Yesterday I had a client in my office (I’ll call her Marie) to work on a purchase loan. She was referred by her Realtor to a fellow across town that she had started working with. She liked him. He was friendly and efficient, gave her information, seemed to be on the ball. Then, partway through the process, he assigned her file to one of his in-office agents, and that’s when the trouble began.
This new agent was unresponsive, didn’t return phone calls, always seemed distracted and forgot Marie’s 
relevant information several times. She took phone calls during their meetings, was frequently interrupted, and generally gave the impression she didn’t care about the client. This was really frustrating to Marie. She went back to her office after one such session and mentioned her terrible experience to one of her co-workers. He had a radical suggestion:
Go see someone else.
Marie had never thought of that. “But they already pre-approved me,” she said. “So?” her friend replied, “did you sign anything? Any sort of commitment with them?” Marie had not. “Then go find someone you like,” he said, and she called me. She likes me. I like her. Her deal is complicated, but not impossible. I think we can get it done.
There are two lessons here, one for professionals and one for borrowers. For professionals it is, never assume that once you’re working with someone you can start treating them like crap and they’ll stick with you. If you’re going to fob your loans off to one of your people, you might want to make sure they have the same client-service standards you do. For the borrowers it is: right up to the close, it is NEVER too late to switch lenders. Rates and fees are important, and you should research those thoroughly, but just as important is the relationship you have with the lender. If you don’t like him, get a new one. There’s no shortage of options out there. You can shop. You should shop. Keep going until you find a guy you like that gives you what you need to feel comfortable about the transaction, and don’t do the deal until you find someone like that.