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Underwriting is the worst… My LO is actually pretty good, but his assistant is a totally disorganized and frequently confused idiot that would email us asking like 2-3 more times for documents we already sent in ages ago (and often times specifically to her). The worst part is I'd be second guessing myself over whether what I sent was simply not the right doc or not sufficient when she would keep making the same requests.
I finally flipped out and made an elaborate chart of what they asked for, which date we originally uploaded the response, and then date and time of each subsequent email she sent us looking for the same document and each date I responded via email with more attachments of the same document.
It was like a 5 page long chart and the last column had one checkbox for them to confirm whether or not they received the document and whether it was sufficient.
And then afterwards, with every new request I would respond with:
1. Uploading the document
2. Sending an email specifically copying both LO and his assistant attaching the document, a statement it had also been uploaded and where, the updated chart, and a request for confirmation it was received.
I know, super anal and super bitchy. But never again did I get hit with a single duplicative request for the same document and the rest went very smoothly.
Honestly, we thought about switching, but it seems like it is not uncommon and we felt like we were getting too close to our closing date to start over.
I used a giant online mortgage company that everyone shits on. Their portal was great. They request a doc, you upload, somebody reviews, it gets approved. It was in my experience simple and flawless. I don't think I ever talked to a human there. I couldn't deal with the risk of somebody elses disorganization.
I had that on a refi. It was great until you couldn’t provide what it asked for exactly how they expected it.
They asked for a mortgage statement. My previous mortgage was held by a small hometown bank that still uses something like a savings pass book for their mortgage servicing. Well, I sent an explanation and a copy of that thing 5 times. I finally had to speak loudly at the loan guy for him to understand. Then they wanted something else 5 times.
It was worth it for 2.75% fixed for 30 years and getting $100 back to take the loan (no fees at all, it was great). But it was a pain.
It got sold to JP Morgan Chase and it’s been easy to deal with them for servicing.
The experience you have is more a factor of your situation and the LO you have working your file rather than the company you are going through.
You can have a horrible experience with a 5 star rated lender and a great experience with a 1 star rated lender.
yeah i think a lot of the problem here is that email interfaces are complete shit and the search within is even worse. galling of them to not just search harder over sending out another request though
I have customers and coworkers like your LO assistant. It drives me insane. Like you, I now have lengthy checklists and extensive date/time stamped notes for nearly everything I do. When someone comes at me with "I didn't get that" I respond with "Yes, I see that I sent it on 10-31-23 at 3:37pm and I have the read receipt....". I don't get nearly as many emails requesting the same docs *over and over and over* anymore.
Bitchy? Maybe. Does it work? Hell yes lol. Do I feel bad about it? Hell no!
>assistant is a totally disorganized and frequently confused idiot that would email us asking like 2-3 more times for documents we already sent in ages ago (and often times specifically to her)
This burns my ass. When someone thinks it's "easier" to just request the same documentation a 2nd time instead of just fucking looking through their own disorganized mess to find what was already sent to them. Just had to deal with this today with the tax agent working on my mom's estate (that I wanted to be filed in February).
I would have gone with someone else. If your loan officer team is requiring you to do the work of a very efficient secretary, you are not getting your value out of that relationship.
Excluding needing to re-submit a bank statement when I inadvertently cut off a day of transactions, I experienced none of that and this seems like overkill. Hopefully it will all be over soon!
Yeah I’m wondering if OP has a lower credit score or what because I sent one round of docs with zero follow up and it was good to go. Seems like a disorganized loan officer.
Same here. The only thing I had to do was get a letter confirming I was working remote and could move to another state from my employer because I was moving to another state. I sent my bank statements and they didn’t question anything about any of those.
I thought about it when I went through the process and was submitting forms on my brokers app and email while working in a kitchen.
Like, man, it would have been a nightmare to run to the bank to request a statement, then drive to the broker to drop it off. Then repeat every other day.
I don't know how anyone did it back then while also holding down a full time job. I'd imagine you'd have to take time off from work frequently just to run around and collect/drop off documents.
Same here I put an offer in early/mid June and also close mid July in a lil over two weeks. Im in the end of underwriting myself and hell no mine was easy outside or some clarification regarding my work status since I travel so much and am rarely in the state I live in. My underwriting in 99% complete don’t need to do anything else at the moment. The most annoying part was resubmitting pay stubs, bank statements, and getting a letter of employment from HR. Your lender sounds like they are running through all the bureaucracy.
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We are using an FHA loan and didn’t have to do all that for micro transactions. I had two gifts of $1,200 and $1,500 they wanted a letter saying it was a gift and a copy of the gifters bank statements showing it coming out of their accounts. That was the biggest headache. Otherwise just the usual paystubs and a few credit card statements they hadn’t seen on the credit report. We will have to do it all again once we find another house since our last one fell through (sellers fault) and I’m not looking forward to it. But reading your experience makes ours seem a lot easier.
I can understand the gifted needing to make a statement saying the money was a gift, we had to do this also for our loan application. But I didn’t realize that some loan officers want to see the gifted bank statement also. What would have happened if the gifted refused to provide this?
I have no idea, I was afraid I was going to find out because my aunt who gifted us was not thrilled she had to provide it. I gave her the lenders email and everything because I didn’t want to have to see her business. She ended up dropping it off in person but they never really explained to me why they needed it.
It’s an FHA guideline, when receiving a gift you have to provide the gifters bank statement as well to show where the funds are originating from, if you can’t get that the funds can’t be used for the loan and have to be backed out.
They wouldn’t underwrite. My husband is “gifting” 40k and he doesn’t like sharing his info — they flat out said even if he transfers it into my acct they need the trail.
So he had to give up the statement
No it’s not because it’s fha. All loan types have similar requirements. With some variation. It comes down to having a loan officer that knows what they are doing and from day one they ask all the right questions and request all the right documents. Too many inexperienced loan officers react to an underwriters conditions which is NOT appropriate. They should be submitting complete and accurate files to underwriting.
Possibly the FHA loan yeah I am doing a conventional loan because I had a large enough down payment 12.5% I heard from my lender that FHA loans are incredibly through and it’s why a lot of buyers down want to deal with them.
I used an FHA and I didn’t have to do all of this.
I gave copies of my bank statements, my paystubs, and my credit card statements. They also requested a copy of the loan docs for the 401k loan I took out for the down payment.
From pre-approval to closing was about 6 weeks and two of that was me arranging travel for the closing because I lived 1500 miles away at the time.
Just starting underwriting - and I am an "over user" of Venmo. How do you do this? I pay my nails, my kids pay for their Verizon bill, dinners and lunches with friends, etc. How do you document all this?
I had to give written explanations for each and every transactions. One was 4.75 cents and I just said “paid my friend back for pizza”. I suppose I could give screenshots of my Venmo account but that really wouldn’t prove much.
Just don’t claim Venmo as an income source. Transfer whatever cash is there to a bank account. Unless you make a ton of income through Venmo and are claiming it’s an income source?
From the FHA guidelines posted on the FHA website:
***"For individual deposits of more than 50 percent of the total monthly Effective Income, the Mortgagee must obtain documentation of the deposits"***
***"...obtain copies of the most recent pay stub that shows the Borrower’s year-to-date earnings; • obtain copies of the original IRS Form W-2s from the previous two years..."***
This is definitely not normal. I have never heard of such a thing. I thought it was intense that they asked to speak to a landlord I had almost a year ago. With your debt-to-income ratio I cannot fathom the need to ask such petty questions.
Maybe work with a different lender?
I heard from my underwriter once, they asked what a deposit was, confirmed it was taxes, and goes "huh.. That was easy." I have literally no debt other than a mortgage. All my cars are paid off, no student debt, and I keep a rolling amount on my credit card because up until I was 32 I didn't have a credit file. Which sucked because we were ready to buy before covid... I've just always lived within my means which is crazy that's such a terrible thing and seen as a liability. My process was incredibly smooth though. I think the more things you have, the more digging they have to do.
Hummm I have a lot of things but mine was super easy. Wonder what lender. Not all lenders are the same. Some are nightmares. Some super easy. We also are high income and went nowhere near our limit (about 26% of NET pay). They did not even ask for much, they didn’t need bonus statements for example. We are also in established positions in our jobs for years (partnership, director etc) and have been in our current rental for 4 consecutive years. It shows stability. I think folks imagine 150k in a 2 year old entry level tech roll is great but it’s actually super Risky for a lender. You certainly aren’t secure or high income. Hence all the questions. They need to know who the f you are. Their job is to literally write loans that do not default. If you’re bank statement looks like you are a drug dealer with a side hustle who can’t pay rent and keeps ending back home with mommy and daddy- they are going to have questions.
Keep in mind, most lenders sell their loans to Fannie or Freddie, and they have very strict underwriting guidelines. If everything wasn't done up to their standards, the bank may be unable to offload the loan.
