Here's a fun story (sorry it's long):
Elaina and I are planning to buy a house in mid-to-late March '06. We met with our realtor, Elle Klein, a couple weeks ago, and she turned out to be one of the coolest, competent people we know. She recommended a good mortgage broker, David Beverly, who happens to work in an office about 20 feet away from her office.
I called David on Tuesday morning and left a message for him to call me back. By Tuesday afternoon, I hadn't heard back from him so I emailed Elle to see if he was out of town. Not 5 minutes later, David called me and apologized for taking so long to get back to me. No big deal. We arranged to meet at 8:00 am (yes, that is early for us) on Thursday. At 8:00 am on Thursday, Elaina and I are standing outside in 30 degree weather in front of David's office door, knocking. I finally pull out his business card and call his cell phone. Here is the conversation:
(EH) Hi David, this is Eddie Howard. We were supposed to meet at 8:00 am this morning.
(DB) Hi Eddie. Yeah, okay. Okay. Listen, I'm on my way there, I'll be there in 3 minutes.
(EH) Umm... okay. Bye.
No less than 10 minutes later David drives into the parking lot, chatting on his cell phone. Probably 3-4 minutes after that, he FINALLY gets out of his car and walks towards Elaina and I. He starts walking up the stairs towards us and TRIPS and almost busts his ass. Way too funny.
Long story short: we answer a ton of questions for him, provide W-2 forms, bank statements, and pay stubs. He leaves the office and makes copies of said items. 20 minutes later, he comes back to his office and says, "Good meeting you two, I'll get in touch with soon." He doesn't shake my hand as I leave.
At this point Elaina and I are dying to know how much we will be pre-approved for. All day I wait for a phone call or email from David Beverly to let us know how the prequalification is going. No response. Finally at 4:30pm on Thursday I email him with a simple, "Hey David, when should we expect to hear back from you about our mortgage loan?" A few minutes later he writes back, "I should get you your approval letter tomorrow."
Today is tomorrow. I have waited all day and nothing. I emailed him at around 2:30 pm to see if we should expect to hear back from him today. Does he respond to me? No.
Lesson learned: people are annoying. How long does it take to pre-approve someone for a mortgage? Fifteen minutes. How long does it take a retarded mortgage broker to respond to a client? More than two days. Our dilemma is if we should tell our realtor, Elle, how horrible David is.
What do you think?
