If you’re thinking about mortgage refinancing or purchasing your home with SunTrust Mortgage, there are several things you’ll want to know before signing on the dotted line. Choosing the right mortgage company or person to arrange your next home loan is your most important task when avoiding junk fees and unnecessary mortgage rate markup. Here is my review of SunTrust Mortgage and several tips that can save you as much as $1200 per year on your next home loan.
SunTrust Mortgage
Visit SunTrust Mortgage’s website and you’ll discover they are fully-owned subsidiary of SunTrust Bank. Based out of Atlanta and operating in DC,
Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida they claim to have $172 billion dollars in assets. As a mortgage lender they have working relationships with mortgage brokers in 49 states and services loans in all 50 states employing 4,137 people.
Searching Google for SunTrust Mortgage reveals their website, contact information, and several customer complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau.
SunTrust Mortgage Contact Information
Website: http://www.suntrustmortgage.com
Customer Service: 1-800-634-7928 Mon-Fri 8am to 8pm Eastern
(Saturday 9am to 3pm Eastern)
Address: SunTrust Mortgage 501 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21279
SunTrust Mortgage Review
My review of SunTrust Mortgage covers the retail nature of home loans offered by big banks. Bank mortgage lending is not regulated by your State like it is when you take out a home loan from a mortgage broker. Mortgage banking is regulated by the Federal Government and legislation known as the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA). What you might not know about RESPA laws is that the Banking Lobby had these laws changed to exclude banks from having to disclose their markup and profit margin on your home loan.
This means that whatever profit the bank realizes when selling your loan on the secondary market does not have to be disclosed to you. Your bank knows that home loans with higher than market mortgage rates bring in a premium profit known as Service Release Premium for the bank. This also means the bank has an incentive for overcharging you and is not required to disclose what they’re doing thanks to this little known loophole in the RESPA laws.
It is because of this loophole that I recommend people work with a local mortgage broker licensed by their State who is not exempt from RESPA and is required to disclose all of their markup, fees, and profit margin on the home loans they originate.
SunTrust Mortgage Complaints
According to the Better Business Bureau website there have been 199 complaints against SunTrust Mortgage during the past 36 months. The standard reporting period for the BBB is the previous 36 months and during the past year SunTrust Mortgage resolved 95 of these complaints.
If you’ve had dealings with SunTrust Mortgage, positive or negative experiences, please leave a comment below. Should you refinance your home loan with SunTrust Mortgage? I don’t recommend banks as a whole for the reasons I’ve discussed in this article. Banks simply do not offer wholesale mortgage rates to their customers. If you want the lowest possible mortgage rate and payment amount for your next home loan wholesale, also known as par mortgage rates are the way to go.
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My name is Robert Regehr and I’m a personal finance blogger with a chip on my shoulder for banks and mortgage brokers that take advantage of my friends and neighbors.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I got a home loan through Suntrust Mortgage. And a year later they send me a letter telling me that my mortgage payment is going up $100.oo a month. I have contacted the company over a dozen times, and never get an answer. I only get the run around. I may have to get a lawyer to make them stop playing games. Having a loan with this crooked company is too stressful. If I could go back in time I would not make the same mistake again…
I am trying to save my home at this moment with Suntrust Mortgage. I have 2 loans with them. The first one come from Wells fargo managed by Suntrust Mortgage and the second one is directly from Suntrust Mortgage. I provided all info to try to get a loan modification and everytime I am denied…..Please advise what should I do?
My house was foreclosed on because Suntrust sent me a letter stating my mortgage was going from $554 to $823 a month due to the increase in my property taxes ( Suntrust stated the taxes were going from $1,800 a yr to $3,200 a yr). I sent them evidence that my taxes weren't $3,200 but less than $1,800 and they still foreclosed on my home, because I wouldn't let them pad my escrow account with the extra$269 a month. The city of Detroit sent them a tax statement showing my taxes were 1,800 not 3,200 a year, and they still foreclosed on my home.
I have had a buyer for my house in Venice Gardens FL with CASH IN HAND since January 2010. Suntrust lost my file (mounds of confidential paperwork, of course) then took 5 months before they assigned a negotiator. I am STILL waiting for them to close the deal. My house will foreclose before it get s sold then I am the one with a poor credit rating. They should have the poor credit rating as they are the ones stalling and holding up the entire process! Sun Trust $ucks.
I am (soon to be was) a client of (Millersville, MD) Suntrust. They had worked with another family member and I thought I would throw him some business in 2008 financing my first home.
I contacted them recently to re-finance my home and look to possible finance an additional property. I have NEVER been treated with such disrespect. He promised to call multiple times to answer a few question and he never did. When I asked him if he treated all of his clients like this, he said "I'm just one little inadequate man I guess."
I told him that I was going to take my business elsewhere and he said fine… just like that.
I am a very young woman who is rapidly progressing in my gross income. I could have been a very active customer, but his disrespect, arrogance, and lack of customer care is forcing me to end my relationship with Suntrust. I will be sure to inform my colleagues, friends, and family to never give them any business in the future.
I'm disgusted, but glad to know their true colors.
~Lindsay
Hi, You guys should look into the home modification. How the services are taking advantage. Here’s what they did. I applied for a loan modification in May of 08. We were told we qualify. Well Suntrust mortgage never did there job by not doing the paper work on the loan. Well Nationstar now says we are $20,000 behind. We were told to pay a reduced amount, we been paying that reduced amount for 1 and a half years. We now are told we now don’t qualify. You know that if I don’t do my job I get fired. But nothing happens to them. Please tell everyone to watch out.
I am having the same problem with a brand new mortgage with Suntrust and I spoke with another local man also. Suntrust bumped my mortgage payment over $200/mo saying that my taxes had gone up and that I did not have enough flood insurance. I had my insurance agent verify the flood amount 4 times and they still tacked on another $950/yr policy. I then had to have the policy removed which they did but my mortgage payment is still up $120/mo. I verified the taxes also and they should have gone up about $109 for the year. Thinking about retaining a lawyer.
If you are considering using Suntrust Mortgage, stop and RUN in the opposite direction. We refinanced with Suntrust and I should have identified that they were lying to me was that their lips were moving. I asked questions point blank and was out and out lied to. We are in worse shape now after refinancing with Suntrust than we were before with a higher interest rate. Things that I was told that were not required or not needed, were used to wipe out some other lines of credit that I had. The attitude at Suntrust is very, very arrogant and they treat their customers very poorly. Customer Service is a joke that is only funny to the Suntrust employees.