Searchlight Lending

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Stay away from these people. Let me help you keep from making the same mistake I did. I had already been approved, fairly quickly- and for a sizeable amount- I might add, by another lender, but at a certain point decided to explore the option of an interest only loan. I saw an ad for Searchlight so called and spoke with Max. I explained to him my situation, why I was interested in this type of loan, what I had already been qualified for - even, I believe my current FICO score ( yes, I know they have to get it again on their own - but it's a good score). Even told him, I would be able, of course, to make a larger down payment with an interest only loan - one of my objectives. He gave me a preliminary idea of what the terms of the loan would be, and even made a point of telling me that since he was a discount mortgage, so I went ahead with the process. The terms sounded very good to me, so I started with their online application. I found the online application pretty weird, and not very user friendly, so I called and asked for help with it. I was passed on to his assistant, Elizabeth, which was okay with me, of course, if she could help. About a week and a half later, I was contacted by someone else, Chris this time, to get the documents in online - which I was pretty sure I had already done. I let Elizabeth know this, and she said she would review. I also put her in touch with my private banker, who is very conscientious, helpful and always on top of things, in case they needed anything else, since we seemed to be having a difficult time. Of course, I got an e-mail the next day saying all documents were in and had been accepted. (???!) Oh,and in the meantime, I heard from another person at the company, who's name I didn't know at all, who spoke to me in a pretty condescending way about why we needed all the documents...really??? The next day I was contacted saying they needed to pull my credit - again, a request that needed to be made through an online process on my part. Of course, again the online process did not work properly, and I had to contact Elizabeth again to find another way to give them access to my credit report. BTW, I had to pay for my credit pull up front. I understand that we pay for a credit pull, but I have applied at @ 5-6 mortgage companies in the past 15 years, and have never had one charge me for my credit pull up front. I sent occasional e-mails after that, checking on the status of the loan application, and finally 7 weeks after beginning this process, the assistant got back tome, telling me that the interest rate they would be offering was twice the current prevailing rate -not at all what Max said at the beginning of the process. Take my advice- there are people out there offering interest only loans (research, possibly at Nerd Wallet), but stay away from this company!