Guaranteed Rate

Great Company.
Support the non-​bank lender instead of Wells Fargo, Citibank or Chase.

I have unsubscribed, emailed them back and told to man times, to get me off their email list and US postal. I made the mistake of talking to Teri Bertland almost 3 years ago and now I cannot get them to leave me alone. I don’t need a mortgage or a refinance and I will never use this company and they are really make sure I don’t change my mind. I don’t know if they have changed their name or not but now they are sending me the same crap under a new name loan star home lending.

This review is for Stephen Barber and his team in San Francisco. Stephen is incredibly professional and efficient, very friendly yet still very no-​nonsense, with a «let’s get this done» positive and motivated attitude that’s perfect for navigating through the mortgage maze. He is very patient at explaining every step, why things are happening, very sensitive when there are thorny financial or personal details or issues involved (as there always are). I’ve worked with him before and when it was time to find a new home, he was my first (and only) stop. More than the people, I was very impressed by Guaranteed Rate’s use of technology. Their use of secure cloud storage for uploading my docs, and use of digital signatures made the entire process a breeze. It only took a week or so for me to gather all the docs needed and get them uploaded, which meant I went from a pre-​qualification to a pre-​approval that I could use in making an offer very promptly. And I got an excellent rate! The rest of the process was smooth and Stephen and his team worked well with my Realtor and the title company to get every last detail sorted out. It was a painless, efficient, and dare I say pleasurable process! Well, as pleasurable as it can be when you’re going this far into debt. ;-) But I have a beautiful new home with an affordable payment and am thrilled. When it’s time to do this again, I won’t hesitate to reach out to Stephen… he’ll be my first stop once again. He should be yours.

This review is for CJ, Chelsea, Lucy, and Steve. What an awesome and amazing team I got to work with! Being a first time homebuyer, I had a lot of questions and concerns at each step of the way. I am needy… to say the least, and on top it all, I expect A LOT.
I was skeptical about being able to close in 17 days, as our contingency. The team was able to get everything to close within a record breaking 14 days!
I had worked with Citibank at an earlier offer and while they had slightly lower rates, they were not attentive, not responsive, and I highly doubt they would have been able to stick with our strict contingency. I liked not being stressed out about the other party doing their job in my best interest.
I would work with the above individuals again and hopefully I will in the future.

Kami Zolfaghari was awesome to work with. He got me an extremely competitive rate and jumped through countless lender hoops to get the deal done. Very appreciative of his follow-​through and integrity.

This review for Tim Higbee is long overdue.
I had the expensive misfortune of working with him a while back ago, and after recently closing on a loan for an investment property, I was reminded of how horribly unprofessional Tim was.
After sending him all the requested documents to prequalify me for a mortgage, he gave me a breakdown of my options from which I started my house search.
Throughout several months, I submitted about 5 – 6 offers on houses which I was outbid on. Finally the stars aligned, and I submitted an offer on a house which the sellers accepted.
Then a few days into contract, Tim Higbee tells me that there was something on my tax returns that was raising a red flag with the lender.
Why was this ‘red flag’ not realized during the prequalification review?
Why was this ‘red flag’ not realized at any time during the 4 – 5 previous offer letters?
Rather than giving me a straight answer (that he missed it), he twisted it around and put the blame on me — that this ‘red flag’ would not have happened if I filed my income taxes right. Even worse, he actually accused me of being a tax fraud.
So almost 3 months later, after paying the sellers out of pocket for their daily expenses of holding the property while escrow was dragging on, after applying to another lender, after dealing with Tim being m.i.a. in the last few weeks of escrow, I finally closed on my house.
I’ve relayed my experience with Tim HIgbee to 3 other mortgage brokers and they all agreed he dropped the ball professionally and was a jerk to make any accusations at all.
Such a horrible experience.

This is a review for Monica DiPerna. Monica has now helped me with 2 new purchases, a refi, and a condo conversion. She didn’t just help me with the financing for those transactions, but with the transactions themselves. She kept the whole process on track and the closings went without a hitch
She has a talent for explaining the very complex (and there’s a lot of «complex» in bay area real estate!) in simple terms that even I could understand and follow. She was incredibly responsive and helpful. Not only did she immediately answer all my questions, but also provided a lot of great ideas and advice. I think she did more to keep the process on track than my realtors!
I would not hesitate to call her if I ever need more financial help with these types of transactions, and you should too. Thanks Monica!

I have used Pete and now Tom for a purchase and then refi in San Francisco, and now a purchase in SoCal. They are proactive and hypercompetent. In one of my loan application processes, I called Pete to ask about some wording that I didn’t understand. It seemed like there was the potential for some phrasing to be interpreted in a way that would cost me much more than I had anticipated.
A lot of the paperwork was relatively new – a result of the mortgage market’s tightening post-​fiscal crisis. Pete, at the end of a long day, was struggling to wrap his mind around the phrase I was relaying over the phone. After several minutes of conversation, he ultimately admitted that he couldn’t give me an informed explanation of what the wording meant, but he gave me his word that the ultimate cost of the loan (the fees and such) would be very close to the amount he had originally estimated. He, of course, was right. It was a very confidence-​inspiring experience; I have had no desire to try anyone else, even after locating to LA county.

We were referred to Tom Barnes and Pete Elting through friends that recently used them to buy their first home. Since we too were new to the whole process, we followed their lead and met with Tom and Pete. Our work schedules made it hard to meet mid-​day they stuck around after work for us and we met them at their office in San Francisco. First, I love that they have a parking lot that we were able to use. Small thing, but it made it incredibly convenient! We were there for I think over two hours. We came with all the financial paperwork suggested, and they literally explained every detail of the process to us. It took all the guessing out of the process. We were able to ask any questions we had and it was very comfortable. We left feeling like we were in more than capable hands.
Once we found the first house we thought was the one, we contacted Tom and Pete and they immediately were able to send us pre-​approval letters. They made themselves available at all times. When a couple houses we bid on didn’t work out they were encouraging. Finally we got one and they were there every step of the paper-​heavy way! I can only describe them as: responsive, detail oriented, professional and thorough.
Overall we had a great experience using this team and would highly recommend them to anyone needing financing. Thanks Pete and Tom!

CJ Kerls is a mortgage master! I was referred to him by my killer real estate team of Peter Goss and Robert Dana (Zephyr). CJ rapidly and creatively overcame various hurdles in my loan process, helping me to buy a new home in Marin before selling my condo in the city. He worked out bridge financing for me by arranging a 2^nd mortgage on the new home, which can be paid off without penalty as soon as we sell our condo. CJ kept me up to date with the status of my loan at all times, fielded all of my annoying questions, and was always friendly and pleasant to deal with. Highly recommend!

If you are planning on buying a house, you need to buy one with Pete Elting and Tom Barnes at Guarantee Mortgage. «Dream Team» is an understatement…
We were referred to Guarantee Mortgage back in November when we started the process of buying our first home in San Francisco. My husband and I both work full-​time jobs with demanding hours, so Pete Elting graciously met us on a Saturday morning and spent almost 3 hours going over the ins and outs of buying a home. He was incredibly patient, thorough, and kind explaining the basics which I would imagine most brokers would find annoying. His transparency about the entire process really put us at ease. We were pre-​approved that day and the house-​hunting began.
Once we got the process going, we were introduced to Tom Barnes who was our account manager. We instantly felt comfortable with Tom, like we had known him for years. He answered a ton of questions for us along the way and never made us feel like we were bothering him. He, too, had incredible patience. Once we started putting offers in, Pete and Tom were available pretty much 24-​hours a day to write pre-​approval letters for us. They responded promptly and were very honest with us about everything, we really appreciated that about them.
The entire home-​buying process can be really stressful, but having a team that was honest, open, and responsive was absolutely critical. I don’t think my emails ever went more than an hour or two without a response from Pete or Tom.
I can’t say enough great things about this team. I also have to mention Shawn Leonard who helped with escrow, and he pretty much rounded out the perfect mortgage team. I would never buy a house from anyone else. THANK YOU Pete, Tom, and Shawn for helping us buy our first home!

I was referred to Tim Higbee by friends who had worked with him to finance their initial home purchase in 2008 and several refinancings since then. As a first time home buyer, I was thrilled to have Tim really take the time to discuss the overall process and explore some potential solutions to specific questions in my case. In this tough fast-​moving market, Tim never missed the mark in sending pre-​approval letters on a timely basis as part of the offer process. My broker in Marin, who had not previously worked with Tim, was impressed by his responsiveness. Tim was very professional throughout the process and a real pleasure to work with. Thanks so much, Tim!

