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Comment by silisili | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently in late stages with Better, and holy crap is this company on fire (not in a good way).

I've been using them for 3 months exactly, and on my 5th advisor. An advisor is your sole point of contact for the loan... questions, concerns, documents, everything. They don't tell you when the advisor changes, you just notice by chance the little initial emoji of your advisor changed. Realize this means the previous one left, or got fired.

They have no real ticketing. Each worker has a unique and seemingly private email and text...so you start fresh with each one. To the point you don't even want to ask questions, because they'll just fire the person you asked and you'll start fresh again...a week before closing...

The site and flow are slick, that's what drew me in. But the company as a whole is odd and I'd highly recommend not using them.

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I signed up for a pre-approval letter through them. I was presented with someone else's pre approval letter, names, address, pre-approval amount and all.

They didn't seem to realize the gravity of the situation when I called to inform them of the leak.

My advice is to bail now while you still can.

I had no issues using them last year. As a matter of fact there was a whole subindustry of churning your mortgage as interest rates kept falling. Better.com allowed for that because of how seamless everything is and they would price match any rate you got.

Of course if you have some edge case and tons of questions or issues YMMV and you'd have similiar back and forth. Their call center which seemed to be staffed in the US was always helpful in answering questions or escalating if there are delays in the advisor side.

I had issues with Better last year. Advisors were hard to reach, away on vacation without notice, completely unreachable before 9AM and after 5PM, and unable to adjust to the highly competitive market that was going on last year (needed 15 day close as opposed to 30). I had to switch to a local banker, who was able to provide the speed and flexibility required as they were used to the local market. The local banker also offered the same rate as Better, meaning there was no advantage to Better whatsoever.

Well, did you ever try calling? Because their call center is open late, weekends and resolved any issue I had with my advisor (i.e. an appraisal being late, clarification on cash out refinance as it was my first time doing it)

American Express ran (and still running) a $1000 credit if you used Better.com. Better.com also did not have a clawbaxk clause if you refinanced within 6 months (typical of most loan originators).

They also offered me a waiver on the appraisal while my local bank wanted like $500.

Like I said, there's a reason the churn community leveraged Better.com

Yes, I called anyone and everyone I could at Better, our bid was contingent on those issues being resolved. I could not get anyone with decision making power outside of 9-5 business hours (and it wasn't easy even during business hours, often it would take several hours to get a callback), and also could not get a 15 day close. I had to urgently switch to a local banker to get that kind of service. The local banker started working at 7AM, and would call and email me late into the evening. Perhaps if you have a very run-of-the-mill mortgage situation, Better could work, but I feel like for any mortgages where the conditions are not typical, Better might not be able to respond like a local banker who is familiar with the requirements of the local market.

I tried doing a refi with better last year and ended up going with someone else because they weren't as competitive on price, and interacting with them didn't feel like the well-oiled machine they were when I originally got my mortgage with them.

Yea I will never not use a mortgage broker again. The middleman and wholesale pricing is worth it!

My condolences, I was also really attracted by their rates and slick design, but apparently dodged a bullet

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