Consumer complaint received 2015-10-30
Company: PERL MORTGAGE
State: CA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Application, originator, mortgage broker

Complaint:
My girlfriend pursued me to call and inquire about a Mortgage loan few weeks ago from a real estate agent name XXXX In XXXX XXXX area, then I was referred to a Mortgage broker called Perl Mortgage in XXXX XXXX. XXXX, I then Directly spoke with a guy name XXXX. As I asked about our options he advised me to get an FHA loan, because that was the best option with my income and my girlfriends bad credit. He assured me that we will qualify for at about XXXX once or XXXX in our initial conversation. However, after pulling our credit and submitting the application, he insisted, if we want to be qualified now we need to settle with XXXX Credit collection agencies to move forward in my girlfriends credit. ( my girlfriend worked as a XXXX for years as well and knows a lot of people in the industry. Her name is XXXX XXXX who is the second borrower on the application ). 
He was convincing so it took me few days with complete dedication to call this agencies and negotiate. These negotiations are real hard work, being on the phone with these agents for hours going in circles, it is nerve racking to say the least. The first company was easy, but the last XXXX XXXX and XXXX was a total battle, but I did this for my gf and me and it was for us to buy and own something of our own together. These last XXXX that we had to pay to settle, XXXX was {$1600.00} we settled for XXXX {$.00} the other was {$6900.00} and we were able to bring it down to {$2600.00} when they spoke last with my girlfriend. XXXX. I paid {$1000.00} of my own money to help her settle.NOTE the accounts were old almost 7 years, and would have fallen off in monthsWhen we called back with these settled letters, XXXX said we qualify for XXXX. 
After we made trips to XXXX ca XXXX whole day trips to XXXX ca, looked at XXXX different condos, when we liked something we wanted to offer a price, we ve beed told that the building is not FHA approved by Perl Mortgage, XXXX or XXXX. Well ok fine, are there any? no there arnt any In XXXX and just a couple in surrounding cities Way of our price range XXXX. Little upset and later got mad as I was thinking about not being informed and just waisted days to look at condos. " its the real Estates Fault '' they said. OK fine.. I spend another 3 full days of trying to get FHA approved buildings in our price range ( condos ). And I m letting XXXX know all my steps, step by step. SO I finally found XXXX that was close to our price range, XXXX was listed XXXX, the other XXXX XXXX so we could 've made an offer. So I planed my trip in detail to meet my real estate agent at that property XXXX away from my home. At the last minute my real estate realizing the illusive nature of my Mortgage broker, asked me some questions and XXXX was did XXXX Included the hoa in his calculation, when I called XXXX, he said No he did n't that may " kill my debt and income ratio '' oh really. So when he said that i wanted to make sure that he did n't miss anything else.. and I said " ok XXXX so you did include everything else, all my expenses like my car payment. He said Oh i need to look at your file, and came back to me saying that we did n't put that in my application ( file ) and this will definitely with the HOA kill my debt to income ratio. But, he texted as I was getting furious at this point that I still qualify, but for a lesser amount. Note : we could hardly find one building with HOW approved at THAT XXXX, price range. 
So after all that time effort and money we spent trusting Perl Mortgage, XXXX of my own cash and all of my time on the phone with collections, real estate agents and Perl Mortgage, who had no trouble talking and explaining things for more then an hour on our first conversation alone, and I was 100 % honest with them, we are put in a position where we do n't have the 20 % down payment for a reg loan, and ca n't find anything at that price HOW approved

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation