Westwood Mortgage Inc.

We used George Spano from Westwood Mortgage to finance the purchase of our new house. Because of the length of time it took to sell our house, we were in discussions with George asking questions and gathering information for at least six months prior to using his services. Throughout this process, George was extremely professional and polite. Once we sold our house and purchased another, George and Westwood mortgage really shined. The process of purchasing was cumbersome and filled with many roadblocks along the way, none of which were the fault of Westwood or George. On the contrary, George patiently and professionally helped us surmount each roadblock and get through the loan process. George even drove to the airport on his own time to pick up signed loan papers and get them to Escrow so we could close and move into our new home ahead to a three day weekend. Without his help, we would have been homeless for an extra four days. We're in our new house and we love it. Thank you George and Westwood Mortgage to helping us get there. We highly recommend your services.

I just completed my third transaction with Shelle Harmon at Westwood Mortgage. That's right, I liked her enough after the first two transactions to come back to her for a third time. Shelle is always so happy and positive, you can't help but have a good experience with her. I personally find the home lending process tedious and exhausting, but Shelle is so helpful and supportive the whole thing seemed to be over in a flash. I e-mailed Shelle on a whim the night before Thanksgiving out of sheer frustration. We had an FHA loan and the loan terms included PMI. I went through all the usual hoops, forms and phone calls to have the PMI removed (I had it easily removed on my last 2 loans) after we invested in some renovations to increase our home value, but FHA refused (new rules, blah, blah, blah)! I sat down with a calculator and figured out how much their PMI was going to cost us and called Shelle begging her to help us refinance. She promptly responded (on a Saturday) and said she was confident we would figure something out. She helped us determine that we could reduce our loan to a 20 year fixed rate for the same payment amount with no PMI, saving us tens of thousands over the life of the loan. Because our current home to loan value was so positive Westwood was able to waive the usual appraisal process to save us even more money. Shelle had our loan approved and we were ready to close before Christmas... Merry Christmas indeed!!

It was a great experience with Pat Dunn. He explained everything for us thourghly and answered any questions we had. Great customer service! I will use Pat in the future for any mortgage needs I need and would recommend him to my friends and family. I know a couple of friends that used him and they had the same experience that is how I was referred to Pat.

Fantastic personalized service. We have used Westwood Mortgage multiple times and know that they do their best to find us the best possible rate and lowest fees.

My husband and I were looking to buy a house in the Olympia/Lacey area but have a very complex financial situation. Because of that, we wanted to get "preapproved", not just "prequalifed", before looking for a home. Before contacting Westwood Mortgage, I contacted 2 other mortgage companies on Angie's List that got great reviews. I gave them our complicated history and the massive amount of paperwork needed for us and in both cases after sending the package to the underwriter for a preliminary approval, both were rejected. Undaunted, I then contacted Kevin at Westwood Mortgage. In a short amount of time, he was able to get us preliminary underwriter approval. Armed with that, we began looking. Before getting our eventual home, we made several offers on other homes, each of them needing quick preapproval letters from Kevin. His response was immediate in every case. When we finally got an accepted offer, Kevin was ready to go and would have been ready to close in 2 weeks if it weren't for snags with the house during our escrow process. Prior to submission of the loan package to the underwriter, Kevin reviewed with us several different loan options that other mortgage companies hadn't even suggested to us. With each of the roadblocks, Kevin was reassuring, advising us what we needed to do to resolve the issues. He always kept in touch and was quick to respond. We have now closed escrow and are looking forward to enjoying our new home with Kevin's help. I would highly recommend Kevin and Westwood Mortgage. Thank you!

From day one, Jonathan was great. He facilitated everything in a timely manner and stayed in contact with us throughout the whole process. We never had to go to his office, everything was done electronically via email. When certain glitches would come up, Jonathan was right there even coming to our house on his own time to pick up documents and give us updates. When it came time to sign the final papers, the notary came to our home after we got off work and we signed the papers. All in all, everything went great and Jonathan and everyone at Westwood Mortgage was wonderful to work with. Tom Schwab, the President of Westwood Mortgage even called us to followup and thank us for our business. Such a nice surprise! I highly recommend Westwood Mortgage Incorporated in Seattle for your mortgage needs.