And then you'll pay an ungodly sum for them to have mortgage insurance to protect them from deadbeats.
WTF are credit scores for, if not to separate me from people who don't make payments?? A lifetime of responsibly handling money and they treat you like some kind of con artist trying to steal their money.
It wasn't until we were buying a house that I learned it doesn't even matter what one's credit score is once it's above 750. Okay, maybe unless you're trying to flex about having a higher credit score than their suggested financial advisor.
Yes, underwriting was the worst. My LOs assistant asked for some things several times and sometimes wasn't clear. I purposely did not get mad, I just smiled and sent it again, and sent it again, etc. I asked questions and just tried to have a positive attitude because I knew that being frustrated wouldn't help.
This is only temporary.
This is only temporary.
This is only temporary.
I cried, I was stressed but it was eventually over. I bought my house in December and I couldn't be happier. It was all worth it and I'm glad I didn't flip out on the LO assistant lol
Good luck! It will be over soon and just keep thinking that you're lucky to even be going through this process!
THIS!!! I have never related to something more. I just pretend it’s fine and no worries because I sort of feel bad for her. Probably deals with jerks all day long that give her a hard time. Thanks for this comment! Hopefully the outcome will be the same for us :)
Are you borderline on the income levels? I’ve never been through any level of underwriting close to this. Even which switching jobs. It sounds like you are near the loan limits of your income which is causing this.
Last few purchases - 2 years of tax returns, a recent paystub. Pretty much it.
Hmm thats odd as hell. Is it a major bank? I know people on 1099 income that do less for underwriting then what you are describing. That’s certainly not normal - even in the last 18 months.
This sounds like you borderline don’t have enough income. We had plenty of income, plenty of Venmo deposits, etc but bought way less house than what we could get approved for. Never got asked a question like this
Interesting. Our mortgage payment would only be 23% of our NET monthly income which I thought was reasonable. Our monthly DTI would only be around 30% (including the mortgage payment). We have 1 car payment and a student loan payment.
I'm on my 5-6th mortgage. It's always some level of what you described. My strategy has always to just immediately provide whatever they ask for and don't think about the reason as much as I can.
It's FHA, I knew someone that almost lost a house because of a $3 deposit 2 days before closing that was unaccounted for and caught at the last minute. So I would strongly advise don't venmo anything anymore until after you close
I'm dreading the fact that my "bank account" is my brokerage account. 64 pages of day-trading mixed in among my paychecks. Looking forward to explaining that. At least Im a very profitable trader lol
On behalf of other mortgage underwriters, I apologize. Yours seems to be inordinately conservative in their requests.
As far as only fans models or other similar work, underwriters typically do not care what you do as long as you have the work history requirement.
The income would be claimed as a 1099, filed under Schedule C self-employment. I'd work out their 2 year average, maybe have concerns if the trend is declining, but otherwise calculate it and move on.
At worst, maybe have a little chuckle. Some people run very unfortunately named businesses.
I mean, I assume the primary income source for OF models is from OF. The subscribers pay the site and the site pays the model - it's not like the model has to report every single microtransaction as an individual income source
I was worried about this too but kept communicating with my LO to know when is safe to sell to make those funds available for my downpayment. I got them sold ok when underwriting had everything they needed.
It did take a smidgen longer than what I read online. I suggest starting the selling process 2 weeks before close.
I initiated the sell on a Thursday & had them in my bank account ready for wiring the next Thursday. Then wiring paperwork and processing took 24 hours with closing the following Monday. 8 business days total & was a little too close for comfort. 10 business days before closing seems a bit less anxiety inducing.
Edit: Mine isn't quite day-trading but it is a robo-advisor that does trade activities multiple times a month.
Create a different bank account and set aside funds for the down payment. After 2 months of only deposits there will be no questions. This is what I did.
It's best to exclude accounts you won't use for the mortgage, like Venmo or small account that might only have a couple hundred bucks move through them. As long as you're not using the account for the mortgage, they won't have to dig through it. Otherwise they're just seeing money coming in randomly and need to know why and what it's for.
The paycheck one seems like a non-issue, three months of checks? Easy. You could complain more towards his employer issuing weekly checks vs bi-monthly or every other week, or even monthly.
Can you elaborate on your first paragraph? In April I had transferred money people sent me from my Venmo into my checking account as also made some payments to people through Venmo. They saw these transactions through my bank statements so not sure any way around it except to not transfer any more money in or make any purchases using the app. Ugh.
That's basically correct. I usually leave the Venmo money just sitting there for awhile is I even remotely anticipate I'll use it, and especially if it's small amounts (a couple hundred bucks or something).
That way next transfer to someone or payment I just use the Venmo balance.
In general I just try to keep my check account as clean and simple as possible. Direct deposit in, credit card payments out and mortgage out. That's pretty much all that goes through my bank account.
You can get a Venmo debit card. I have one. It’s free and works just like a regular debit card. I don’t keep money in Venmo like I would a bank account, but when I do have money in there I use my debit card for things like coffee, gas etc.
As someone who went through this with my 1st loan originator, switching was the most refreshing experience. Our underwriter who asked for every doc 4x and the same company who pushed our closing date 6x before we finally left gave my wife and I a bad taste for the entire industry. Our next guy was super passionate about homeownership. He saved us around 8k from our out of pocket on the same house, closed us in 18 days (after 52 days with the previous company) and asked for docs once and only once. Absolutely phenomenal guy that I’ve recommended about 15x since closing!
UW is the absolute worth. I bought a long while ago, but had to jump through similar hoops. Stupid requests and things they could've asked about upfront all at once.
I hear you! The state my family lives in has an enhanced life estate (lady bird deed), so my siblings and I are listed as remaindermen on the current deed, but have absolutely no rights or obligations to the house until both of our parents die (assuming they don’t change their minds before then).
Our underwriter asked for my parents’ will to show that we don’t have an obligation to the home. Except the home isn’t in their will, it’s in an enhanced life estate so it’s bypass probate. Then they wanted a copy of the estate even though it’s listed as an enhanced life estate on the deed.
We went back and forth for 2 weeks because my parents were willing to provide the life estate documents but not their will (understandably). And the loan officer, during all this time, would say “we just need to make sure you aren’t liable for utilities or taxes. Like the house didn’t have a mortgage. And since when are potentially inherited assets considered current liabilities??
They were still asking us to verify things they DAY we NEEDED final approval in order to close three days later on our scheduled closing date. They final approved us at 1 pm and sent over our final closing disclosure at 4:10 pm 😅 and it was just petty things that they could differentiate and figure out from our paystubs.
It's the worst. In 2020 I went through it for something and they kept calling my employer (a bankers hours job) at 6 and 7 at night and then I'd get threatening emails from them that I must have given them false info and they weren't going to do the loan. They would never leave a message with my employer either. I verified with my employer in the midst of all this.
Is this the U.S.??
I only had to provide like 7-8 documents. The only thing they are annoying about is the statements for where the down payment comes from.
Honestly, it sounds like you're just working with a bad loan officer that sent your file to a shitty lender. Part of doing this job well comes with understanding how to put a loan together and what lenders are going to get the job done without causing your client to want to slit their wrists.
I typically see the scenario you're describing often with newer LOs that chase the lowest rate. They don't understand how to articulate their value to clients so they just chase rate. The lowest rate often comes with a nightmare of a process. Sometimes it's worth it but most of the time it's not.
Just know that's not always the process. Example: I just had a new client go under contract last week on Weds. I submitted the file on Thursday to underwriting, we had the appraisal done over the weekend (and somehow the appraiser even got it back to us Sunday night). Client's approval came in this morning but since I know what underwriting will want I gave it all up front and we're literally cleared for closing. Now we wait for the scheduled closing date.
You'll survive. And next time vet your loan officer a little more to make sure you get someone a little better.
I had to explain why I received a substantial pay RAISE (got the raise about 3 months before house purchase) I got when I got my degree, and then they asked for a copy of said degree 😵💫
The financial company that found my underwriter for me had to eventually go to a manager of the underwriting company to close the stupid hoops I was jumping through as nothing I did seemed to satisfy them. Then they took forever to find an appraiser so the same financial company took that over as well and found one within a few days, without my financial company contact, I probably would not have gotten my house as there were other offers and my time was close to being up.
I think it depends on the lender. We went through Wells Fargo and it was the worst - similar to what you described. I had friends with similar financial situations have a much easier time with different lenders.
Ugh I feel you. I closed today and the underwriters were still in my file nitpicking shit last second this morning. Even internal transfers from my IRA, checking and savings accounts, which are all at the same bank....really?
This level of intensity suggests to me you have some combo of low cash in the bank, short job history, and or short credit history. I am leaning towards the first because that would explain why they are so interested in how you are moving small amounts of money.
I went through better mortgage, they didn't hound me for shit.
I even transfered in 20k from a stock account like 5 days before closing that they didn't know about. They didn't ask for an updated statement for proof of funds or anything.
