Don’t forget to mention to them that Leasehackr referred you so we get some affiliate credits for our tech infrastructure fund, if you didn’t use the affiliated link we provided to submit the application. ^^
They haven’t informed us the termination of their program. They were quite quick in informing us of their changes in the past.
First Republic told us that they would assign dedicated bankers (Rod and Milana – they were both great!) to handle all LH referral customers. Not sure if anything has changed. They might reassign bankers based on locations too. If you reach out to them independently you would probably get a different banker.
Yep, my initial contact was through their website asking about their location restrictions. I got $90k at 3.95% for 7 years. The initial response was from a banker in a branch a few blocks from me and then when we got into the PLOC details, there was an additional dedicated credit specialist, also in the same branch. I figure I’ll walk up and visit them when I need to get the cashier’s check but they even said they could courier the check to me if I was in a rush.
As far as the 20% deposit requirement, it’s basically buying down your rate. So you have the option to do no deposit but then I think the rate is 1% higher. Also, the terms state there are 4 test dates: 90 days after approval date, and then 1,2, and 3 years after approval. If you miss any of those test dates and your checking balance is below 20% of the loan amount, the rate increases permanently to the non-discounted rate.
You also have the option to put half of the requirement into an investment account but I have not looked into that yet.
All told, it was 3 phone calls, about 20 minutes total, completely conversational the whole time, just getting a better picture of my finances, liquid assets, etc. Another few email exchanges to walk through the application process which is very thorough including submitting statements for all my accounts and 401k.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they assign you a different banker if you are in a different region.
If you didn’t use our affiliate link, we would appreciate it if you could drop your banker a note that Leasehackr referred you. I would follow up with First Republic regarding getting the affiliate credits retrospectively. The compensation comes from their marketing budget – it doesn’t impact your loan. Even though it’s not a lot of money, every bit counts for us since our site is built on a crowdfunded model and we strive to stay that way!
Thanks for sharing all this information. Thing i don’t understand is keeping 20% deposit and etc. Can you explain a bit more if you have time.
Thanks again for sharing.
Yeah sure. Basically to get their best rate, you have to keep 20% of the loan amount in their checking account. So if you get approved for a $100k line of credit, you keep $20k in the checking account. According to their terms, they test this 4 times over the life of loan (mentioned previously).
During the application process, you’ll also have the option of choosing a 10% deposit which increases the rate by 0.5% or having the base requirement of $3500 which increases the rate by 0.75%. The $3500 requirement is the normal deposit minimum for the checking account. Go below that and you’ll pay a monthly maintenance feed.
You end up with these options:
20% deposit, 3.95%
10% deposit, 4.45%
0% deposit, 4.7%
(Note these are the current terms I qualified for.)
I’ll echo others and say I really liked dealing with them. It was easily the friendliest interaction I’ve ever had with getting a loan. They were also upfront and said the goal of the product was to introduce you to their services and win your business.
Wow. It sounds legit. And you or someone else mentioned that it doesn’t show up as a loan on your credit history, is that correct ? It’s great terms. I’ll keep in touch with them asap.
Most recent statement from all the accounts I declared for liquid assets, including my 401k and IRA.
Photo ID
Statements for any open mortgage or car loans
Last pay stub
Interestingly, during the week when they were reviewing my application, they showed up in my LinkedIn searchers.
Our marketing agreement with them is not tied to a specific banker. As long as they acknowledge that Leasehackr referred the customer, we would (hopefully) get the referral credit.