We bought our house in Gig Harbor at the top of the market in 2006 and have been discouraged from trying to refinance several times over the last few years, as our house was considered underwater. So we've been stuck with a 6% interest rate even though rates have dropped considerably over the last few years. My husband and I have a very complex financial portfolio with many rentals, residential and commercial properties, leases and mortgages. We have been in business for ourselves for 40 plus years so that complicates our financial picture also. My husband was a Marine Reservist many years ago and we've never considered trying to use any benefits to help us until now. We decided to try. So last March I got a rush of high pressure sales calls from guys all over the country, wanting to help me refinance because my husband entered my name and phone (without me knowing) into an online ad about refinancing help. Many seemed sketchy and were beyond pushy!! Most made me feel very uncomfortable. And then when we got into detailing our complicated financial picture and questions about how to try to apply for a VA loan I got no hand holding, no helpful information, no direction because I was just talking to sales people. They didn't know what I needed. That's when I decided to try to use my membership in Angie's List and found Westwood Mortgage. I read their reviews and liked what I read. Granted, it was a 6 month long process because of all the documents I needed to obtain from the government records dept and supply to the VA Loan dept (of course ,I didn't know what I needed or how to get what I "didn't know I needed"!!) but Tom Schwab was there all the way with me. He did what he could on his end to expedite everything he could and give me information on how to get what I needed. We finally accomplished our goal when we signed our refinance papers at the end of August!! (To his defense as to why it took 6 months, he says he has helped many people get VA loans over the years but not for somebody who's personnel records where prior to the computer age and had to be dug out of files in the dusty dank recesses of some building back in D.C. i.e. "they weren't accessible online" ) Through my many conversations and emails with Tom, I can say I feel he is a very honest, caring, calming person and even though this took a long time and was very stressful on us, he never blew me off like other big banks or big box mortgage companies had. No one was as thorough, took the time to make us feel like he had a personal connection with us, even though we never met him face to face, (I'm in Gig Harbor and he's in North Seattle) took the time to answer all of our questions no matter how many I came up with or how many times I asked the same ones ( I'm not a finance or math person but want to understand every detail of the documents I'm signing). No one kept encouraging me like he did, kept in contact and responded to calls and emails as quickly like he did. I would not hesitate to use Tom Schwab and Westwood Mortgage Inc., Seattle, WA again for other refinances or mortgages and highly recommend him as a reliable, trustworthy, friendly, competent and professional person. I hope this review is helpful to you.

Westwood Mortgage--Tom Schwab in particular--was extremely helpful in the purchase of a home. From the first contact with Tom, through closing, he could not have been more helpful, considerate, knowledgeable, responsive and patient. He assisted us in determining what realistic price range we should be looking in, what kinds of mortgages were available and the pros and cons of each, and worked miracles with the lender when questions came up. This is the first house we've purchased since the housing bubble, and I expected nothing but red tape. There was plenty of that with the new regulations and scrutiny buyers are put through, but Tom knew exactly how to respond at every turn. He never pushed us to do more than we were comfortable spending, but instead, worked with what we wanted and gave sage advice. I cannot recommend Tom highly enough. Our realtor complimented Tom many times, and his reputation is stellar. If you are thinking of buying a home, contact Tom. He more than earned the fee.

He had patience, I understood the costs He emailed me back in a timely manner. | We did two refi's and one a new condo purchase, We got a high level of care and service |We did talk to other brokers and banks when we looked to finance the condo's but we went back to Kevin Haynes as he was better at succinctly laying out the costs and what the rates would be. |

We decided we needed to do a final re-fi to capture the lowest rates before they begin rising again. We have re-financed with Westwood before and both times worked with Steve Daley. He is a whiz at understanding all of the nuances of the mortgage business and was very good at explaining it to us. After he heard what we were looking for (I.e. lower interest rate, but minimal out-of pocket expenses), he wrangled the formulas and found one that worked for us . Steve smoothed the way as annoying things cropped up, (yet another piece of documentation, those underwriters!) He facilitated the process and got us closed on the loan in record time (and this was around the holidays)! Steve also saved us about $1,000/year on home insurance with a tip/ referral, right when it mattered. Steve and Westwood Mortgage are trustworthy and professional; we highly recommend them and will return to the them in the future.

Worked with Tom Schwab to get a primary home mortgage - he was responsive to calls and emails, gave competitive loan origination fees (listed in service cost) and was able to answer all my questions about the various fees and choices throughout the process.

