State Home Mortgage — Attraction in Brookhaven

Had I known what I know now before getting into Georgia’s first-time home buyer assistance program, I would have stayed as far away from it as possible. First, the $5000 assistance is a separate loan, issued by a bank. The bank charged me more than $2000 as an origination fee for the $5000 loan. I ended up receiving less than $3000 in actual assistance but of course I owed $5000. Then comes the mortgage insurance premium, which you will have to pay for the life of the loan, which will add tens of thousands of dollars to your loan over its lifetime. Unlike the PMI (private mortgage insurance) you cannot get rid of the MIP, unless you refinance your loan and get a conventional loan. I was lucky to get into a situation where I was able to do just that, but let’s go back to my experience with State Home mortgage. I never paid late, making monthly payments through their online portal was a breeze and their website has a lot of helpful educational and calculation tools. The problems come when you need to get help. In my case, I wanted to change my insurance provider because my initial insurance provider had increased the premium so much it had become unacceptable. For several months, I called them, the new insurance company called and sent invoices to SHM for payment of the new premium. State home mortgage ignored every single one of the calls, messages and letters and refused to pay the premium. I ended up paying the premium directly to the insurance company because they were about to drop my policy. I was lucky to be in a situation where I had built enough equity to be able to refinance the loan with a local credit Union at a lower rate and no hoops to jump. Of course, I had to pay off that second $5000 loan entirely after having had it for almost 6 years. The only benefit I got from the program was the first-time home buyer education program that they required, which I could have taken without being on the hook for thousands of dollars. If you have a mortgage with this organization, my advice is to run away as soon as possible. Refinance with a credit union or with anyone who is not SHM. When I left them, I was several years away from seeing a bigger portion of my payments go towards the principal of the loan. Refinancing immediately removed 4 years of payments from my loan and put a bigger share of my payments toward the principal. My monthly payments immediately became lower, allowing me to pay additional curtailment and speed up the repayment timeline. Now if I send an email to my mortgage company, they respond within hours. If I want to speak with someone, I dial their number and get someone on the phone within seconds. I will never ever advise a family member, a friend or anyone who would listen to use this organization. The $2500 or so that you receive is not worth the hassle of the sign-up process and the tens of thousands of dollars that you will lose over the life of the loan. Run, if you can. RUN away from them! Your financial future will thank you. Note: this is a State agency, so, a good place to complain is your state representative’s office. They don’t care about our reviews, but they will answer to our representatives in the Georgia...

From 2017-OMG I'm a NEW homeowner, I closed back in May and its now mid-Aug and my home loan hasn't appeared on my credit yet. I was just trying to call in and get an update as to how long it would take to show up. No answer and then got hung-up on by the automated system. Something said, "Cory, go check out this mortgage companies reviews", I find all these BAD reviews all saying the EXACT SAME THING.....now I'm nervous! From 4-24-2019 I've now been with them for 2 years. There has been a couple times I paid late BUT not before the month ended so they NEVER posted on my credit report the the payment was late. After the 1st year, someone called me to inform me that the company that I had my Home Owners Insurance with was going to renew for about $300.00+. He told be that NOW would be a good time to shop around for a NEW Home Owners Insurance company. I thanked him for the heads up, took his advice and found a NEW home owners insurance company for about $200.00 less! Those couple of times in the past when I was late with payment THEY are REAL QUICK to call you, BUT try calling back...you get to play phone tag. It seems they assign agents to certain accounts so anytime that I have problems, I EMAIL the lady that's been emailing me when she has been trying to contact me by phone and wasn't able to reach me. Now she's on point! I get quick responses from her. My email were always short. Cause if she was emailing me....it was because I ain't paid by my due date! So, I would always tell her in email what day I would pay by...sometimes I would be 2 days late, 1 week late there was even a time last year I paid on the LAST day of the month.....but as long as I paid by the date I told her in the email (+late fee) I've been fine and no one calls me. I'd say about 85% of my payments have been on time or early. With just a few bumps in the road due to LIFE happening. So far now for the past few months, I've been paying on time or early. ALSO been making an additional payment towards principle. I figured that when I made late payments and had to pay the late payment fee.....why not pay on time and use that same money for the late fee towards principle? No one person/company is perfect! The majority of us that are complaining are doing it out of an issue on our end and then being upset that we don't get things the way we want it in return. I figure, that if I strive to MAKE SURE I pay on time, I won't have a need to call them (therefore not having to deal with the answering the phone issue that they obviously have) and not acting like a upset baby because they didn't pick up. I decided to get my life together and so far it seems to be working out for...

My mother passed away last year and unfortunately this garbage pile was her mortgage broker. When we had trouble getting the paperwork in a timely manner (thanks GA medical professionals!!!) I called several times. Every time I had to leave a message. I got exactly 1 call back from them. I was told I had to speak to the default manager. So I did. I informaed him what was happening and that once we had the paperwork we would make the mortgage current. He accepted this.... and the next day sent it off to a lawyer for forclosure.

I have been calling since January (3 months) again, leaving messages every time saying I need an invoice that shows what needs to be paid. Again, I received exactly 1 call back from dozens of voicemails left. The woman who called back waited 16 days before returning my call and left a 10 second message that said to call her.

If your mortgage is late... you cannot make an online payment. You cannot make a phone payment. You are required to talk to someone - but no one ever answers their dang phone!! I called this morning and ran through every last option in their automated system. I started at 8:02 am (2 minutes after they open) and spent 20 minutes trying every possible option. I only ever got voicemail.

I swear I have never worked so hard to give a company money. They don't answer the phones. They don't return calls. They have no email that you can reach. The web site and phone are worthless and only serve to drive you to their customer service numbers that again, nobody answers.

How this is in any way profitable is absolutely beyond me. Do NOT ever take a loan with these people if you can help it at all. And if you do, for the love of God don't ever miss a payment by even a day or you will spend months trying to get things sorted out - all the while your mortgage accumulates and every few days they tack on some more fees. Fees you are required to pay because their inability to do their basic jobs. You may even lose your house.

The only good thing is when they jam your house into foreclosure at least the Lawyers they send it off to will answer their phones, give you an actual email you can reach someone at, and make an effort to call you back or at least respond in a timely manner. So... you've got that...