Cambridge Savings Bank for mortgage?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

I've read through the recent posts in the banking tag for this community, and there's a lot of useful info there -- but they all seem to be mostly about checking/savings accounts. I'm wondering about mortgages. I want to refinance and am looking at Cambridge Savings Bank particularly. Does anyone have experience with CSB for mortgages? Or another small local bank (or credit union) that you'd recommend? Thanks!

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

I've had a mortgage with CSB for >15 years, with one reconfiguration during that time, and I've had no issues with them at all.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

We went with CSB for our mortgage b/c they were already our bank but we've had no problems. We refinanced a couple of years ago, still with CSB, and that went smoothly as well.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

We have had a mortgage and several refi's. They have been great. Talk to Robert Madden in the Harvard Sq location.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I had a mortgage with them in the past, and at that time it was competitive with prevailing rates and they sold us a mortgage that they would service in-house. That was a while ago, and then mortgage rates had another big dip such that it really made sense for us to refi. While I wanted to stick to a small local bank if I could, the terms that they offered on a 2-family owner-occupied house were not as favorable as they had been the previous time, and they had also changed things so that mortgages they retained vs mortgages they sold off did not have the same interest rate.

Since we were talking about something like paying 50K more over the life of the loan to take a refi with CSB that stayed there, vs. to take a refi with a bank with more competitive rates, and yet it would have been dumb not to refi, we wound up going to a non-local bank via a mortgage broker. That has had its own annoyances, but not $50K worth of annoyances. I really wish I could have gone with them without sacrificing quite that scale of money.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

If you are looking for the lowest rate and lowest closing costs, any bank is going to release your mortgage anyway, so the only reason to go with a local bank would be to give them your fee at closing. I have found that the current rates for released loans are 1/2 percent or do below retained loans.

Having said all that, the local banks with the lowest rates appear to be Central Bank, East Cambridge Savings, and Cambridge Savings. But the lowest rates will still be with mortgage brokers, many of whom are fine people.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Thanks, yeah that's one of the things I've been fretting about, because while I mostly want to refi into a lower rate, I'd also love to combine it with the whole "move your money" thing. But if I go through CSB and my money still ends up back at Wells Fargo again, then what was the point? So I'm waffling.

Do you have a mortgage broker to recommend?

[kalimba21.livejournal.com]

We got our first mortgage from a broker, which was immediately sold, and then sold quite regularly until it got to citibank, which seemed to be the bottom because it never moved again. Along the way, we had some problems with our tax payments going to somebody else's account, which brought me to tears at the time when I couldn't figure out what was going on and there was nobody to help. Later we refinanced with east camb savings bank, and they told us that they don't resell their mortgages. We held that for about 10 years and they kept it the whole time. We never had any problems with them.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

we looked into local banks/credit unions for mortgages on or (hopefully) soon to be purchased SF. We found that none of them could touch the rates the mortgage broker through the real estate agent could get us. We feel somewhat dirty going with them, knowing they plan to sell the mortgage, but as mentioned above, the difference in the interest rate was too big to be ignored.

i have nothing to offer about refinancing to them.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

I went with Wainwright (now Eastern Bank). They had very reasonable rates and good service... although they sold it to Chase right away. When I wanted to refinance, Wainwright again had better rates and service than Chase-- to the point that when I got a Chase loan officer on the phone and told them what the offer was from Wainwright they said "that's a good rate, you should go with them--so I went through Wainwright again, and they sold the refinanced loan to Chase again. Which was a little weird, but mortgage servicing IS weird.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Yep, I had the same experience with Bank of America. "I am going to refinance but I want to give you a chance to match this rate I am getting somewhere else." "Oh, we can't do that."

No wonder banks are going out of business.

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

They actually came close enough with the rate for a mortgage that _they_ planned to sell, but that didn't seem to make a difference - the mortgage broker is an independent local business too, and a nice guy, and does it really make a difference to me if he sells it to giant-multinaitonal corporation or if CSB does? No.

When we did refi with them, our mortgage was not guaranteed to be retained by CSB, but at the time they said they were keeping the majority of their mortgages and they did. This time around, it really sounded like if we didn't take the hit in a worse rate, they would just sell it off to another bidder. If that's changed, I'd like to know - fickle mortgage-keeper that I am, it might be time to refi _yet again_ since these rates keep dropping and dropping...

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

ha ha, we are king (and queen) of the refinance. I think we refinanced our condo 4 or 5 times over the 12 years we have been here, due to various factors (to drop escrow, to change names on the deed, and then for the ever dropping interest rates). we have a 5/1 arm on the condo, but will go with a 30 year fixed for the house.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

The woman I spoke to last week at CSB was quite clear that the rates she was quoting me were for mortgages that they would be selling off. She offered to tell me the rates for keeping it in-house, but said it would be noticeably higher, so I declined.

I like your point about what does it matter which small local business I choose, if they're going to resell it to a multinational either way. But then why wouldn't I just go directly to Wells Fargo (which is where my mortgage is now) and refi with them? If I'm going to end up sold back to them anyway. The whole game is so crazy.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the input. I currently have Eastern (formerly Wainwright) for my checking, so maybe I should think about them for the mortgage too.

And yeah, the whole reselling thing is crazy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

We've had very positive experiences working with Winter Hill Bank for our original mortgage plus both the refi's we've done. And somehow on the last go-round of refi's we actually ended up with one that they retained servicing on, without it costing us more - I think, though, that was sort of an anomaly of the way rates were at the time.

[progressnerd.livejournal.com]

Kelcey Morange at Mortgage Master (http://www.mortgagemasterinc.com/LoanOfficers-detail.cfm?ID=759) is fantastic. According to one bio, she donates a portion of each loan to "organizations that strive to maintain healthy options, safe spaces, and stability for local children and their families" if that makes you feel better about it :)