Robyn LaVassaur - Summit Funding

Avoid working with this team if you enjoy receiving consistent, timely, or accurate information.

5 years ago I purchased my home with Robyn and it was an amazing experience. In the years since, I heard the service had gone downhill from several acquaintances and family members (that I had referred to Summit Funding). I decided to return to Summit Funding to refinance my home against the warnings I had received. I should have listened.

From the onset of my interaction to refinance my home, everything was rocky and only went downhill from there. Every time I spoke with Jenness, I received a new set of numbers and a new set of information. She clearly either is in over her head with too much of a work load, or simply can't keep up with the pace required for this industry. (It's worth noting, she is the same person who messed up loan information for a couple people I had also referred to Summit).

In the end, this refinance cost me a significant amount on my interest rate. At the time of my initial application, rates were much lower, and Jenness promised me an interest rate in line with the rates I had seen elsewhere while rate shopping, only to find out weeks and weeks later, this rate was not correct - to my surprise, she was charging me money to "buy down" the interest rate, though this was never conveyed to me - in fact, when she told me about the rate, she merely stated "good news, rates just went down!". After this onslaught of misinformation, rates had increased, so my options to go to a different lender to get the rate I would have originally received had now disappeared. Ultimately, I had to settle with Summit Funding, only because they had dangled me along with incomplete and false information for so long that I didn't have any better options available to me. Not to mention, I had work scheduled to be done on my house that would be extremely inconvenient to reschedule if I had to restart my entire application process elsewhere.

I will NEVER be returning to work with this team, nor will I refer anyone to them again.

We decided to go with Summit Funding after not having a great experience with a different lender and seeing her reviews on Yelp. We met with Robyn on a Saturday morning. She is a very chipper and social person, very good with people. I would like to mention that we got our loan on time, regardless of many bumps in the road, but the experience was pretty rocky. Here's why:
1) Robyn Lavassaur has a team she works with, so different people in the team help out with different parts of the loan process. This seems like a neat idea, but it was very frustrating for us because it in our experience things were not being communicated well between people in the agency. There were a handful of times that I had to be apologized to by the new hire for not being on the right page. Once he asked me for paperwork I had already given him not remembering that he had already received it, and often times he couldn't answer our questions without having to hang up and find out before calling us back. I realize this guy was newer, but it made us feel like guinea pigs x 2 with our first mortgage.
2) They changed the closing costs/there were blips in the closing costs paperwork when we were told a set price we would get, and then last minute we were told something else. Very frustrating. It felt like I knew what was going on with the numbers more than Summit.
3) On Halloween we were given a freak call that we were ineligible for the VA COE by one of Lavassaur's team members. In our situation, having a VA loan or not meant buying a house or not. Period. So we were pretty devastated, and were super confused why they were saying that we didn't qualify for a VA loan when we had done our homework. I think the way that the person went about the conversation, and the words chosen as well as making the call on Halloween just made our stress levels go through the roof. It felt like our dream just exploded into ash. Obviously we got the house, because all my husband had to do to get his COE was call and talk to a VA rep for 15 minutes, there was just confusion. Again, talk about a heart attack!
So, I would say a 2 star for experience/stress level and 3 star for getting the work done and on time. In my experience having a team of 3 different people we were communicating with throughout the process made things a lot more difficult.
The Summit Funding lobby offers cookies and coffee and tea. The building is nice inside.

Team LaVassaur (I can't help but thing RAWR every time I write your name) was WONDERFUL! A lot of businesses now days want to just take your money and be done with you. Robyn and her team were patient (we took 3 years to find a place), kind, and always looked out for the options that would be best for our situation. Communication was clear and constant for every step of the process. I cannot thank you enough for how smooth you made your end of a stressful situation!