# ING Direct Mortgages



## Franky (Mar 11, 2010)

Hi Everyone, 
I'm planning on buying my first home this year, and was doing some research on ING Direct's mortgage offerings. I have a TFSA account with them and it's great. I have found mixed reviews on their customer service though, related to their mortgages. However, much of this information is a couple or a few years old. Anyone have any current opinions or reviews? 3.89% for five years fixed sounds pretty good...Thanks.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

We have our mortgage with ING Direct, no complaints. I have nothing to compare it to, though, as it is our first mortgage. The process went smoothly, but note that they are very careful about who they give loans to, and they do everything by the book -- calling your references, running the credit checks, verifying everything. That's a good thing, but it takes time, and we were biting our fingernails because we didn't get the final approval on the mortgage until a day or two before our offer was set to expire.

You get the initial approval very quickly, 24 hours or so, but that's not the "real" approval.

We'll be up for renewal in a couple of years and will see how that goes.


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## Franky (Mar 11, 2010)

brad said:


> You get the initial approval very quickly, 24 hours or so, but that's not the "real" approval.


What's involved with the "real" approval? Some of the reviews I read commented negatively on their appraisal process...any correlation?


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Franky said:


> What's involved with the "real" approval? Some of the reviews I read commented negatively on their appraisal process...any correlation?


This happened almost three years ago so I'm a little hazy on the details, but I don't remember any issues with the appraisal process. Someone came by and looked at the house, that was the extent of the appraisal process as far as I know. They didn't disagree with the amount we were offering.

The "real" approval involves filling out a longer form with information on your employer, bank and credit card accounts, providing a copy of your last tax notice of assessment, copy of your offer agreement, information on your notary, etc...it's more involved than the simple form you fill out online for preapproval. Everything was done electronically (I scanned and sent PDFs; you could also send by fax); I never met anyone from ING in person.


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## drh (May 20, 2009)

Add me to the camp of happy ING Direct "Unmortgage" customers. I've been with them for nearly 3 years now and can't complain. Friendly, responsive customer service, good online access to my mortgage info and fantastic interest rate (prime - .9% back then).

Their appraisal process was no problem. They essentially performed a "drive by" of the property and their assessment came in at where we had expected it to.

Dan


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## heyjude (May 16, 2009)

I have an ING Direct mortgage on a rental property and am very happy with their service. They have been very obliging with making changes to the mortgage as interest rates fell, offering a blended rate. The Unmortgage is much more flexible than the mortgages I have with other institutions. 

I don't have any savings with ING as I heard that their European banking arm had to be bailed out by the Dutch government during the crash. But I figure that if they are loaning me money, it's their money at risk, not mine.


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

My understanding is that the Canadian operation has to operate as a separate corporate entity, subject to all the banking rules & regulations of Canada, that have served to protect the CDN banking system from defaults. In theory the failure of the parent company should not put the CDN branch at risk. Shareholders might be at risk, but not depositors. At worst the parent company might have to sell the CDN operation lock stock and barrel to pay their debts. But the CDN operation would simply continue under new owners.


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## Franky (Mar 11, 2010)

I have savings with ING in a TFSA. I believe up to $100 000 will be insured by CDIC.


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## Elbyron (Apr 3, 2009)

I had a 5-year variable rate mortgage with ING about 6 years ago, for a $55K loan. They used to have a policy of changing their closed 5-year variable mortgages into open mortgages after 3 years, and I took advantage of that to pay off the remaining balance after about 3.5 years. I'm now shopping around for a mortgage on a rental property, and ING has the best variable rate I can find (P-0.5) so I've applied with them once again. However, I was told it will remain closed for the full 5 years, so I'd have to pay 3 month's interest if I want to sell or switch banks before then.
In all my dealings with their mortgage reps, I've found them to be knowledgeable and helpful, though not always quick to respond. Sometimes I have to leave a few messages or re-send an email, but otherwise their customer service is excellent!


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## pando (Apr 16, 2010)

*monster mortgage*

We have an ING mortgage (second mortgage) but we got it through Monster Mortgage. http://www.monstermortgage.ca/ I suggest you go through a broker as they can get the best deals for you and it was actually a very easy process. They check your credit rating once (frequent credit rating checks actually lower your credit score) and lots of banks bid for your business. If you hunted around yourself, each bank will require a credit rating (and that's not good for the reason I mentioned.)

We are very happy with our ING "unmortgage".





Franky said:


> Hi Everyone,
> I'm planning on buying my first home this year, and was doing some research on ING Direct's mortgage offerings. I have a TFSA account with them and it's great. I have found mixed reviews on their customer service though, related to their mortgages. However, much of this information is a couple or a few years old. Anyone have any current opinions or reviews? 3.89% for five years fixed sounds pretty good...Thanks.


