The story
Guaranteed Rate was founded in Chicago in 2000 by Victor F. Ciardelli III, a native of Oak Brook, Illinois, who serves as chairman and CEO. Through 2020, the company was the third-largest retail mortgage lender in the US.
Guaranteed Rate Foundation was formed in 2012 to help those in need through difficult times. As of June 2021, the foundation had donated over $5 million in charitable grants.
In 2013, Guaranteed Rate grew to more than $15.9 billion in residential home loans, an increase of $1.2 billion over 2012. This moved the company from the twelfth-largest retail mortgage lender in the U.S. to the tenth-largest.
In 2015, Guaranteed Rate became the eighth-largest retail mortgage lender with volume of more than $18 billion in home loans and was named Lender of the Year by Chicago Agent Magazine.
In March 2016, Guaranteed Rate and one of its loan officers were found guilty in California of diverting loans from Mount Olympus Mortgage, and ordered to pay $25 million in damages to the Irvine, California-based company.
In May, Guaranteed Rate bought the domain name Rate.com for $725,000.
In 2017, Guaranteed Rate entered into a joint venture with Realogy Holdings Corp to form Guaranteed Rate Affinity, in which Guaranteed Rate would provide marketing services to Realogy's subsidiaries, including NRT and Cartus, and would take over some assets of its former joint venture partner, PHH Corporation out of New Jersey. In December, Guaranteed Rate announced plans to sell a minority stake of the company to an affiliate of Boston-based private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners. The partial sale was finalized in June 2018. Also in December, a former loan officer sued Guaranteed Rate claiming that he was owed $2 million and that executives at the company were manipulating and misreporting financial information for their own benefit.
In January 2018, Guaranteed Rate announced that its employees' and customers' personal information was in hackers' hands as the result of an email phishing attack. As of October, Guaranteed Rate “[was] bounc[ing] around between the fifth and seventh largest mortgage lender in the [U.S].”
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In January 2019, The Wall Street Journal revealed Guaranteed Rate's efforts to boost their Glassdoor ratings. According to the article, the company "pressured employees to write positive reviews in order to raise poor ratings, according to interviews with current and former employees." Prior to these efforts, the company's rating on Glassdoor averaged 2.6 out of 5. In October, Guaranteed Rate partnered with online notary company Notarize to integrate notarization into the online closing process. The company also announced a partnership with Marcus by Goldman Sachs to help customers consolidate debt and fund home improvement projects. Also in 2019, Guaranteed Rate launched a market research platform for potential home buyers to research neighborhood property trends, home prices, demographics, income levels, and school districts.
In April 2020, Guaranteed Rate was required to pay the federal government a $15 million fine to settle a lawsuit brought by a former employee whistleblower who alleged the company pushed its underwriters into endorsing ineligible loans for FHA and VA loan programs and making false statements to "induce the government" to extend insurance coverage. According to the Chicago Tribune, as part of the settlement, Guaranteed Rate admitted that it failed to adhere to self-reporting requirements and certified loans for government insurance that were not eligible. It also admitted to giving FHA underwriters commissions and gifts in violation of the rules. In July, Guaranteed Rate and @Properties launched the joint venture Proper Rate, a Chicago-based independent retail mortgage lender expected to serve as an in-house lender for @Properties. Overall during 2020, Guaranteed Rate originated over 135,000 mortgages with a value of over $47,000,000,000.
In May 2021, it was reported that founder and CEO Victor Ciardelli bought a $38 million mansion in Miami Beach, Florida.
In October 2023, The Wall Street Journal published a report titled "The Mortgage Market Is So Bad Lenders Want Ex-Employees to Give Back Their Bonuses" that detailed Guaranteed Rate's practice of clawing back signing bonuses from loan officers hired in years prior. According to the article, Guaranteed Rate's business dropped by over 50% in 2022 from its high in 2021.
In June 2024, the Chicago Tribune reported in an article titled "Verbal abuse, ‘sex-driven’ culture alleged at Guaranteed Rate" that 80 ex-employees interviewed by the paper said they had experienced or witnessed persistent verbal abuse, a "sex-driven" culture, and a misogynistic atmosphere at the firm and from Victor Ciardelli. Ciardelli expressly denied these allegations, stating such allegations are “simply not true.” The company “has not, does not, and would not objectify women or put them in uncomfortable personal or professional situations." The Tribune reported that "Guaranteed Rate also retained an outside law firm that, even before receiving the reporters’ list of questions, threatened to sue the Tribune for defamation." The suit was never filed. The Tribune also reported that the company was changing its name to Rate, as Ciardelli said "people have trouble spelling 'guaranteed'."
In July 2024, the company officially announced that it would rebrand as simply Rate, with Ciardelli explaining that it reflected the company's "new era" of "making the mortgage process smoother, faster and smarter." The new brand was intended to be phased in across its businesses and sponsorships, and "not affect current operations or mortgage loan officer licenses."
From Wikipedia’s article on Rate (company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5