My husband and I have had the pleasure of working with Westwood Mortgage for over a decade and we wouldn?t work with anyone else. We have done many, many transactions with Westwood over the past ten plus years; including new purchases and refinances. Tom Schwab and his team continue to absolutely delight us with their professionalism, and expertise! My husband and I are small business owners, home owners, and investors and our finances can be complicated, but Tom & team always find a way to make it happen. In any lending environment, Tom keeps up on the latest laws and news and stays at the top of the industry. When lending was ?loose? and crazy loan programs abound, we relied on Tom for his high integrity and business acumen to keep us in reliable programs for the long run. When lending tightened up and it became hard for even very qualified applicants to get loans, we again relied on Tom. Tom is the consummate professional and he is amazing at what he does. He is one of the good guys and someone that you want on your team! We will entrust our lending needs to him & Westwood Mortgage for as long as they are in business; and we will continue to recommend them to our friends and family, as we have done all along.

Westwood Mortgage was terrific to work with. We especially liked Patrick Dunn - he was fast, efficient, friendly, and personable throughout, and no matter how many questions we had, he was fun and easy to talk with. Scheduling the appraiser was easy, and Patrick was very good about explaining all the ins and outs of the refinance. We had a HouseKey mortgage (WA State) and Patrick went the extra mile to see if refinancing would free us of the restrictions of the first mortgage. This was quite a bit of extra work for him, but he was always cheerful about it and ready to do more. Shalina, who helped us sign the papers, was also great to work with. Can't recommend them enough - very easy from start to finish!

Brett Bly from Westwood Mortgage has worked with us for years on a number of refinances and new purchases. We have always been extremely impressed by his professionalism, knowledge of the mortgage market, and his patient demeanor. He explains things very thoroughly and will answer any/all questions. He is also proactive in reaching out and has contacted us when rates were favorable. We just finished refinancing our primary residence in November 2012 so that is how recently we've worked with him, but he's been our mortgage broker for over 8 years. We have recommended him to friends and co-workers as well. I can't stress enough how knowledgeable he is about how other aspects like current events, bond rates, the stock market, etc. all influence mortgage rates and what that means for the process of getting a loan. He is enthusiastic and smart.

Westwood Loan Officer Brett Bly in the Seattle office knew all of the paperwork required and provided me with signature-ready documentation. Moreover Brett carefully went over each document with me until the loans were complete. Brett always answers his phone and is ready to answer any questions. Callbacks are usually within minutes, documentation takes about a day for turnaround, and if I remember correctly I think Brett can have the loan ready in about a week. He was outstanding. He isvery professional, has great contacts, knows the loan business inside and out. He nderstands how to find the lowest interest rates and best terms to satisfy your needs, and he is persistent in making the loan beneficial to all concerned. Brett is like a bulldog until the loan is finalized and providing follow-up to take advantage of any significant interest rate drops. Brett was able to coordinate the closing of the house we sold in Fairfax VA and the house we bought in Kirkland WA for a same day closing. We simply went to the escrow office in Fairfax and signed the paperwork for one house after the other.

It was great. Steve was always responsive, friendly and informative, and helped me find a good rate. The company also appreciates return customers which I like about them as well.

I've been dealing with Westwood over the course of 6 years. The staff was attentive and personable, addressed all of my concerns, and helped me find a good rate. I would definitely recommend them to others.

We've used them for all of our refinancing, and they always do a great job. They have excellent follow through, and our agent, Joe, was readily available to address any questions or concerns. In fact, they do such a good job for us that we refer all of our clients to them.

Everything turned out great. They were very personable, didn't use high pressure tactics, and were instrumental in getting us a good rate. They did such a great job that we referred my father-in-law to them.

It was a great experience. They actually called me to let me know that I could still get a better rate despite the market conditions at that time. Furthermore, the staff was very personable, very knowledgeable, and very effective. They were able to drop my rate by 1.75%.

Getting the second mortgage was a difficult process, but the Westwood agent bent over backwards to make it happen. He and his assistant were very helpful and always available when I had questions. They secured a great rate for me, too.

Everything went well, and we had no problems with their services.

Everything turned out well. Brett, the agent with whom I dealt, was very professional and responsive. Furthermore, he found the best rates possible, had reasonble fees, and had no hidden fees at signing. He even sends my wife and I Starbucks gift cards on our birthdays. Ultimately, I would definitely recommend the company to others.

It was great! Our agent really went to bat for us to get the terms that we wanted, and he was always available for any questions or concerns.

Worked with Kevin Haynes. Highly responsive, good rates, and proactive management of complicated and abundant financial statements that were required for securing mortgage. Most communication was electronic which simplified effort considerably.