When my husband and I went to buy our first house we really didn't know where to start, we found a local mortgage company to go through because they offered VA loans. Our loan was approved and we bought our house. We made the first payment to this local company (I can't even remember the name now) and before the second one came due our loan was bought out, or taken over by Countrywide Home Loan.

We had never heard of Countrywide, but decided not to try and find a new mortgage company but to give this one a try. We have never been disappointed. Two years into our loan, rates dropped and we decided to look into refinancing, it was a very smart move for us. We were able to drop our rate by 1 1/2 percent, and knocked 3 years off our payment plan. We found out about the rate drop from the updates they put in with your bill.

When I called to talk to a representative about refinancing, they were very friendly and courteous. There is not a local Countrywide office in our area where we could go and sign all the final paper work, the closest one was two hours away. I told the representative that there was no way we could go that far, I had just recently had a baby and the way my husband worked there was just no way we could do it. She said not to worry about it, they would set it up through a local lawyer in my area so we could do all the paper work at his office. This was quickly done and we went down and signed our paper work. I believe the whole process took less than 30 days, from start to finish of the refinancing.

Countrywide offers many services: home loans, refinancing, home equity loans and I believe credit cards. I have only used their refinancing service (since our loan was bought/traded I didn't really deal with them for the home loan) and found that I enjoy their company and the way they run things. I recommend Country wide to anyone looking for a home loan.

Recommended: Yes