Earlier this year a recruiter from better contacted me and that's how I heard them. I did some research on Google for customer reviews. I had the impression that better mortgage is fast in loan processing and 100% online. It was attracting for me at that time since I don't want to go places due to COVID-19. I started online application on May 8th. I finish all tasks in several hours. On May 19th I received an email stating that the loan is conditionally approved. The loan processor asked me whether to go with the CEMA option and I said yes. She said it could take five weeks. Five weeks later I still received no update so I sent an email. She replied "I will let you know when I have an update from attorney". Two days later I asked if she had an update from the attorney she said no. Then I asked why can't you just call the attorney to get an update? One day later she said it will be ready in a couple of days. Another week passed without update. I send an email asking for a phone call since I have some questions to ask. No reply. I tried several times still no reply. I called the phone number on my loan page then I just realized that all those phone numbers just direct to customer service. During that week I called customer service for about 10 times. Each time the response was the same: She was in a meeting and will get back to you later. I also ask customer service to tell her manager and manager's manager. Customer service did that. But still no response in any form. Not even from her manager. I gave up finally since even if her managers don't care what can I do? After that all the email I received was "Thank you for your patience." That sounds like from a reply from customer service but no that's from my loan processor and all she said to me. I failed to get any phone call for three months and she was always in a meeting. They are not busy for sure. They work 8 hours a day and my loan processor took two long vacations during that three months. Without caring about the work they have done. I know right now a lot of loan originators are super busy in New York but I really don't understand how do they manage to take so many vacations. Then on Aug 4th I finally received an email from her saying that she will move the case to closing team despite a lot of her unfinished tasks. Two weeks later I am asked to choose a closing date. I chose Aug 25th. At 7pm before that day I received a phone call telling me that they cannot make it since they didn't finish their tasks. Then I rescheduled it to Sept 1st. On 7pm August 31st I received a phone call from them again with the same excuse. He also said that my appraisal is expired. I don't know how could he say that at ease. It expired only because of their incompetence and I don't know why they just tell me that several hours before closing. If you are considering a loan through better mortgage you'd better look elsewhere. It's important to work with a human. At better.com once you start you are completely cutoff. Don't even hope to get timely updates. It's a complete blackbox to you. Also, fast processing is just a shameless lie. I worked with several other banks and closed two of them before, their processing time is about 2-4 times faster than better.com. More importantly there is a real human I can talk to. Some other things I need to mention: A lot of the closing cost including rate of points increased in the initial closing disclosure. Some items even increase several times in amount. I don't why they can still increase them after rate lock down and they refuse to give explanation. They said their rate is lowest and they will match lower rates. I really doubt that. My locked rate at better was 3% + 1.47% points. A month later I asked two other banks I worked before, one of them is 3% with no points and another is 2.99% with no points. Since the quotes are not at the same time I am not exactly sure.