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## jaggars (May 12, 2010)

I am closing next month and i have to make a quick decision about going with a Big Bank like TD as opposed to Going with second line of banks Like ING or PC financial. I have currently an approval from ING bank through a broker for P-0.6 another broker website gives P-0.65 from ING bank. I wish to know anyone having their mortgage with ING bank please post their experience in terms of making extra prepayments also can we manage our Mortgage account online with respect to making prepayments.

Thanks


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## jj12345 (Jun 24, 2009)

jaggars said:


> I am closing next month and i have to make a quick decision about going with a Big Bank like TD as opposed to Going with second line of banks Like ING or PC financial. I have currently an approval from ING bank through a broker for P-0.6 another broker website gives P-0.65 from ING bank. I wish to know anyone having their mortgage with ING bank please post their experience in terms of making extra prepayments also can we manage our Mortgage account online with respect to making prepayments.
> 
> Thanks


I recently renewed a mortgage with ING, and the process was painless and quick. You can login to their website to check the current balance remaining, amortization, and can make prepayment changes. It's very slick. Much better than when I had my mortgage with CIBC.


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## jaggars (May 12, 2010)

Thanks for your reply


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

I'm not sure about making prepayment changes online with ING -- maybe if you're changing your regular monthly (or bimonthly) payments you can do that online, but whenever I've wanted to do a lump-sum prepayment I had to do it over the phone.

ING has a reasonably generous prepayment policy (up to 25% of your original mortgage amount in any given year with no penalty). So in theory you could completely pay off a 25-year mortgage in just 4 years; in practice most of us can't set aside enough every year to meet the 25% target.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

brad said:


> ING has a reasonably generous prepayment policy (up to 25% of your original mortgage amount in any given year with no penalty). So in theory you could completely pay off a 25-year mortgage in just 4 years; in practice most of us can't set aside enough every year to meet the 25% target.


The 25% is also good if you ever need/want to break the mortgage you can prepay 25% to lower the penalty


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## Liz (May 31, 2009)

jj12345 said:


> You can login to their website to check the current balance remaining, amortization, and can make prepayment changes. It's very slick.


My boyfriend and I are thinking of going with ING as well, particularly because we're both ING customers for other products already. I was wondering if you know whether two people who are sharing a mortgage can both sign in to check the mortgage information, i.e. can we link the same mortgage to the two separate ING logins? I tried asking customer service, and he said that only the "primary" mortgage holder could sign in.. However, we're going through a mortgage broker, so I'm not sure who the "primary" would be, since we're signing as equals!


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Liz said:


> I was wondering if you know whether two people who are sharing a mortgage can both sign in to check the mortgage information, i.e. can we link the same mortgage to the two separate ING logins?


Yes, you can. My girlfriend and I both have access to our shared mortgage account through our separate logins. No problem there.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

brad said:


> I'm not sure about making prepayment changes online with ING -- maybe if you're changing your regular monthly (or bimonthly) payments you can do that online, but whenever I've wanted to do a lump-sum prepayment I had to do it over the phone.


Actually I discovered recently that you can in fact do lump sum prepayments online as well -- it's very easy. You can also increase the amount of your monthly payments online. The only caveat, according to an ING rep that I talked to a few months ago, is that if you and your spouse/partner have joint access to the mortgage account and you each want to make a lump-sum prepayment, it's best to stagger them by a month or so to avoid having both prepayments occur on the same date (which would "confuse the system" and could lead to errors).


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## dilbert789 (Apr 20, 2010)

brad said:


> Actually I discovered recently that you can in fact do lump sum prepayments online as well -- it's very easy. You can also increase the amount of your monthly payments online. The only caveat, according to an ING rep that I talked to a few months ago, is that if you and your spouse/partner have joint access to the mortgage account and you each want to make a lump-sum prepayment, it's best to stagger them by a month or so to avoid having both prepayments occur on the same date *(which would "confuse the system" and could lead to errors).*


I hate it when people say that. It's either they don't know how the system works, or the system was developed wrong and has a bug. If there is no limit like 'You can only do 1 prepayment a month' you should be able to do 1000 $1 prepayments if you want as fast as you can. /software developers rant...


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

dilbert789 said:


> I hate it when people say that. It's either they don't know how the system works, or the system was developed wrong and has a bug. If there is no limit like 'You can only do 1 prepayment a month' you should be able to do 1000 $1 prepayments if you want as fast as you can. /software developers rant...


I think the software could probably handle it, but my guess is that it might raise a red flag and prompt an inquiry and phone calls, because it would be unusual for two separate accounts to be dumping money into a mortgage on the same day. The system is probably set up to warn ING of any unusual or suspicious activity.


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