I used HFA for my home loan awhile back... but just now I read a complaint about how they have a branch(?) that does appraisals. If true, I find that very suspicious. The appraiser they set me up with low-balled the estimate to such a degree that I and my realtor were physically SHOCKED. I had already negotiated the asking price down to what was a legit price on both sides. He appraised it for $27k below that price ($316k down to $289k). I truly don't think he even went in the house! So to stay with HFA, they were going to charge me a higher interest rate, etc. for a 'riskier' loan. I paid for a 2nd appraiser who told me she couldn't belive the other guy's appraisal. She easily appraised it for that value.
the only reason i went HFA was because their closing costs were cheaper than the other lenders (rate was the same). -Or so I thought. Only DAYS before I was due to close, I got a final copy of my HUD-1 document. Something didn't look right. I reconciled it against the GFE, and found that there was an increase of over $1, 200 on one line item. The excuse I was given was that it was a typo. I wanted to drop them right there, but I couldn't as I was closing just a couple days later. They refused to lower the charge to what was on the GFE. I got hosed.