You have a neurotic underwriter and I am sorry you are going through this. Some of what he/she is asking for is normal but they have taken it way too far. Best of luck to you. Just keep reminding yourself it will be worth it in the end.
I had to provide my parents death certificates for a 300K line of credit on a 2m house. I’m 58 and my parents have been gone since the early 90s. Fun tracking those certificates down.
Oh boy, can I relate. If you wanna see an epic rant, I’ll tell my wife about this post. I’m sure she’d have things to say.
You’ll get through it, and it will be worth it, but oh my god. Yep. Been there.
I bought several houses over a 4 year period. During one purchase, I had about a huge amount of cash on hand since we had already sold the prior house. We weren’t needing a big mortgage but the bullshit I had to do and the hoops I needed to jump through was crazy. At one point I was ready to terminate the whole deal when they ‘needed’ more documentation. I was borrowing about 25% of the amount of cash I had, my credit score was 850 and I was a Sr Exec at a F500 company with a fat salary. My annual salary was more than the mortgage. So yes, I completely agree the underwriting requirements are insane. And everything comes at you last minute with little time to comply. Good luck, it will all work out. But it’s stressful and annoying and it’s not just your insgination
Underwriter here 🙋🏻♀️
And that is definitely not normal. Never have I questioned $4 Venmo transactions or Apple Music subscriptions lol. But every lender, investor, broker, etc is different. Our job is to ensure you can pay your mortgage and some will be much pickier than others.
If it’s truly a horrible experience you can always go to a different lender.
They are making sure it’s not fraud and that you are able to prove your ability to repay each month. It’s good they are doing this even though it’s annoying to you.
I agree it sucks you have to resubmit documents.
You dont think they control the process to some degree? They absolutely do. When I have an underwriter get super picky and hard to work with I absolutely hold the LO responsible. They need to get out in front of what is required so we arent always going back and forth. Its to help have a good experience for OUR client. What OP is describing is unacceptable.
I'm an LO, and I have been for years. No, I do not control underwriting or guidelines, no LO does. If an LO says he can control underwriting or guidelines, he is either a crook or a liar. I can always push back on conditions **IF** they are not a part of an actual guideline or overlay.
All Im saying is that the LO needs to figure out what is required from the jump and make this as easy as possible for the buyer. It does not appear that is happening here and yes, I lay that at the feet of the LO. This sounds like a disorganized situation and that OP's frustrations are largely avoidable. You want to get pissy about it? Go right ahead.
Underwriters are losing their jobs left and right.
As a result they have become over-critical
Looking for things that are ridiculous
Doing the “look at how good I am at my job” detailed files/requests etc
It’s exhausting but no way around it
This seems very overkill.
I've bought two homes now, so no longer a first time buyer. Underwriting is annoying and asks sometimes dumb questions, but neither of my experiences were anything like this.
I didn’t have any issue despite having a joint account with my boyfriend, having 6 checking accounts, and upwards of 10 credit cards. I didn’t even send them half of my checking account statements and they didn’t ask to see my boyfriends proof of income. I put the house under my name only.
Might just have an unorganized loan team. Yeah, some of the explanations and docs are annoying. Actually, a lot of them are.
Shouldn’t have to submit things multiple times…. That’s when it turns into a guessing game 🥲
Best of luck
You need to use a lender and loan officer that has great technology and a great portal. You also need a loan officer that is not only organized but that has a system in place and that is extremely knowledgeable.
A lot of these complaints and service issues arise because LO’s don’t know what they are doing. As a result they don’t ask for the right information and questions up front. They end up reacting to an underwriters conditions at which point it’s far too late in the process for things to go smoothly.
Your loan officer should be more knowledgeable than an underwriter. That way they know everything that is needed for your file from day 1.
My process was like this too with American Pacific Mortgage, and it was truly soul sucking. A constant stream of last minute urgent tedious minutia repetitive document requests, mistakes from the LO which cost us nearly 1 percent in our rate, the list goes on. Our “30 day close” was the worst 47 days of our marriage to be honest. We got the house and we’re happy now but I don’t know if I could do it again.
I've always used top notch lenders I've really never had to provide anything other than my 3 months of bank transactions (sometimes less) and my pay stubs. No one has ever asked me explain any transactions in my account, not even the venmo transactions my partner sends me on his pay days for bills.
That being said, my account looks pretty clean. I pay for everything on one credit card that gets paid off monthly.
I’ve never experienced this.
I’ve had underwritten approvals.
My husband didn’t go through this for refi or purchase either.
I would have found another company bc there’s no way I’m about to tell you why I lived AT home until I was 18 (like most) and why I went back because of a fucking PANDEMIC that is thoroughly documented in the damn history books!
This is very strange. I recently purchased a home. I think I sent a couple of paychecks, W2, and bank statements only at the beginning. The only thing that took some time was employment verification (because the underwriter decided to fax the request to some random fax machine).
This seems abnormal. I had to provide pay stubs for the past 60 days and bank statements but I was never asked about Venmo or about why I moved around previously.
Unfortunately, this is the industry's answer to the 2008 financial crisis. They used to give out loans to anyone with no questions and that led to a whole host of issues. Now they've over corrected and gone all the way to the other extreme.
This does lead me to feel that there won't be a massive market correction like so many buyers seem to be hoping for. It's just nothing like the early 2000s with home buying anymore.
The underwriting process wasn't as stringent for me, but I still had to jump through a lot of hoops. You're right, though. It's definitely worth it once everything is done. It's like this huge weight falls off your shoulders and you can relax again...until the first clogged drain or broken gutter or other unexpected fix occurs, lol. But that's the fun part of home ownership; dealing with that stuff, but knowing that it's all yours instead of someone else's.
Good luck
Lender here! Not that is justifies it but depending on the loan program you’re using they’ll ask about the non-payroll deposits from Venmo to ensure that it isn’t another source of income but yes it’s annoying :) It does sound like a really disorganized lender that you’ve got! I’m really sorry to hear this!
That’s way overkill. I used DPA and an FHA loan (which are known to be much more strict) and didn’t need half of that. I needed verifications that I had a legit job, bank statements showing my EMD and a handful of other things proving my residency/job.
I have some CC debt, student loans etc etc. They ran my credit against the info I told them and they didn’t require any extra documentation.
I guess my underwriter is about to have a headache with my bank statements. I do bank account churning. I open new bank accounts to take advantage of the sign up bonus. So far, I have 15 bank accounts with large sums of money moving frequently from my hub account to the new accounts to meet the direct deposit requirements.
Anyone with a similar background here and how did you navigate the underwriting process ?
FYI, they are going to request 2 months of statements from every account and any deposit less than 60 days old will need 2 months of statements from the source account until they are able to trace the deposit to the original source. Good luck!
I paused churning while house buying. Keeping all down payment and closing costs in a single account where I don't do any transactions for 2-3 months to make the process easier.
It’s gotten ridiculous. Back in 2006 /2007 they were giving mortgages to anybody with a pulse. Now they’re making you jump through hoops. It’s kind of insane.
This is what I expected as part of my home buying journey. I’d seen enough tik toks to know not to open any new credit or make big purchases. I was prepared for our records to be scrutinized. And then….it was the simplest process ever. Like for what we paid for this house, it was too easy for us to purchase. From contract acceptance to clear to close, it was 3 weeks, and then another week til closing. Not sure if it was just our lender or that our financials weren’t that complicated. If you don’t have complicated financials, know that it can be an easy, stress free process.
The Army required a home of record due to being a single soldier until 2011. Buying our house (2015) hub had to write a letter that he had no vested interest in the property that his mom and stepdad rented.
As soon as you said all the requirements, I was thinking FHA. And yep, looks like it. But even conventional is somewhat picky, but I've learned. Put your deposit money into an interest bearing acct a few month ahead of time and don't touch it. You can't avoid the paystubs and of course they will ask about any monthly reoccuring charges that show up on a credit report, but at least I don't have to explain all the transactions.
This is normal. I got a mortgage through my credit union, and even though they can literally see where transactions come from, I have to give a detailed explanation about everything. And I kept having to submit the same information multiple times. It was extremely annoying.
Hate to hear about experiences such as yours, lender dependent - this isn’t necessarily “normal.”
Like everything, there are really good lenders out there and somehow,… there are really bad lenders out there.
Best of luck and congratulations
That sounds incredibly frustrating! Underwriting can be a nightmare, especially when they nitpick every detail. You're definitely not alone—many people face similar scrutiny. Hang in there; it's a pain now, but it'll all be worth it when you finally get those keys
From a realtor perspective....the underwriters are this faceless power that obeys an internal logic that the rest of us mere mortals are not privy to. EVERYONE is at their mercy. Brokers, principals, mortgage people, closing attorneys....it sucks.
But deals close. Hang in there. Your numbers sound like numbers that close.
