it was impossible for them to do the loans with those rates and closing costs, and warned me that I would likely be shocked by added fees at the closing table. She couldn't have been farther from the truth. Of my two comparisons, Mark gave me more accurate USDA fee information and he matched his competitor's rate so I went with him. I let him know upfront that I wasn't feeling very trusting of anyone by this point (we were dealing with a dishonest seller at the time). He was patient with my questioning of the rates and fees, and didn't seem to take offense at my skepticism of his lower fees. He validated my feelings about our dishonest seller when my realtor was glossing over things, and offered some helpful comments regarding the situation. When we did find a better house and went through with our mortgage, he got everything done very quickly. We anticipated a slow closing with USDA and the looming deadline for the buyers tax credit, but Mark actually had us ready to close a few days early, and would likely have been over a week early had the local tax collector not passed away (which delayed confirmation of our taxes). Not only that, but there were no surprise fees at the end and he was right on with his estimate. We could not have been happier. I am SOOOO thankful that our prior houses fell through, allowing me to second guess our original broker and find Mark. He saved us $2,000 in closing fees compared to the original broker plus got us a 5% rate (and that was great for a USDA which is always a little higher than prime)! I can not even think of a way to verbalize how happy we were with Mark's service and his fees, or the words to express how highly I recommend him. And I promise, this isn't his mother writing this review!

Mark Milburn was fantastic!! He answered all of our questions and got us a great rate. He was able to get us closed in the time frame that we wanted. He is very very knowledgeable.