I’m leaving this as a placeholder for now because I have so much to write abuot 7×7 group, guarantee mortgage, whatever name they want to change to, but I want people in the meantime to have a fair warning to KEEP AWAY FROM THEM. I want to emphasize that nothing I write about below is an exageration or not factual. This is 100% true, please keep searching if you’re even considering working with these guys.
I’m not surprised I’m not the only one writing a negative review about 7×7 Group.
Notes for later:
Write about:
— Mickey had me send him around 10 different files/​documents for the mortgage approval and he decided to delete them because I sent them in separate emails
— the time that Mickey hung up on me (I think he forgot that day that he works in financial services and I was the client)
— Mickey went on vacation and didn’t tell anyone, 1 week before closing
— Mickey didn’t send in the purchase agreement to the bank which we had provided to him 45 days earlier therefore holding up the mortgage approval and delaying the closing date by 2 weeks
— Ken was no help either, basically the same unprofessional attitude that Mickey offered.
— Mickey threatened to call of the deal 1 week before closing because he couldn’t handle the stress of his job

Mark Wiener was an exceptional agent. I worked with him on a mortgage and a couple refinances. He was smarth, and thoughtful the whole way. He even came out with one of his co-​workers to help me with some specifics at my house (basically handyman work was done by them for free… wow) You will not go wrong with this guy, and you will definitely save money when you are done working with him.

If I could have a dozen more stars for Cecelia Tyeskey, it wouldn’t be enough. My wife and I just had the pleasure of working with her through a very challenging mortgage loan. From the start, before we had even met, Cecelia spent 30 minutes on the phone with me asking all the right questions and giving me all the right directions. Throughout the process, Cecelia’s honesty, warm professionalism and vast amount of experience continously showed. So very prompt with phone calls and emails, keeping us abreast of all the things we needed to know, even late evenings, it was evident how invested in our well-​being and satisfaction she was.
In my loan process, there were many snafu’s but with every curve Cecelia was able to adjust and give me all my options. In the end (which was all that mattered), she got us the most competitive mortgage rate and now we have our dream home. We are so very, very thankful we had the pleasure of working with Cecelia and without a doubt, you will too. Thank you Cecelia!

Call up Guarantee Mortgage or go to their website and find Tim Higbee. HE IS AWESOME! He was referred to me by my realtor (Todd Wiley — a great realtor if you’re looking for one!) and my experience with Tim was phenomenal. This was my first time buying a home, and Tim walked me through every step of the financing process and got me a great mortgage rate with the down payment that I could afford.
At one point in the deal the bank was dragging its feet and the seller wanted to pull out. Tim stayed on top of the lender, was great at keeping me calm and explaining my options, letting the seller know what was happening, and he worked VERY hard to make sure the deal went through.
From the moment I contacted him, Tim was professional, helpful, courteous, and clearly cared more about making sure I got the deal that best suited me than worrying about closing the sale. I could not have asked for a better mortgage guy and highly, highly recommend him to you. I promise you that when my next mortgage-​related need comes up, I will definitely be calling Tim again!

I had the pleasure of working with Natasha Lovas. She was incredibly attentive from my very first inquiry. She was helpful and very informative through the process. I was purchasing a TIC, so the bank made it a very long, drawn-​out process, but Natasha kept me updates at all times. She was also a great help to an out-​of-​stater about TICs! She coordinated very well with my real estate agent, Carlos Cabarcos at Vanguard Properties, and her associate, Shawn Leonard, was equally attentive.
I wouldn’t go anywhere else for assistance with a mortgage.

I was hoping to set an appointment with one of the brokers here. My case was picked up by CJ, but he was unavailable to meet with me. At this point he probably should have passed my case on to another broker in the office, but instead he said that he had family coming and asked if we could we meet up in a few weeks. This was a few months ago and no word from CJ or Guarantee. I guess Unilocal is feeding them enough clients.

CJ Kerls is the man. He was able to help me and my realtor put together a reasonable FHA loan with some pretty wacky requirements for out of pocket on my end.
The thing I liked most about Guarantee Mortgage is how technically adept they were. Over the course of about two months there were probably 100MB in attachments sent between us, but never once did I have to take time off of work to do something silly like go into their office to sign yet another redundant, unnecessary form.
If you’re looking for a mortgage broker that is on your side and really knows his stuff, look no further than CJ Kerls and Guarantee Mortgage.

I had the pleasure to work with June David recently on a refinance and could not have been more pleased with my experience. June is everything you would want in a loan broker. She is efficient, honest and great at thinking outside the box if the deal is not straightforward.
She is also very well connected and when I told her what I was interested in doing, she was able to get back to me within 48 hours with proposals from two banks. That is amazing in this market.
Throughout the whole process she kept me abreast of what was going on so I never felt like I need to follow up or chase her. June does her due diligence up front to make the process as seamless as possible. If you are in the market, I highly recommend June David for all your loan needs.