unison.com

Get into a house, but at what cost?

I was generally satisfied with the rep we interacted with until final review of the documents. However, after we got approval for a specific amount on a specific property, then went ***under contract***, our Unison rep sent the documents up for approval to prep for closing. Without any prior notice of this possibility, Unison's back office decided that the appraised value of the property was $10K less than they had approved a month or so earlier, and I think they also increased their % at sale slightly upward. We were literally days away from closing, past all contingencies on the contract, and have our 3% deposit on the line. We can either go ahead with Unison getting a free $10K right out of the gate, or walking away and losing 3% on an already overpriced CA property. They had us by the you-know-whats.It was one of their earlier transactions in SoCal. They admitted they hadn't ironed out the kinks in their process. Our real estate agent even tried to leverage his brokerage's business to iron out the problem--saying their CEO was watching the deal closely to consider recommending Unison b/c of the potential to increase sales for the brokerage (he was)--but Unison would not honor their initial estimate and %. Unison decided they'd rather jack us than win brokerage-wide referrals. The fact they admitted that they screwed up but made us eat the cost of their mistake tells you where their values are.Also, NMLS lenders (anyone except banks writing their own loans) can not work with Unison, so you can't access the great rates everyone is offering. You'll have to go with bank offering a portfolio loan and the significantly higher rates and closing costs that come with that route. In our case, we had to go with a 4.5% rate (instead of the more common 3.25% from NMLS lenders) and our closing costs to the bank were about double the normal fees.In addition, Unison charges a fee up front (2.5% of the amount they bring to closing), so on top of the killing they will make on the equity, they are also giving you a pretty good haircut at closing.Pros: The customer-facing service rep was friendly (but the back office was not), and Unison's product will gett you into a home you might not have gotten into otherwise.Cons: It's going to cost you more than you think b/c: (1) Unison can (and in my case, did) change their offer right before closing, when it was too late to pull without losing our deposit, (2) You end up with sky-high rates and lender fees at closing, b/c most lenders can't work with equity shares, and (3) Unison charges a fee of 2.5% of their investment (in addition to the ~70% increase in your home's value, which they take).

Date of experience: Aug 07, 2021