SchoolsFirst FCU Home Advantage Program

After posting my first Unilocal review of the Schools First Home Advantage Program, a representative from the credit union called me to apologize, saying that a partner with SFFCU is a representative for them, and should act accordingly. After discussing the situation that happened, he assured me that the SFFCU Home Advantage representative, Todd Bruechert, was never informed of my troubles with the rude First Team realtor, which explains why he did not call. This made sense to me, because as I said, my credit union has always gone above and beyond for us. Then Mr. Bruechert called and apologized for my bad experience, and in fact all three Schools First representatives to contact me have all assured me that they would make this situation right with me, and would be there step by step to make certain all goes smoothly this time.
It is nice to know there are customer service representatives who care about their customers and about representing their company in the best possible way. Thank you.

This is such a great program! I am a Member SchoolsFirst FCU, and was assigned to work with Terry Patton. My family and I could not have been happier with anyone else. Terry was a complete blessing to work with; he was incredibly attentive to detail and went above in beyond his duty in all capacities. He truly worked «for us» and not just «with us» in this transaction. He is an expert in what he does and I hope he gets some kind of recognition for this transaction. As a first time buyer, our family was well taken care of the whole time; we were never disappointed! We worked with a different agent from a different company prior to changing to Terry, and we didn’t at all feel like she wanted to work. I strongly recommend working with the SchoolFirst Home Advantage program and requesting Terry Patton from First Team Real Estate. I will definitely refer him as much as possible.

This worked just fine for me. I joined the credit union precisely to use this program. I was assigned an awesome agent. When we got near closing, the agent told me that this was an absolutely smooth process because SchoolsFirst managed escrow on time. I’m very happy that I went with this program.

I used School’s First Home Advantage plan as they are my bank and had the most wonderful experience. The loan officers were wonderful and even helped us get the rate we locked in after my husband lost his job. The realtor who was assigned to us, Deb Shihadeh, is wonderful and worked her hardest for us. I would recommend them to anyone!

Our Schools First Home Advantage plan was great, everything went smooth. The seminar was very helpful.
Our First Team agent, Andi helped us find the perfect home and our school’s first loan agent, Chrystian kept the process moving and answered all of our questions.

I decided to call up SchoolsFirst to see if we could qualify for a loan and I am so happy we did. The whole process was very smooth and our First Team Agent Yvonne was amazing even though the market is crazy (which is totally our of her hands). We ended up moving into our first home just a few weeks ago and we couldn’t have been more happy with the whole process. Thanks for the help!

Very friendly staff, and great communication throughout the process. Made the whole thing very easy to deal with. Would highly recommend them to anyone starting the home buying process.

My daughter convinced me to go with School’s First’s home buying program and I’m glad she did. We had been looking for six months and made about 10 offers with no luck. As soon as I signed up for the program I was contacted by our assigned Realtor from First Team. Bob Forrester was absolutely the best! We met over coffee & I shared with him my must haves, don’t wants and would like to haves for my dream home. He listened to everything I shared & gave his feedback on the current market and got straight to work. He showed us a few places & we placed an offer on a nice little house in Corona. All was well until the seller backed out. Bob was undeterred & immediately found an even better suited home this time it was a short sell that had bank approval but the buyers backed out. Bob acted fast to get us in to see it & I knew the moment I walked in this was it!
I’m extremely happy with my new home and the guidance provided to me by my amazing First Team Realtor — Bob Forrester
I highly recommend not only his services but SchoolsFirst home buying program.
BTW the added bonus to all of this was the 3.99% rate for the next 12 months on my SchoolsFirst credit card. Let me tell you, that has come in handy with all of the home projects I needed to take care of after moving in. Oh and I forgot to mention all the credits at closing really brought down my out of pocket expenses.
July 1^st = viewed the house
Sep 5^th = closed the deal
Sep 7^th = started moving in

It could not have been easier. Before we actively started the home searching process all our friends and family «warned» us about how frustrating and difficult it would be. However we were very lucky everything was as smooth as it could be… and quick! We attended a SchoolsFirst home buying seminar (thanks for the yummy sandwiches by the way) and in a couple of days of submitting our names/​emails we were contacted by a First Team reps Lesley and Jim Citerella. Next thing we knew, the next weekend we met them at their office in Tustin and they took us to see 3 listings already! We found our dream starter home in less than 2 months. The whole process was a positive experience with Jim and Lesley. They listened to what our wishlist was and often checked out property themselves before passing the information along to us to make sure it would fit our wants and needs. They were both so patient with us and was completely honest with every question we had for them. Escrow was a breeze too. All the paperwork from SchoolsFirst and First Team were submitted on time and both kept us in the loop with anything that was needed. Schools First reps were awesome too. Being first time home buyers, we had A LOT of questions and were nervous as this was the biggest financial decision we were making. Mary Noriz at Schools First efficiently answered all our questions without judgement, and kept us informed on missing signatures or documents needed to complete this transaction. Also, a shout out to Kimberly at the Irvine branch who met with us months before we were ready to go through this process. We made an appointment with her to ask her what to expect and what exactly we would be going through when we were ready. She’s awesome.
I could not have asked for a better experience.