I’ve purchased 5 homes over the years and never had and experience like that. Bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns uploaded but never asked detailed questions like that. Are you on the edge of getting approved? Maybe income to payment ratio is borderline thus all questions about purchases. Most recent purchases had provided a secure portal to upload which is nice as I simply would say check portal as I think that was uploaded. Unfortunately experience is very specific to LO and how they work with underwriting. Some are much better than others.
Might not be the best advice, but. I gave complete access to my LO to my payroll (ADP). Linked my bank accounts. Linked my investments.
Then they wanted to know about other things like venmo, paypal, crypto, etc. And I literally said. If you need that kinda info to approve my loan. I will find someone else. I should have sufficient info. They told me well they might come back with more questions later. And all the sudden I was approved and good to go.
I just can't stress this enough. They don't actually care. Hit the big things. And then say no. You'll be fine.
Idk this kind of really scares me ! We are closing end of July . We had to resubmit evening once we found a house . But they haven’t asked anything like that . I hope they don’t . My mom did a FHA loan and didn’t have to do all do that . I don’t even know exact dates for anything when I lived different places YEARS ago . Is all this in the last 2 years ? It’s my understanding they shouldn’t go back further then that (your move history ? I’ve never heard of that)
Ya mine was nothing like that. They didn’t go any further than the last 6 months maybe, and I had some crypto deposits and gambling deposits . Nothing major or anything I haven’t declared in tax forms but still. The process was straightforward and we closed in 2 weeks. Love my new home!
Oh my god, I’m so blessed to not have had this much exhaustion with my underwriting process.
My issue was the appraiser I had to sign a 3-day appraisal waiver like 10 minutes ago because I close on the 8th.
My underwriting explanations were all “what were these credit pulls”. Literally all were just mortgage inquiries and that’s all I had to put for like 13 of them and that was it lol. I’m so sorry your lending company is doing all that.
Nope. We’ve bought 3x in the past four years due to having bad pickers for houses BUT this was never our experience. We have always loved our LO. Where are you located? Perhaps I can refer
It's not an uncommon thing for them to ask for anything under the sun if you are giving less than 20% of the home value, usually FHA loans ask for a lot or BS that conventional don't.
Better than the alternative, like 2006 where there was essentially no underwriting. Sucks for you, but good for everyone as a whole.
That being said, yours does sound more excessive than is really needed…ours was detailed, but not that detailed…especially for smaller transactions .
Apologies if this has been asked before, but can you share who the lender is? I just had an offer accepted, my LO is amazing.. but last time I had an offer accepted, and I pulled out after inspection-the underwriting lady asked me for some weird things, like a social media post, date stamped with my aunt who is 85 and myself.. (she’s gifting me 5,000.) I just thought it was a strange ask.. and she doesn’t have social media and I don’t post a lot on there. All I could find was a photo from Thanksgiving a couple years ago in my phone memory of her with my daughters…anyway. It’s extremely overwhelming and i hope everything works out for you, and soon so you can breathe.
That is NOT the experience i had. Basically just two paycheck stubs, my investments (401k ect) bank accounts and they spoke to my employer. I did end up sending everything twice but it was done lickity split. Maybe your income to debt ratio is tight. Thats the only reason i would think they wanted to see your venmo.
my LO is so relaxed and barely asks me for anything except for my last 2 paystubs (when there’s a new month, i’m asked for 2 new paystubs), my 2 last years W2s, and bank statements for all assets that i’ll be using for my down payment - i keep trying to offer up more stuff every chance I get and he’s making me feel like it’s totally unnecessary for me to even do that. this post has me wondering if i’ll be in trouble when closing time comes lol
They are lending you 1000s if not 100ks. Of course they have to do their due diligence. Spot for any red flags. Any behaviors. They want to minimize risk. Lenders are going to make money off you. And you get the house you want to buy. Win win. They won't hand money left and right to just anyone. They want to ensure that your income is really income and not loans from family or friends. It's a business.
What kind of loan are you getting? That seems excessive for an FHA or conventional. There are lenders available where you can complete your underwriting process prior to shopping so the only remaining conditions are title and appraisal. We call it fast track but another lender may have another name for it.
At one point in time, we put money from our savings account at our old bank into our new savings account at the new bank via a check near the end of a month. Our new bank cleared the amount before the old bank removed the amount. The underwriters could not figure out why we had $16K and then lost $8K of it. I had to send detailed, highlighted statements and all this other proof of how it was only $8K to begin with. It was absolutely ridiculous. And our loan guy was like “You never should’ve moved money. It looks suspicious.” And we were like “Dude! At the time that we moved that money we didn’t know we were going to be buying a home within a few months.”
They are check-listing, do not be offended or annoyed by their practice. It’s really the only way they can do their job. Anyone that has taken out a mortgage has had their shit scrutinized like they’re money laundering criminals. It feels ridiculous, but at the end of the day these are the rules of the party that funds most of the closing. I’ve had my own share of frustrations where I’ve threatened to go all cash, but doesn’t matter or mean much to them unless it’s a mortgage broker you’re working with
This occasionally depends on the lender, but yes things have changed a lot after the crash. Convincing someone to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars is not as easy as it used to be. It’s all risk mitigation
As a lender this sounds very standard! It’s a lot of money and we have federal government guidelines we must follow or we can be fined or lose our license.
Explanation of residency should only go back for 2 years though.
It’s normal! Nothing wrong. It’ll be over soon!
You might be with a shady mortgage originator. Go with the bank you do your checkings with it’s similar but much smoother than nickel and dimed for Venmo
I didn’t mean to be crass, it does sound like overkill what they are having you explain and provide but on an FHA loan they have to source deposits and there are very black and white guidelines that have to be followed, explaining all of your purchases though is overkill unless they are looking at transactions that could be re-occurring they have to make sure that they are documenting all debt and reoccurring payments that you make in your DTI. All of what your explaining sounds relatively normal especially for FHA aside from providing the same document multiple times your LO isn’t being proactive and getting them cleared for you, when buying a home you really have to be prepared to provide pretty much everything aside from a blood sample.
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Underwriting is the worst… My LO is actually pretty good, but his assistant is a totally disorganized and frequently confused idiot that would email us asking like 2-3 more times for documents we already sent in ages ago (and often times specifically to her). The worst part is I'd be second guessing myself over whether what I sent was simply not the right doc or not sufficient when she would keep making the same requests. I finally flipped out and made an elaborate chart of what they asked for, which date we originally uploaded the response, and then date and time of each subsequent email she sent us looking for the same document and each date I responded via email with more attachments of the same document. It was like a 5 page long chart and the last column had one checkbox for them to confirm whether or not they received the document and whether it was sufficient. And then afterwards, with every new request I would respond with: 1. Uploading the document 2. Sending an email specifically copying both LO and his assistant attaching the document, a statement it had also been uploaded and where, the updated chart, and a request for confirmation it was received. I know, super anal and super bitchy. But never again did I get hit with a single duplicative request for the same document and the rest went very smoothly.
I wouldn’t trust someone like that to get me a loan.
Honestly, we thought about switching, but it seems like it is not uncommon and we felt like we were getting too close to our closing date to start over.
Same, this sounds like a nightmare. But you gotta do what you gotta do in this economy.
I used a giant online mortgage company that everyone shits on. Their portal was great. They request a doc, you upload, somebody reviews, it gets approved. It was in my experience simple and flawless. I don't think I ever talked to a human there. I couldn't deal with the risk of somebody elses disorganization.
I had that on a refi. It was great until you couldn’t provide what it asked for exactly how they expected it. They asked for a mortgage statement. My previous mortgage was held by a small hometown bank that still uses something like a savings pass book for their mortgage servicing. Well, I sent an explanation and a copy of that thing 5 times. I finally had to speak loudly at the loan guy for him to understand. Then they wanted something else 5 times. It was worth it for 2.75% fixed for 30 years and getting $100 back to take the loan (no fees at all, it was great). But it was a pain. It got sold to JP Morgan Chase and it’s been easy to deal with them for servicing.
The experience you have is more a factor of your situation and the LO you have working your file rather than the company you are going through. You can have a horrible experience with a 5 star rated lender and a great experience with a 1 star rated lender.
Sounds like veterans united, I love the portal and my little to do list 😂
yeah i think a lot of the problem here is that email interfaces are complete shit and the search within is even worse. galling of them to not just search harder over sending out another request though
Just name the site so others can check it out. We used Guaranteed Rate which had exactly what you describe. Nothing was duplicated.
I used Better Mortgage. I see a lot of horror stories tho
I have customers and coworkers like your LO assistant. It drives me insane. Like you, I now have lengthy checklists and extensive date/time stamped notes for nearly everything I do. When someone comes at me with "I didn't get that" I respond with "Yes, I see that I sent it on 10-31-23 at 3:37pm and I have the read receipt....". I don't get nearly as many emails requesting the same docs *over and over and over* anymore. Bitchy? Maybe. Does it work? Hell yes lol. Do I feel bad about it? Hell no!
