strattonequities.com

Extremely unprofessional firm, find another lender

I have worked in real estate for 10 years with various hard money, dscr, and traditional lenders. Stratton was, by far, the most unprofessional outfit I have ever worked with. Their sticker rates are competitive but every single other thing about them is a train wreck;1. I was told my refi dscr would close in several weeks, it took two months. This caused me an unbelievable amount of heartburn. I was closing on another property and had to take loans from family, credit cards in order to close without the $ from the refi which cost me an extra $2000.2. I was quoted a 6.7% interest rate and never told anything different. Then, Straton underwriting slow-walked their process past my rate lock period which hiked the rate to 7.1% which will cost me an extra $120/month in interest until I refi. I was never told the rate would be anything but 6.7% until the papers arrived 24 hours before closing.3. Speaking of refi, I was never informed that my dscr did not have an industry standard 12 to 24 months of "seasoning" but instead a five year lockup where I would pay 6 months of payments as a penalty for refing out of the loan early. 4. Stratton charges a 3% origination fee instead of the 1-2% industry standard. Again, no notice of this until closing papers.5. The closing papers were drawn up badly and had three charges in the credits column that should have been in the debits column. If I had not of double checked the math, I would have paid an extra $5400 in closing costs because of this sloppy work. There were several redunant sections as well in the 160 pages that could have been eliminated. 6. Stratton insists you must use both their own appraisal company and their own title company. Both are overpriced and terrible. The appraisal company cost me triple what I paid for my last property and took three weeks instead of the 2 to 4 days a rush job, or the week a normal job takes. Adding insult to injury, they scheduled my appraisal during my Easter vacation and refused to move it up, which meant I had to cut my vacation in half, book a last minute exrta flight, and miss my mother's birthday in order to be there for the appraiser. Further, I paid for a multi family appraisal as my property was a duplex and received a single family appraisal with no multi family comps in the comparison set or income derived valuation. The title company charged about 35% more than my usual company and then mistyped my account information when wiring me the funds then charged me the $45 bounce fee because of their typing mistake.7. The underwriting process itself was the slowest, messiest disaster I have ever seen. Stratton wanted far more documents/info then any other lendor I have ever worked with and only requested them 2 or 3 at a time. If they had sent me an organized list at the start, we could have cut the underwriting period in half. Instead, every few days to a week I got an email requesting another 2/3 things until I supplied all ~40 documents they wanted.I closed on another loan with another company last week for a different property. It took 10 days to close, the fees were less, the terms were industry standard, and underwriting was a smooth, quick process. Sure, the sticker rate on it is .3 higher than whay Stratton offered me for my other property, but it was overall a MUCH better option. Don't let Stratton's sticker rate fool you, you will pay for the .3% rate advantage with higher fees, worse terms, and unbelievably poor service.

Date of experience: May 01, 2024