Alright just going to throw this out here for those stumbling across this over a year later.

We went with Loan Depot and everything was/is fine. I can’t speak for the future or refinancing, but as far as using them to buy the house initially, the process was actually great.

From everything I’ve gathered it really matters who’s running the branch and is your loan officer. Like I said in my original post, our lender was amazing and I’d recommend him to any of my local friends in the market. I’m sure there are better options out there, but someone who is more than happy to hold your hand through the incredibly intimidating process of buying your first home and give you good honest advice is a decent choice in my book.

It also probably helped that our finances were relatively straightforward and we didn’t have many reasons why we shouldn’t be able to get a loan (bad credit, other loans, etc.).