My mortgage broker, inspector and lawyer recommendation

First, I’d like to say thank you to the Brownstoner community for having been such an invaluable source of information during the house search and buying process of our Bed-Stuy brownstone. I found our mortgage broker here, Vanessa Thatcher, and am coming back to recommend her for the 100th time on this forum. We went with her and return to tell you – what they say is true, believe the hype! After having been rejected by several brokers (we weren’t asking for anything unreasonable or unaffordable), or waiting for weeks to even hear an answer from some, we contacted Vanessa and she gave us an answer almost immediately. I have to say that during the process, we sometimes wondered if she was being overly optimistic about how easy it will be for her to get the loan with the great rate she found for us. In the end, we went from contract to closing in less than a month (with an FHA loan too!). The lawyers present at closing wondered out loud several times who this Vanessa was and how she managed to get it done so quickly. Vanessa is very responsive, hard working (stop answering emails at 10pm, Vanessa!), and presents information in a clear, understandable way. John Gromkowski of Precise Inspector NY did the inspection for us for the house we bought and another house we were considering. Both times, he was available on very short notice, and went about the inspections in a very diligent, systematic way, taking 3-4 hours to make sure nothing was missed. His report is very detailed and comes with photos that point out the issues. My recommendation would definitely be to get an inspector who includes photos, because by the time you’re out of the house, it will be very hard to recall exactly what pipe or window or crack is mentioned in the text of the report. And, he’s a nice, pleasant guy. Our lawyer Steve Ebbin and his assistant Diana (steveebbinesq@hotmail.com) were great, persevering on 2 deals with us, the first one of which involved very difficult to deal with, irrational sellers (and their mentally lacking lawyers). No question went unanswered and no rock went unturned. I amazed how all of the above professionals were able to deal with us as if we were their one client, responding immediately to all of our questions and requests, considering they probably have a dozen clients on their plate at once.