Overall, working with Nichol and Team was a great experience. I was happy with majority of the process.

From the very beginning to the very end, the entire experience was handled haphazardly. Lack of communication was the most part. When I did need communication, it was very hard to get through and get my answer quickly. Missed out on a better rate just because somebody did not feel like, helping me out and saying the rate did not change. I highly suggest if you can use another lender. I was forced to use this lender for the most part because of the incentives through the builder.

Nicol was super helpful through the entire process and was always willing to go above and beyond to make the entire process simple and easy!

This is not our first home that we’ve bought and is also not our first new build. We’ve never experienced anything like this and if I could give zero stars, I would. We would absolutely never recommend our loan officer or RMC to anyone else and hope that our lengthy and thorough review helps others to avoid our negative experience. Regarding the canned response with an email address I should reach out to - My husband addressed all our concerns to that very email more than a month prior to closing with no explanation or answers. We also escalated concerns as high in Maronda/RMC as possible and the only resolution reached was something to the effect of “If you want to finance through someone else we understand.” Our experience: We determined the house and lot we wanted, specified all the finishings; asked for $35,000 off the sale price, we settled on $25,000 of incentives. Could use the $25,000 towards sale price OR cash toward closing/buying down interest rate. WOW! GREAT! Before signing a purchase agreement, we had to tell them how we’d like to use our incentive. In our mind (and likely the minds of many others) cash toward closing was very appealing. We decided to apply $13,000 toward closing and $12,000 off the sale price of the home. Was this a mistake? We don’t know. They force you to lock in the decision which can’t be changed (presumably so they can structure the deal to give up as little of the incentive as possible). Who knows how the loan would’ve been structured if we’d chosen to apply all the incentive to sale price. All of our loan estimates during the pre-approval and checking in periodically throughout the build were within 0.1% of the national average at any given time. We had no reason to be concerned that they wouldn’t at least come close to the national average when it came time to close. They clearly had other intentions. When the time came to lock our rate, suddenly our rate quote was approximately 1% higher than average rates. Our financial situation hadn’t changed (outside of getting a raise), or any other factors that would change my mortgage qualifications. My husband shopped around with multiple other lenders and learned a LOT about mortgages. NOW IM GETTING TO THE POINT: Multiple competing lenders could all also give us a $13,000 incentive toward closing costs to match the closing cost we were getting with RMC. The kicker is, instead of the rate the competing lender was offering ~1% lower than RMC, we had to take an extra percent or so. We learned that just like you can buy your rate down (give them cash up front in exchange for a better rate), you can also do the opposite (they give you cash in exchange for a worse rate). RMC structured our loan with an appealing rate buy down offer. If we would essentially forgo our $13,000 closing cash incentive and put it all toward rate buy down, they could offer us the same rate every other lender on the planet was offering us for free. While on paper we were receiving my $13,000 closing incentive, in reality we were really funding the incentive ourselves via “rate buy-up”. (Google it, it’s real). All our concerns were made clear to everyone we could find to express them to and all we were told was “that’s the rate, take it or leave it.” They also tell you you can get a “rate float” after locking. This was a lie. When inquiring we were told rates would have to move 3/8 of a percent to be eligible. We never thought rates would move that much, but they did (about 1/2%), and we were not offered the float. HERE’S WHAT WE DID AND WHAT YOU SHOULD DO TOO IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A SIMILAR SITUATION: We gave them every opportunity to make it right, they refused. So why didn’t we just use another lender? If we use another lender we give up all the incentives. So in our case we would’ve had to pay $12,000 more for the home, and the $13,000 closing incentive (which we don’t get either way) also disappears. No competing lenders could give a good enough rate to make it worth walking away from the $12,000 sale price discount. So we took RMC’s mortgage at 8.49%. We closed in mid December 2023, average rates were right around 7%. Our first payment was due Feb 1, with a grace period until Feb 15. We just closed on my refinance with the disbursement being made Feb 14, with a 6.625% rate. That first payment will be due in April. The icing on the cake is, in my mortgage endeavors we learned if you refinance sooner than 6 months, the lender is penalized. THAT IS WHY THEY WILL DANGLE THE CARROT OF A FREE REFINANCE IN 6 MONTHS. Don’t fall for it. We hope this helps you in your lending and decision making process.

Closing cost incentives are not real. Shop around, talk to a mortgage broker and you will see how RMC mortgage will swindle money from you.