This is my 5th mortgage and probably the 8th or 9th mortgage company I've dealt with. The difference in numbers is due to the fact that most mortgage companies seem to be in the business of making a loan and then selling it off to the highest bidder. This results in you dealing with a company you've never heard of from who knows where and who knows what kind of customer service. My experience has been 50/50 on customer service from these various companies.

This time I shopped around for good interest rates and more importantly, a good company that will not offload me the first chance they get. Country Wide didn't have the best rates (about .25 higher) but they do keep their mortgages in house and they had a good rep for customer service. There were no hidden costs either. This is a problem with some of the cut rate companies.

They offer a full line of mortgage products including VA and FHA. They even handle FHA 203K's. This is the one I was interested in. I live in South Jersey in an area where the price of a house is directly proportional to the quality of the local school's. This probably holds true in most places but seems to be a bigger issue here. The only way I could afford to live in one of the better areas was to find a fixer upper and fix it up.

I found a very small rancher in a very nice neighborhood in one of the best school districts around. The problem was the house was very small and was a definite fixer upper that would require a good chunk of change to fix up and expand. The FHA 203K program allows you to purchase a fixer upper and tack onto the loan a construction loan to do the necessary repairs and additions. The construction loan is actually built into your mortgage and the money is put in an interest bearing escrow account you make draws on during the construction phase. There are too many details to get into here so if your interested more info is available at their web site or see a broker or Country Wide.

Working with Country Wide to obtain the loan was very easy and painless. The local branch was very helpful and informative. They seemed a little unorganized at times but I really had no complaints. During the construction phase they have been very prompt in sending checks and customer service has been top notch.



Recommended: Yes