Home Equity Loan experience

I have gotten such great information off this board! A couple of weeks ago I was searching for home equity loan experiences, but didn't find a whole lot . Soooooo....I thought I'd post my experience in case others were interested.

I bought a home last year, with a score in the low-mid 600's....my scores haven't changed much because I commit the sin of having only one or two credit cards w/ relatively low limits but high utilization. Because of this I was nervous about being approved for a loan.

I checked out bankrate.com for rates. I ended up applying w/ Citibank, Netbank (I have an account there) and tried Lendingtree.com. I was looking for a home equity loan/line of credit up to 90% LTV

Netbank denied me.
American Express denied me
Citibank approved.
Lendingtree gave me 4 offers - 2 clearly subprime.

With Citibank, you deal with general customer service reps who really are only there to collect information. They don't really have information regarding their underwriting standards - I was looking for info about how they handle ratio calculations when you intend to pay off debt. Most questions can't be answered until the loan goes to final underwriting. This includes the actual rate that you officially are offered. Also, earliest closing date was 1 month away.

One of my Lendingtree offers was from Provident Bank. I had a dedicated loan specialist (with her direct phone number) that clearly kept her own copy of my application and info. while immediatly passing it on to their underwriters. She knew their udnerwriting standards, and could tell me exactly how they handled debt consolidation and ratio calcs. There were enough recent sales on my street that they didn't need to do an appraisal. I closed on my loan last Friday - no fee, 6.99% fixed - 2 1/2 weeks after applying.


Obviously, I highly recommend Provident Bank based on my experiences with them.

Hope this helps someone!