>assistant is a totally disorganized and frequently confused idiot that would email us asking like 2-3 more times for documents we already sent in ages ago (and often times specifically to her) This burns my ass. When someone thinks it's "easier" to just request the same documentation a 2nd time instead of just fucking looking through their own disorganized mess to find what was already sent to them. Just had to deal with this today with the tax agent working on my mom's estate (that I wanted to be filed in February).
I would have gone with someone else. If your loan officer team is requiring you to do the work of a very efficient secretary, you are not getting your value out of that relationship.
Excluding needing to re-submit a bank statement when I inadvertently cut off a day of transactions, I experienced none of that and this seems like overkill. Hopefully it will all be over soon!
Yeah I’m wondering if OP has a lower credit score or what because I sent one round of docs with zero follow up and it was good to go. Seems like a disorganized loan officer.
Yeah I thought I had a 720 credit score because that’s what it said on my navy fed dashboard lol. They pulled my stuff at 680. Could be a possibility
Same here. The only thing I had to do was get a letter confirming I was working remote and could move to another state from my employer because I was moving to another state. I sent my bank statements and they didn’t question anything about any of those.
At least you can do it all online now, imagine back in the day having to go all the way to your bank or broker every time they needed a new document.
Way to see the bright side! True that
I thought about it when I went through the process and was submitting forms on my brokers app and email while working in a kitchen. Like, man, it would have been a nightmare to run to the bank to request a statement, then drive to the broker to drop it off. Then repeat every other day. I don't know how anyone did it back then while also holding down a full time job. I'd imagine you'd have to take time off from work frequently just to run around and collect/drop off documents.
They likely weren't as stringent back then… but idk
Add to that when banks were only open during 'bankers hours', and one would have to take time off work to get it done. No wonder it took months!
It wasn’t that intense pre-2008
Same here I put an offer in early/mid June and also close mid July in a lil over two weeks. Im in the end of underwriting myself and hell no mine was easy outside or some clarification regarding my work status since I travel so much and am rarely in the state I live in. My underwriting in 99% complete don’t need to do anything else at the moment. The most annoying part was resubmitting pay stubs, bank statements, and getting a letter of employment from HR. Your lender sounds like they are running through all the bureaucracy.
What do you mean by that? Could it be because we are utilizing an FHA loan?
I did FHA 3 months ago and only had to submit docs once. Also didn’t have to explain anything that wasn’t big purchases.
middle obtainable provide mighty scandalous uppity yoke consider birds repeat *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Good to know! Appreciate the insight
We are using an FHA loan and didn’t have to do all that for micro transactions. I had two gifts of $1,200 and $1,500 they wanted a letter saying it was a gift and a copy of the gifters bank statements showing it coming out of their accounts. That was the biggest headache. Otherwise just the usual paystubs and a few credit card statements they hadn’t seen on the credit report. We will have to do it all again once we find another house since our last one fell through (sellers fault) and I’m not looking forward to it. But reading your experience makes ours seem a lot easier.
I can understand the gifted needing to make a statement saying the money was a gift, we had to do this also for our loan application. But I didn’t realize that some loan officers want to see the gifted bank statement also. What would have happened if the gifted refused to provide this?
I have no idea, I was afraid I was going to find out because my aunt who gifted us was not thrilled she had to provide it. I gave her the lenders email and everything because I didn’t want to have to see her business. She ended up dropping it off in person but they never really explained to me why they needed it.
I guess it’s to check she didn’t receive the money from someone else and then give it to you.
Yeah I’m guessing that too. I just told my aunt it was to make sure it wasn’t drug money lol
It’s an FHA guideline, when receiving a gift you have to provide the gifters bank statement as well to show where the funds are originating from, if you can’t get that the funds can’t be used for the loan and have to be backed out.
They wouldn’t underwrite. My husband is “gifting” 40k and he doesn’t like sharing his info — they flat out said even if he transfers it into my acct they need the trail. So he had to give up the statement
No it’s not because it’s fha. All loan types have similar requirements. With some variation. It comes down to having a loan officer that knows what they are doing and from day one they ask all the right questions and request all the right documents. Too many inexperienced loan officers react to an underwriters conditions which is NOT appropriate. They should be submitting complete and accurate files to underwriting.
Possibly the FHA loan yeah I am doing a conventional loan because I had a large enough down payment 12.5% I heard from my lender that FHA loans are incredibly through and it’s why a lot of buyers down want to deal with them.
Got it! That’s good to know! Thanks for your input. Good luck!!
No sweat best of luck on your home as well! Hopefully the rest of underwriting is kind to you.
I used an FHA and I didn’t have to do all of this. I gave copies of my bank statements, my paystubs, and my credit card statements. They also requested a copy of the loan docs for the 401k loan I took out for the down payment. From pre-approval to closing was about 6 weeks and two of that was me arranging travel for the closing because I lived 1500 miles away at the time.
Just starting underwriting - and I am an "over user" of Venmo. How do you do this? I pay my nails, my kids pay for their Verizon bill, dinners and lunches with friends, etc. How do you document all this?
I had to give written explanations for each and every transactions. One was 4.75 cents and I just said “paid my friend back for pizza”. I suppose I could give screenshots of my Venmo account but that really wouldn’t prove much.
Oh boy - this should be fun. I seriously didn't even think about my Venmo stuff. Thank you!
Just don’t claim Venmo as an income source. Transfer whatever cash is there to a bank account. Unless you make a ton of income through Venmo and are claiming it’s an income source?
My underwriting has been nothing like this. So smooth. I really appreciate my mortgage broker and all he has done for me.
From the FHA guidelines posted on the FHA website: ***"For individual deposits of more than 50 percent of the total monthly Effective Income, the Mortgagee must obtain documentation of the deposits"*** ***"...obtain copies of the most recent pay stub that shows the Borrower’s year-to-date earnings; • obtain copies of the original IRS Form W-2s from the previous two years..."***
This is definitely not normal. I have never heard of such a thing. I thought it was intense that they asked to speak to a landlord I had almost a year ago. With your debt-to-income ratio I cannot fathom the need to ask such petty questions. Maybe work with a different lender?
That's wild. After we turned over bank statements and W2s, they never asked us about any of it.
Same.
Same here, I was actually waiting to hear back for more and never did.
I heard from my underwriter once, they asked what a deposit was, confirmed it was taxes, and goes "huh.. That was easy." I have literally no debt other than a mortgage. All my cars are paid off, no student debt, and I keep a rolling amount on my credit card because up until I was 32 I didn't have a credit file. Which sucked because we were ready to buy before covid... I've just always lived within my means which is crazy that's such a terrible thing and seen as a liability. My process was incredibly smooth though. I think the more things you have, the more digging they have to do.
Hummm I have a lot of things but mine was super easy. Wonder what lender. Not all lenders are the same. Some are nightmares. Some super easy. We also are high income and went nowhere near our limit (about 26% of NET pay). They did not even ask for much, they didn’t need bonus statements for example. We are also in established positions in our jobs for years (partnership, director etc) and have been in our current rental for 4 consecutive years. It shows stability. I think folks imagine 150k in a 2 year old entry level tech roll is great but it’s actually super Risky for a lender. You certainly aren’t secure or high income. Hence all the questions. They need to know who the f you are. Their job is to literally write loans that do not default. If you’re bank statement looks like you are a drug dealer with a side hustle who can’t pay rent and keeps ending back home with mommy and daddy- they are going to have questions.
Keep in mind, most lenders sell their loans to Fannie or Freddie, and they have very strict underwriting guidelines. If everything wasn't done up to their standards, the bank may be unable to offload the loan.
I did have to do a first time homebuyers course through Fannie Mae.
And then you'll pay an ungodly sum for them to have mortgage insurance to protect them from deadbeats. WTF are credit scores for, if not to separate me from people who don't make payments?? A lifetime of responsibly handling money and they treat you like some kind of con artist trying to steal their money.
It wasn't until we were buying a house that I learned it doesn't even matter what one's credit score is once it's above 750. Okay, maybe unless you're trying to flex about having a higher credit score than their suggested financial advisor.
Yes, underwriting was the worst. My LOs assistant asked for some things several times and sometimes wasn't clear. I purposely did not get mad, I just smiled and sent it again, and sent it again, etc. I asked questions and just tried to have a positive attitude because I knew that being frustrated wouldn't help. This is only temporary. This is only temporary. This is only temporary. I cried, I was stressed but it was eventually over. I bought my house in December and I couldn't be happier. It was all worth it and I'm glad I didn't flip out on the LO assistant lol Good luck! It will be over soon and just keep thinking that you're lucky to even be going through this process!
