In a nutshell, 2 days before closing Rocket Mortgage denied our loan, due to "change of intent," despite almost daily reassurances there were no red flags regarding the transaction. My wife and I were looking to buy a second home which would become our primary residence to be closer to family, particularly our first grandchild. My wife's job had shifted to working remotely, and based on company emails believed she would be able to work out of state. Due to an overwhelming number of requests from other employees to also work out of state, we're in California, the company modified the rules and only allowed relocations within state or states where they had an office. Unfortunately, the home we had been pre-approved for by Rocket and a sales contract signed, did not have an office in that state. We immediately notified Rocket of the change and through some negotiation was able to keep the same interest rate by buying pts, as the rate would have been higher as this was now a second/investment home and not going to be our primary residence for at least another year. Home inspection was done, along with the appraisal. At this point, I'd like to mention that we were putting 25% down, had excellent FICO, and good debt to income ratio and over half a million dollars in retirement accounts. We even paid off some debt to improve our DTI.
During the ensuing three weeks we were repeatedly told that everything was on track and there were no issues or red flags with our loan. The first hiccup came when they told us the appraisal had been completed but the report not yet received, and probably wouldn't be until a week after our closing date. We had a ten-day extension written into the sales contract, so we were concerned by not alarmed.
Two days prior to the scheduled closing date, Rocket called and told us the loan had been denied due to "change of intent." Saying that when the loan originated the house was to be our primary residence, but since it was no longer the case the loan could not be processed. They had no explanation as to why we weren't informed of this 3 weeks prior, when we had told them, so that we could have sought other financing. Their only excuse was that they're very busy and it probably took 3 weeks for that information to get to underwriting. Mind you, none of the financials had changed, we were still putting down the same 25%, the interest on the loan was the same, as was the length of the loan. Despite repeated attempts to rectify this, including submitting a new loan request, which was denied because of their policy of not allowing a new loan application on the same property, we were left high and dry. At this point, we are hoping the sellers have some compassion and extend the sales contract for another 30 days, or we wind up losing the money we spent on the home inspection plus the $4000 in earnest money. Rocket's response to this was, "be thankful you also didn't lose $500 for the loan deposit, because we never collected that from you."
On the plus side, our original agent with Rocket was great. Things went south after the change in work location and being strung along for 3 weeks, being repeatedly told that there were zero issues with the loan and not to expect any problems, only to be blindsided 2 days before closing.
My view of Rocket, they're a mortgage mill, just following a matrix that does not allow for any deviation or personal consideration, too much business, with too few employees to handle the workload, and an underwriting department that is incapable and unwilling to actually work with people, dealing with real-life situations that can and do occur. You're just a loan number to them, nothing more. I'd avoid at all cost, and go with a local lender or broker instead.
Length of Use: Less than 3 months
Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this to a friend
