The 5/13/07 Sunday Times Real Estate Section features an article by Ken Harney that is worth reading. It concerns Bank of America’s stated committment to no fee home purchase mortgages. The article notes that there are skeptics. Our personal experience is that Bank of America provides excellent service at the branch level on items such as home equity lines of credit, auto loans, etc. However, whenever we receivean offer on one of our listings containing a pre-approval or pre-qualification letter from B of A for the buyer, we shudder at the prospect of trying to track a loan through a labrynth of non-committal, unresponsive B of A personnel. Our experience has been:
1. B of A has little regard for dates in purchase and sale agreements
2. has little or no respect for the agents working on the transaction
3. has no consistent procedures for processing mortgage loans, i.e., one year they process in Portland, the next in LA, the next in New York.
4. has little interest in keeping anyone informed as to the processing of the borrower’s loan
I don’t think that we are alone in this assessment. We know a fair number of agents that have had similar experiences. Perhaps B of A has decided to allow loan processing to be handled at the branch level. This is the only way that we can imagine the service level envisioned for their new “no fee” program. If the service isn’t there, “no fee” will quickly translate into “not worth it”.
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