THIS!!! I have never related to something more. I just pretend it’s fine and no worries because I sort of feel bad for her. Probably deals with jerks all day long that give her a hard time. Thanks for this comment! Hopefully the outcome will be the same for us :)
Are you borderline on the income levels? I’ve never been through any level of underwriting close to this. Even which switching jobs. It sounds like you are near the loan limits of your income which is causing this. Last few purchases - 2 years of tax returns, a recent paystub. Pretty much it.
No, our mortgage plus all other debt payments would only be 30% of our NET monthly income roughly.
Hmm thats odd as hell. Is it a major bank? I know people on 1099 income that do less for underwriting then what you are describing. That’s certainly not normal - even in the last 18 months.
This sounds like you borderline don’t have enough income. We had plenty of income, plenty of Venmo deposits, etc but bought way less house than what we could get approved for. Never got asked a question like this
Interesting. Our mortgage payment would only be 23% of our NET monthly income which I thought was reasonable. Our monthly DTI would only be around 30% (including the mortgage payment). We have 1 car payment and a student loan payment.
That doesn’t sound bad at all. Who’s the lender?
I suspect very young, and very close to not being able to afford the house.
I'm on my 5-6th mortgage. It's always some level of what you described. My strategy has always to just immediately provide whatever they ask for and don't think about the reason as much as I can.
It's FHA, I knew someone that almost lost a house because of a $3 deposit 2 days before closing that was unaccounted for and caught at the last minute. So I would strongly advise don't venmo anything anymore until after you close
I'm dreading the fact that my "bank account" is my brokerage account. 64 pages of day-trading mixed in among my paychecks. Looking forward to explaining that. At least Im a very profitable trader lol
Can’t be as bad as OF models… imagine having to explain that
On behalf of other mortgage underwriters, I apologize. Yours seems to be inordinately conservative in their requests. As far as only fans models or other similar work, underwriters typically do not care what you do as long as you have the work history requirement. The income would be claimed as a 1099, filed under Schedule C self-employment. I'd work out their 2 year average, maybe have concerns if the trend is declining, but otherwise calculate it and move on. At worst, maybe have a little chuckle. Some people run very unfortunately named businesses.
A successful OF model doesn’t need a mortgage lol
TRUE
Generally really easy. Usually schedule c income. Just get two years most recent tax returns.
I mean, I assume the primary income source for OF models is from OF. The subscribers pay the site and the site pays the model - it's not like the model has to report every single microtransaction as an individual income source
I was worried about this too but kept communicating with my LO to know when is safe to sell to make those funds available for my downpayment. I got them sold ok when underwriting had everything they needed. It did take a smidgen longer than what I read online. I suggest starting the selling process 2 weeks before close. I initiated the sell on a Thursday & had them in my bank account ready for wiring the next Thursday. Then wiring paperwork and processing took 24 hours with closing the following Monday. 8 business days total & was a little too close for comfort. 10 business days before closing seems a bit less anxiety inducing. Edit: Mine isn't quite day-trading but it is a robo-advisor that does trade activities multiple times a month.
Create a different bank account and set aside funds for the down payment. After 2 months of only deposits there will be no questions. This is what I did.
It's best to exclude accounts you won't use for the mortgage, like Venmo or small account that might only have a couple hundred bucks move through them. As long as you're not using the account for the mortgage, they won't have to dig through it. Otherwise they're just seeing money coming in randomly and need to know why and what it's for. The paycheck one seems like a non-issue, three months of checks? Easy. You could complain more towards his employer issuing weekly checks vs bi-monthly or every other week, or even monthly.
Can you elaborate on your first paragraph? In April I had transferred money people sent me from my Venmo into my checking account as also made some payments to people through Venmo. They saw these transactions through my bank statements so not sure any way around it except to not transfer any more money in or make any purchases using the app. Ugh.
That's basically correct. I usually leave the Venmo money just sitting there for awhile is I even remotely anticipate I'll use it, and especially if it's small amounts (a couple hundred bucks or something). That way next transfer to someone or payment I just use the Venmo balance. In general I just try to keep my check account as clean and simple as possible. Direct deposit in, credit card payments out and mortgage out. That's pretty much all that goes through my bank account.
This is such a good idea. I wish I had thought of this before we applied for a mortgage. Next time!
You can get a Venmo debit card. I have one. It’s free and works just like a regular debit card. I don’t keep money in Venmo like I would a bank account, but when I do have money in there I use my debit card for things like coffee, gas etc.
I once had an underwriter ask if she could get a copy of my grandfather’s will, to document a $5k deposit in an account with $100k.
As someone who went through this with my 1st loan originator, switching was the most refreshing experience. Our underwriter who asked for every doc 4x and the same company who pushed our closing date 6x before we finally left gave my wife and I a bad taste for the entire industry. Our next guy was super passionate about homeownership. He saved us around 8k from our out of pocket on the same house, closed us in 18 days (after 52 days with the previous company) and asked for docs once and only once. Absolutely phenomenal guy that I’ve recommended about 15x since closing!
UW is the absolute worth. I bought a long while ago, but had to jump through similar hoops. Stupid requests and things they could've asked about upfront all at once.
I hear you! The state my family lives in has an enhanced life estate (lady bird deed), so my siblings and I are listed as remaindermen on the current deed, but have absolutely no rights or obligations to the house until both of our parents die (assuming they don’t change their minds before then). Our underwriter asked for my parents’ will to show that we don’t have an obligation to the home. Except the home isn’t in their will, it’s in an enhanced life estate so it’s bypass probate. Then they wanted a copy of the estate even though it’s listed as an enhanced life estate on the deed. We went back and forth for 2 weeks because my parents were willing to provide the life estate documents but not their will (understandably). And the loan officer, during all this time, would say “we just need to make sure you aren’t liable for utilities or taxes. Like the house didn’t have a mortgage. And since when are potentially inherited assets considered current liabilities??
They were still asking us to verify things they DAY we NEEDED final approval in order to close three days later on our scheduled closing date. They final approved us at 1 pm and sent over our final closing disclosure at 4:10 pm 😅 and it was just petty things that they could differentiate and figure out from our paystubs.
I just closed today and had to verify shit this morning. I hate them. I had to move my closing from 2pm to 4pm because of them.
I didn’t have to do any of this besides bank statements, I bought my house on a single income at 24. This seems like overkill by your lender!
It's the worst. In 2020 I went through it for something and they kept calling my employer (a bankers hours job) at 6 and 7 at night and then I'd get threatening emails from them that I must have given them false info and they weren't going to do the loan. They would never leave a message with my employer either. I verified with my employer in the midst of all this.
Is this the U.S.?? I only had to provide like 7-8 documents. The only thing they are annoying about is the statements for where the down payment comes from.
Honestly, it sounds like you're just working with a bad loan officer that sent your file to a shitty lender. Part of doing this job well comes with understanding how to put a loan together and what lenders are going to get the job done without causing your client to want to slit their wrists. I typically see the scenario you're describing often with newer LOs that chase the lowest rate. They don't understand how to articulate their value to clients so they just chase rate. The lowest rate often comes with a nightmare of a process. Sometimes it's worth it but most of the time it's not. Just know that's not always the process. Example: I just had a new client go under contract last week on Weds. I submitted the file on Thursday to underwriting, we had the appraisal done over the weekend (and somehow the appraiser even got it back to us Sunday night). Client's approval came in this morning but since I know what underwriting will want I gave it all up front and we're literally cleared for closing. Now we wait for the scheduled closing date. You'll survive. And next time vet your loan officer a little more to make sure you get someone a little better.
I had to explain why I received a substantial pay RAISE (got the raise about 3 months before house purchase) I got when I got my degree, and then they asked for a copy of said degree 😵💫
I paid a buddy for helping me clear a lot. In the memo line I put lumberjaying because his name is Jay. The bank took issue with that.
This is hilarious 🤣
Yup. It’s the worst. I told my lender give me a complete list of what you want now. I’m not giving you stuff one request at a time.
Weird I had tons of cash comeing in from Zelle from one of my wife’s accounts for bills and stuff they never said anything
The financial company that found my underwriter for me had to eventually go to a manager of the underwriting company to close the stupid hoops I was jumping through as nothing I did seemed to satisfy them. Then they took forever to find an appraiser so the same financial company took that over as well and found one within a few days, without my financial company contact, I probably would not have gotten my house as there were other offers and my time was close to being up.
I had a similar experience I had to explain that my bridesmaids were sending me money to pay for their portion of the hair and makeup expenses
I think it depends on the lender. We went through Wells Fargo and it was the worst - similar to what you described. I had friends with similar financial situations have a much easier time with different lenders.
Ugh I feel you. I closed today and the underwriters were still in my file nitpicking shit last second this morning. Even internal transfers from my IRA, checking and savings accounts, which are all at the same bank....really?
I thought my LO was a bit of a pain in the ass at times, but reading some of the stories here I now appreciate her a lot more.
This level of intensity suggests to me you have some combo of low cash in the bank, short job history, and or short credit history. I am leaning towards the first because that would explain why they are so interested in how you are moving small amounts of money.
