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Veterans First Mortgage

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Veterans First Mortgage Reviews

3.7

69% would recommend to a friend

(133 total reviews)

Kevin Gates

79% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Veterans First Mortgage has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 133 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Veterans First Mortgage employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Finance industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

133 reviews
1.0
1 May 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free sodas, the view is really nice from the office

Cons

This is the classic call center experience. Expect to be on the phones and not allowed to leave your desk for restroom breaks or to be told to get back to work while you're clocked out for lunch. The clients and management are cruel. The leads are usually ineligible for VF's product offerings and you are audited and scrutinized to sell hard on each client. Every issue encountered with each client will obviously be the LO's fault. It is a lot of work for very little compensation and the company keeps putting problems back onto its workers instead of fixing marketing or processing. The CRM is a mess to work with. It will not save your information, your leads will drop off, and the contactors will pass them along to other LO's even if you notate and have all of your dates set correctly. Management has remedied this by adding more clicks in-between each step in order to draw out and over-complicate the notation process. The software constantly has freezing and crashing issues and it is severely frustrating losing all of your work and having to do double-work to replace what you've already done. Be prepared to give out your personal cell phone number and make unpaid trips into the office on weekends to work. The contacting department only cares about showing off high call volume numbers and LO's are expected to pull credit on every lead. Even if you get someone who is interested in a product that VF doesn't provide this will mess with your stats and you'll be required to go to a training as punishment. Any means to address this has fallen onto deaf ears, it's obvious that this company cares more about call center numbers, dials, and talk time than actually closing any loans and making money. Stats are railed all the time, you'll have management glued to your movements and stats every step of the process. Waiting on a document from a third party to arrive? Well expect 15 emails/calls hounding YOU on why it should be in the file. You are also not given any tools to be competitive, our rates are outragouesly higher than the national average and once you get a client willing to stick around long enough they'll bail once they are disclosed of our rate. The product/service at VF is not any better so it's a difficult sell unless you have somebody desperate enough for housing and meets our particular guidelines. Processors here are unresponsive and underwriters will have arbitary reasons to kick a loan back. Expect to process your own loans here while your processor is sitting on their phone or listening to music instead of making calls to your appraiser or to title. We were initially promised $55k-$75k of income for the initial year, 90% of the loan officers made no more than $50k in 2017.

3.0
3 July 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Base pay of $20.20 an hour. Beautiful office, great location in little italy, free coffee.

Cons

This is a call center and you can make good money. The hourly is $20.20 plus commissions. You will not make commission until you close three loans for that month, and then the commission is not good... You will not make good commission unless you close at least 5 loans, ideally 7 or more to make over $2000-3000 in commission. You'll go through 3 weeks of training, being paid your base hourly pay. You will most likely not commission until probably your 4th month, possibly your 3rd month if you get lucky. This is something you aren't told up front, so make sure you can live off the salary for a few months. This job is stressful as you are dealing with peoples lives and what is likely the biggest purchase of their lives. The company does NOT PAY for OVERTIME, however, you'll likely work 5-10 hours of overtime each week and if you bring it to your manager they will tell you "you're not here for the salary, you're here for the commission". Which is total BS, you should be paid for the hours you work, but don't worry, they have you sign something saying you know you cannot get overtime. If you are working late and forget to clock out, your manager will have you send them an email saying you forgot to clock out... When really you didn't forget, you were working, they just tell you to send them an email so that they can legally cover themselves. Additionally, you'll likely be giving your cell phone number out and expected to, again, work for free on weekends and after hours and then be told that this is what it takes to be successful. How the pay breaks down: $20.20 per hour. Close 1-2 loans--thanks, but you're not getting commission... Close 3 loans you get paid .001% of the the total volume ($600,000 total would get you $600 commission... embarrassing and a lot of work for peanuts) Close 4 loans and commission goes to .0015 5 loans--.002 6 loans--.0025 7 loans--.003 8 loans--.0035 9 loans--.004 10 loans--.0045 And thats all you get... loans will amount from 50K to 300k usually... but they will tell you the average loan amount is $200K, which is not true in my experience, it is much lower. They hire and train many people that are brand new to the industry because people in the industry would never work for that low of a payout. Additionally, hope to God that your client does not shop around for rates, Veterans First does not offer good rates... I've lost several deals to other companies because we are at 4.25 or higher, the competition is at 3.75% or 4% max... Your manager will tell you to sell the service you provide... but to most, a little better service isn't worth the extra $20k in interest over the life of a loan... A typical day when you first start is to come in and start making cold calls. Once you get licensed in enough states you'll start received between 1-5 leads a day, which is nice. They target Veterans who have mediocre credit and just want to get into a house. They do not target those with good credit, as those with good credit will likely shop around and realize that the Veterans First Mortgage rates suck. You'll then lose that deal and more stress and pressure will mount, as that might have been your third deal for the month and now you aren't getting any commission. The stressful part is your manager will watch everything you do and basically try to underwrite your file before it gets pre-qualified... My manager will tell me that this or that is not possible, i'll email the underwriter and my manager was wrong, thus I have an extra deal... The manager tries to think he/she knows everything we can or cannot do, but they do not know. Guessing to try to appear smart is not good. The people that work there are good people for the most part. A bad thing is that if your manager is out, other managers do not really want to help you because the teams are pitted against each other and each manager wants to have the best team numbers. So you'll likely be blown off and told to talk to another rep on your own team. You'll also pay $150 to park in the parking lot that sits in front of the building. The company changed its branding from iFreedom Direct to Veterans First Mortgage just over a year ago... Certain inferences can be made when you change your operating name, but they will tell you it is because it sounds better and gives a better picture of the type of business they are... Look at the reviews for iFreedom direct... All-in-all, its not a horrible job if you want to make $50-60K a year, not get paid any overtime you work, work on weekends and on your off time, and be very stressed out. The best thing about the company is the man who basically oversees the company, Dave... Genuine dude and a great guy.

2.0
25 Sept 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I miss some of the people I worked with there, that's about the only positive thing I can say about iFreedom Direct.

Cons

The management at iFreedom Direct is a joke. Most managers have absolutely no people skills and no qualifications to even be in management. It is one of the worst work atmosphere's I have ever been in. The loans that they offer are absolutely awful, I felt bad for every single one of those borrower's, it was like we were conning them.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 133 Reviews

Glassdoor has 134 Veterans First Mortgage reviews submitted anonymously by Veterans First Mortgage employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Veterans First Mortgage is right for you.