Physician loan experience with out of town lenders?

[KansasHawk]

We were able to get a house on a private lake in town and are very excited about it. I'm looking at mortgage options and wanted to see if anyone has had good/bad experience with lenders that are outside of your living area? Obviously it will vary depending on the loan officer, etc but was curious about others experiences. Our realtor recommends we stay with the local options and after comparing the local options with some of the physician loans available in KS, the rates and terms seem better with the outside options.

I don't want things to fall through and lose the house but also want to get the best option available to us. Any help is appreciated!

[RogueDadMD]

Our first home purchase (during my fellowship) was using a physician loan with a banker that was in another state.  We had phone calls and emails -- I never met her.  It turned out fine.

Obviously that depends on the quality/trustworthiness of the banker, but it's not an automatic that you have to go local.  Even the ones that are local you may never actually meet in person.  We just purchased our second home using a BOA banker, and while his office was close to my work, 100% of the communication was again by phone and email.  I never met him in person either.

[EJ at Dads Dollars and Debts]

If you are a Suntrust bank customer, you can use them for out of state physicians loans. I have done this twice before and been relatively happy with the service. I do think they provide the best rates out there.

[mobilehomegurl]

I've never had this issue. As long as you check out the lender, it should be fine. Congrats on the house, sounds nice! Good luck.

[adventure]

We went with the best rate, both times. Once was out of state, the other was technically instate, but that seemed to be dumb luck - company operated in many states, and we never met in person.

Go with the best rate & terms.

[familydocPA]

I went with an out-of-state lender and needed to use a physician loan (this was a few years ago when there were fewer options available).  The rate was great, but closing was very stressful. They did not complete the paperwork in time and our closing was delayed. Of course everything was moved out of our old house.  It was purely bad service; I had provided all of the documentation almost immediately, but it was not forwarded to the underwriter until less than 24 hours prior to the intended closing time.

Everything turned out fine, and now I get to enjoy a low interest rate 15 year fixed loan with no money down. I did pay for it at the front end with the hassle.

[pickkles]

We used Curbside Real Estate to help us match to the best loan product with minimal down payment.  We had just moved to the Bay Area where homes start at $1MM++ and the only way to buy was with a doctor loan.  We were nervous at first not working face to face with a loan officer, but the process was very smooth.

[visoriano]

We chose SunTrust physician's mortgage after looking at the options from local and bigger banks. We are moving from CT to FL. My realtor did suggest a different bank that does physician's mortgages before we picked 1 and at the end we went with the best offer and so far neither, the builder or SunTrust has given us any issue. Ive never met the loan officer in person and the only time I had to walk in to a branch was to open an account as part of the loan requirements; so far would recommend them.

[KansasHawk]

Thanks for all the responses. I'm still working through things with local options and had communicated through email with multiple out of town physician loan companies.

Midland states bank is one that had some attractive options that they sent through email but I can't get them to call me back so don't feel comfortable moving forward.

Thanks again for all the help!

[Spatty99]

A mortgage is a commodity (assuming the bank can close and close per the terms and time), so I would highly suggest simply going with the best rate, without regard to location.

[Degos]

I'm having the same issue with Midland states bank.  They sent me an initial email with their loan options which seemed great.  I've sent a few emails to them since and haven't heard back anything for a few weeks.  US bank and Bank of America have also been very slow to get back to me.  My realtor got me in touch with a local bank and they approved me for a loan over the phone in 5 minutes with a competitive rate.