I went through better mortgage, they didn't hound me for shit. I even transfered in 20k from a stock account like 5 days before closing that they didn't know about. They didn't ask for an updated statement for proof of funds or anything.
You have a neurotic underwriter and I am sorry you are going through this. Some of what he/she is asking for is normal but they have taken it way too far. Best of luck to you. Just keep reminding yourself it will be worth it in the end.
I had to provide my parents death certificates for a 300K line of credit on a 2m house. I’m 58 and my parents have been gone since the early 90s. Fun tracking those certificates down.
Oh boy, can I relate. If you wanna see an epic rant, I’ll tell my wife about this post. I’m sure she’d have things to say. You’ll get through it, and it will be worth it, but oh my god. Yep. Been there.
Yesss bring her on! lol!!!
None of my loans ever asked to see my venmo history or explain payments. That is so odd to me. Is this common?
You can request a change in the underwriter. I have before.
I've had to provide no explanation at all and my statements look crazy
I bought several houses over a 4 year period. During one purchase, I had about a huge amount of cash on hand since we had already sold the prior house. We weren’t needing a big mortgage but the bullshit I had to do and the hoops I needed to jump through was crazy. At one point I was ready to terminate the whole deal when they ‘needed’ more documentation. I was borrowing about 25% of the amount of cash I had, my credit score was 850 and I was a Sr Exec at a F500 company with a fat salary. My annual salary was more than the mortgage. So yes, I completely agree the underwriting requirements are insane. And everything comes at you last minute with little time to comply. Good luck, it will all work out. But it’s stressful and annoying and it’s not just your insgination
Underwriter here 🙋🏻♀️ And that is definitely not normal. Never have I questioned $4 Venmo transactions or Apple Music subscriptions lol. But every lender, investor, broker, etc is different. Our job is to ensure you can pay your mortgage and some will be much pickier than others. If it’s truly a horrible experience you can always go to a different lender.
They are making sure it’s not fraud and that you are able to prove your ability to repay each month. It’s good they are doing this even though it’s annoying to you. I agree it sucks you have to resubmit documents.
Valid comment!!
I just had the loan officer ask about an apartment I rented over 30 years ago. I told him that was before he was born.
Your lo sucks. It should never be this bad
Yes, because LO's set underwriting guidelines.....
You dont think they control the process to some degree? They absolutely do. When I have an underwriter get super picky and hard to work with I absolutely hold the LO responsible. They need to get out in front of what is required so we arent always going back and forth. Its to help have a good experience for OUR client. What OP is describing is unacceptable.
I'm an LO, and I have been for years. No, I do not control underwriting or guidelines, no LO does. If an LO says he can control underwriting or guidelines, he is either a crook or a liar. I can always push back on conditions **IF** they are not a part of an actual guideline or overlay.
All Im saying is that the LO needs to figure out what is required from the jump and make this as easy as possible for the buyer. It does not appear that is happening here and yes, I lay that at the feet of the LO. This sounds like a disorganized situation and that OP's frustrations are largely avoidable. You want to get pissy about it? Go right ahead.
Underwriters are losing their jobs left and right. As a result they have become over-critical Looking for things that are ridiculous Doing the “look at how good I am at my job” detailed files/requests etc It’s exhausting but no way around it
...holy shit do people really not know the difference between "losing" and "loosing?"
I edited my comment since the autocorrect was triggering for you. It’s Reddit, chill.
This seems very overkill. I've bought two homes now, so no longer a first time buyer. Underwriting is annoying and asks sometimes dumb questions, but neither of my experiences were anything like this.
I didn’t have any issue despite having a joint account with my boyfriend, having 6 checking accounts, and upwards of 10 credit cards. I didn’t even send them half of my checking account statements and they didn’t ask to see my boyfriends proof of income. I put the house under my name only.
Might just have an unorganized loan team. Yeah, some of the explanations and docs are annoying. Actually, a lot of them are. Shouldn’t have to submit things multiple times…. That’s when it turns into a guessing game 🥲 Best of luck
This process was incredibly easy for me, and I'd just switched jobs about 6 weeks before I put my offer in. Crazy hearing the horror stories.
Do you have an unusual occupation? Underwriting was super simple for me. Maybe your loan officer isn’t the best? What part of the US are you?
This is why I pay for everything with a credit card and my bank account is “clean” with minimal deposits and withdrawals.
If it makes you feel better, divorce and literally every other process I’ve ever had to do was easier and less stressful.
You need to use a lender and loan officer that has great technology and a great portal. You also need a loan officer that is not only organized but that has a system in place and that is extremely knowledgeable. A lot of these complaints and service issues arise because LO’s don’t know what they are doing. As a result they don’t ask for the right information and questions up front. They end up reacting to an underwriters conditions at which point it’s far too late in the process for things to go smoothly. Your loan officer should be more knowledgeable than an underwriter. That way they know everything that is needed for your file from day 1.
My process was like this too with American Pacific Mortgage, and it was truly soul sucking. A constant stream of last minute urgent tedious minutia repetitive document requests, mistakes from the LO which cost us nearly 1 percent in our rate, the list goes on. Our “30 day close” was the worst 47 days of our marriage to be honest. We got the house and we’re happy now but I don’t know if I could do it again.
I've always used top notch lenders I've really never had to provide anything other than my 3 months of bank transactions (sometimes less) and my pay stubs. No one has ever asked me explain any transactions in my account, not even the venmo transactions my partner sends me on his pay days for bills. That being said, my account looks pretty clean. I pay for everything on one credit card that gets paid off monthly.
I’ve never experienced this. I’ve had underwritten approvals. My husband didn’t go through this for refi or purchase either. I would have found another company bc there’s no way I’m about to tell you why I lived AT home until I was 18 (like most) and why I went back because of a fucking PANDEMIC that is thoroughly documented in the damn history books!
This is very strange. I recently purchased a home. I think I sent a couple of paychecks, W2, and bank statements only at the beginning. The only thing that took some time was employment verification (because the underwriter decided to fax the request to some random fax machine).
This seems abnormal. I had to provide pay stubs for the past 60 days and bank statements but I was never asked about Venmo or about why I moved around previously.
Yikes! The only thing I had to help clarify/pull more documents for was my maternity leave paperwork since I was on leave through part of the process.
Unfortunately, this is the industry's answer to the 2008 financial crisis. They used to give out loans to anyone with no questions and that led to a whole host of issues. Now they've over corrected and gone all the way to the other extreme. This does lead me to feel that there won't be a massive market correction like so many buyers seem to be hoping for. It's just nothing like the early 2000s with home buying anymore. The underwriting process wasn't as stringent for me, but I still had to jump through a lot of hoops. You're right, though. It's definitely worth it once everything is done. It's like this huge weight falls off your shoulders and you can relax again...until the first clogged drain or broken gutter or other unexpected fix occurs, lol. But that's the fun part of home ownership; dealing with that stuff, but knowing that it's all yours instead of someone else's. Good luck
Lender here! Not that is justifies it but depending on the loan program you’re using they’ll ask about the non-payroll deposits from Venmo to ensure that it isn’t another source of income but yes it’s annoying :) It does sound like a really disorganized lender that you’ve got! I’m really sorry to hear this!
That’s way overkill. I used DPA and an FHA loan (which are known to be much more strict) and didn’t need half of that. I needed verifications that I had a legit job, bank statements showing my EMD and a handful of other things proving my residency/job. I have some CC debt, student loans etc etc. They ran my credit against the info I told them and they didn’t require any extra documentation.
I guess my underwriter is about to have a headache with my bank statements. I do bank account churning. I open new bank accounts to take advantage of the sign up bonus. So far, I have 15 bank accounts with large sums of money moving frequently from my hub account to the new accounts to meet the direct deposit requirements. Anyone with a similar background here and how did you navigate the underwriting process ?
FYI, they are going to request 2 months of statements from every account and any deposit less than 60 days old will need 2 months of statements from the source account until they are able to trace the deposit to the original source. Good luck!
I paused churning while house buying. Keeping all down payment and closing costs in a single account where I don't do any transactions for 2-3 months to make the process easier.
Yeah, we do this too, but because it's usually the same stuff going feom one to the next we just left them off.
You have to explain your Apple Music subscription? Like umm I like music without ads?
It’s gotten ridiculous. Back in 2006 /2007 they were giving mortgages to anybody with a pulse. Now they’re making you jump through hoops. It’s kind of insane.
So you prefer the 2006-7 method of little to no docs (thst caused the great recession)?
Of course not. But they’ve gotten a little too strict. Extremes are not good.
I hear about this and it’s so odd I never had to do anything like that. I just closed Friday and only had to submit paystubs and tax returns.
No bank statements?
Oh yeah that too
Who is the lender? Is this a retail bank?
This is what I expected as part of my home buying journey. I’d seen enough tik toks to know not to open any new credit or make big purchases. I was prepared for our records to be scrutinized. And then….it was the simplest process ever. Like for what we paid for this house, it was too easy for us to purchase. From contract acceptance to clear to close, it was 3 weeks, and then another week til closing. Not sure if it was just our lender or that our financials weren’t that complicated. If you don’t have complicated financials, know that it can be an easy, stress free process.
Yeah it feels like underwriting is still stuck in the 1920s. It’s maddening.
The Army required a home of record due to being a single soldier until 2011. Buying our house (2015) hub had to write a letter that he had no vested interest in the property that his mom and stepdad rented.
As soon as you said all the requirements, I was thinking FHA. And yep, looks like it. But even conventional is somewhat picky, but I've learned. Put your deposit money into an interest bearing acct a few month ahead of time and don't touch it. You can't avoid the paystubs and of course they will ask about any monthly reoccuring charges that show up on a credit report, but at least I don't have to explain all the transactions.
This is normal. I got a mortgage through my credit union, and even though they can literally see where transactions come from, I have to give a detailed explanation about everything. And I kept having to submit the same information multiple times. It was extremely annoying.
Hate to hear about experiences such as yours, lender dependent - this isn’t necessarily “normal.” Like everything, there are really good lenders out there and somehow,… there are really bad lenders out there. Best of luck and congratulations
That sounds incredibly frustrating! Underwriting can be a nightmare, especially when they nitpick every detail. You're definitely not alone—many people face similar scrutiny. Hang in there; it's a pain now, but it'll all be worth it when you finally get those keys
Tell them you are going to switch to a different loan provider
From a realtor perspective....the underwriters are this faceless power that obeys an internal logic that the rest of us mere mortals are not privy to. EVERYONE is at their mercy. Brokers, principals, mortgage people, closing attorneys....it sucks. But deals close. Hang in there. Your numbers sound like numbers that close.
I’ve purchased 5 homes over the years and never had and experience like that. Bank statements, pay stubs, tax returns uploaded but never asked detailed questions like that. Are you on the edge of getting approved? Maybe income to payment ratio is borderline thus all questions about purchases. Most recent purchases had provided a secure portal to upload which is nice as I simply would say check portal as I think that was uploaded. Unfortunately experience is very specific to LO and how they work with underwriting. Some are much better than others.
I remember being asked for documentation over and over. I thought it would never end.
Might not be the best advice, but. I gave complete access to my LO to my payroll (ADP). Linked my bank accounts. Linked my investments. Then they wanted to know about other things like venmo, paypal, crypto, etc. And I literally said. If you need that kinda info to approve my loan. I will find someone else. I should have sufficient info. They told me well they might come back with more questions later. And all the sudden I was approved and good to go. I just can't stress this enough. They don't actually care. Hit the big things. And then say no. You'll be fine.
Idk this kind of really scares me ! We are closing end of July . We had to resubmit evening once we found a house . But they haven’t asked anything like that . I hope they don’t . My mom did a FHA loan and didn’t have to do all do that . I don’t even know exact dates for anything when I lived different places YEARS ago . Is all this in the last 2 years ? It’s my understanding they shouldn’t go back further then that (your move history ? I’ve never heard of that)
Damn we didn’t have to do any of those small transactions
Ya mine was nothing like that. They didn’t go any further than the last 6 months maybe, and I had some crypto deposits and gambling deposits . Nothing major or anything I haven’t declared in tax forms but still. The process was straightforward and we closed in 2 weeks. Love my new home!
Oh my god, I’m so blessed to not have had this much exhaustion with my underwriting process. My issue was the appraiser I had to sign a 3-day appraisal waiver like 10 minutes ago because I close on the 8th. My underwriting explanations were all “what were these credit pulls”. Literally all were just mortgage inquiries and that’s all I had to put for like 13 of them and that was it lol. I’m so sorry your lending company is doing all that.
Nope. We’ve bought 3x in the past four years due to having bad pickers for houses BUT this was never our experience. We have always loved our LO. Where are you located? Perhaps I can refer
It's not an uncommon thing for them to ask for anything under the sun if you are giving less than 20% of the home value, usually FHA loans ask for a lot or BS that conventional don't.
Better than the alternative, like 2006 where there was essentially no underwriting. Sucks for you, but good for everyone as a whole. That being said, yours does sound more excessive than is really needed…ours was detailed, but not that detailed…especially for smaller transactions .
Sounds like your lender sucks. I felt like underwriting was a breeze they requested the docs and I didn’t have to do anything.
Weird. Sounds like you're fine on income. They never asked us about anything on our bank statements, either time.
Apologies if this has been asked before, but can you share who the lender is? I just had an offer accepted, my LO is amazing.. but last time I had an offer accepted, and I pulled out after inspection-the underwriting lady asked me for some weird things, like a social media post, date stamped with my aunt who is 85 and myself.. (she’s gifting me 5,000.) I just thought it was a strange ask.. and she doesn’t have social media and I don’t post a lot on there. All I could find was a photo from Thanksgiving a couple years ago in my phone memory of her with my daughters…anyway. It’s extremely overwhelming and i hope everything works out for you, and soon so you can breathe.
That is NOT the experience i had. Basically just two paycheck stubs, my investments (401k ect) bank accounts and they spoke to my employer. I did end up sending everything twice but it was done lickity split. Maybe your income to debt ratio is tight. Thats the only reason i would think they wanted to see your venmo.
my LO is so relaxed and barely asks me for anything except for my last 2 paystubs (when there’s a new month, i’m asked for 2 new paystubs), my 2 last years W2s, and bank statements for all assets that i’ll be using for my down payment - i keep trying to offer up more stuff every chance I get and he’s making me feel like it’s totally unnecessary for me to even do that. this post has me wondering if i’ll be in trouble when closing time comes lol
Mine recently asked me to ask my dead grandpa’s financial advisor for more detailed receipts for the transfer of some money he left me
They are lending you 1000s if not 100ks. Of course they have to do their due diligence. Spot for any red flags. Any behaviors. They want to minimize risk. Lenders are going to make money off you. And you get the house you want to buy. Win win. They won't hand money left and right to just anyone. They want to ensure that your income is really income and not loans from family or friends. It's a business.
That’s seems excessive. I didn’t need to give half that information for when I bought my first home 4 years ago.
What kind of loan are you getting? That seems excessive for an FHA or conventional. There are lenders available where you can complete your underwriting process prior to shopping so the only remaining conditions are title and appraisal. We call it fast track but another lender may have another name for it.
At one point in time, we put money from our savings account at our old bank into our new savings account at the new bank via a check near the end of a month. Our new bank cleared the amount before the old bank removed the amount. The underwriters could not figure out why we had $16K and then lost $8K of it. I had to send detailed, highlighted statements and all this other proof of how it was only $8K to begin with. It was absolutely ridiculous. And our loan guy was like “You never should’ve moved money. It looks suspicious.” And we were like “Dude! At the time that we moved that money we didn’t know we were going to be buying a home within a few months.”
They are check-listing, do not be offended or annoyed by their practice. It’s really the only way they can do their job. Anyone that has taken out a mortgage has had their shit scrutinized like they’re money laundering criminals. It feels ridiculous, but at the end of the day these are the rules of the party that funds most of the closing. I’ve had my own share of frustrations where I’ve threatened to go all cash, but doesn’t matter or mean much to them unless it’s a mortgage broker you’re working with
This occasionally depends on the lender, but yes things have changed a lot after the crash. Convincing someone to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars is not as easy as it used to be. It’s all risk mitigation
When is this all required? At what stage ? After offer acceptance and before closing ? Or for pre-approval?
As a lender this sounds very standard! It’s a lot of money and we have federal government guidelines we must follow or we can be fined or lose our license. Explanation of residency should only go back for 2 years though. It’s normal! Nothing wrong. It’ll be over soon!
Thank you :)
You might be with a shady mortgage originator. Go with the bank you do your checkings with it’s similar but much smoother than nickel and dimed for Venmo
Bad lender bad LO
How old are you?
24. Think that’s it?
You are getting a 30 year loan and borrowing a very large amount of money, getting a mortgage is not like buying a car.
Wasn’t expecting it to be like buying a car, but also wasn’t expecting to have to explain every purchase under 10$ I made In the last 3 months.
I didn’t mean to be crass, it does sound like overkill what they are having you explain and provide but on an FHA loan they have to source deposits and there are very black and white guidelines that have to be followed, explaining all of your purchases though is overkill unless they are looking at transactions that could be re-occurring they have to make sure that they are documenting all debt and reoccurring payments that you make in your DTI. All of what your explaining sounds relatively normal especially for FHA aside from providing the same document multiple times your LO isn’t being proactive and getting them cleared for you, when buying a home you really have to be prepared to provide pretty much everything aside from a blood sample.
Thanks for the insight! All of these comments are making me feel a lot less crazy. I just wasn’t expecting it.