The Yahoo view: Guild is a good mortgage lender option with its extensive assortment of loans, including a 1% down mortgage, loans with non-traditional credit approval, and more. However, Guild Mortgage falls short in customer satisfaction.
Guild Mortgage is not one for bells and whistles. Its website is far from exciting. But what Guild lacks in flash, it makes up for in substance. Guild has a massive selection of loan options, whether you’re a first-time home buyer or a homeowner with equity to tap.
Dig deeper: Everything first-time home buyers need to know
Key benefits
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A 1% down payment program lowers the bar on homeownership — and includes 2% down payment assistance and a 1% buydown of your rate for a year. This program is subject to income limits.
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A Payment Protection Program allows a refinance with no lender fees if interest rates move lower before the end of 2025.
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Income-qualified first-time home buyers get a $2,000 gift card to The Home Depot and $1,250 to $2,500 toward closing costs with a 3% down mortgage.
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The BuyNow Advantage gives home buyers the advantage of making an all-cash offer in competitive real estate markets. Guild pays cash for the home while your loan is still in process, and you can even move into the house by renting it until your mortgage closes.
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Borrowers without a traditional credit score can qualify under the Complete Rate program with alternative credit such as rent history, utilities and car insurance payment history, and bank statement analysis.
Need to know
Visit Guild’s website to get started.
Guild Mortgage offers the following types of home loans:
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Conventional loans
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FHA loans
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VA loans
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USDA loans
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Purchase mortgages
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Refinance loans
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Cash-out refinance loans
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Fixed-rate mortgages
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Adjustable-rate home loans
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Jumbo loans
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Construction loans
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Second home loans
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Nonqualified mortgages
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Energy efficient mortgages
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Renovation loans
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1%-down payment mortgages
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Buydown loans
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Bridge loans
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Manufactured home mortgages
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Piggyback loans
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ITIN mortgages
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Medical professional loans
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HELOCs
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Home equity loans
Guild Mortgage does not offer the following types of home loans:
Learn more: What is a bridge loan, and how does it work?
Guild’s first-time home buyer page provides solid information about the mortgage process. It also includes some foundational personal finance articles on budgeting and credit.
There are plenty of “take action now” opportunities on the page: You can search for a loan officer at a branch office near you, fill out a contact form to get things rolling, or go ahead and start a loan application.
First-timers will find plenty of answers to any questions built into the page. It’s not fancy, but it seems to get the job done.
As mentioned above, several loan programs are available to first-time home buyers. You can spend quite a bit of time exploring your options. Guild offers a basic decision tree to help you narrow down your choices and find the best fit for your situation.
Dip deeper: The best mortgage lenders for first-time home buyers
A cash-out refinance may not be on the top of your list of ways to draw some of the value out of your home, at least not until mortgage rates drop substantially. But Guild offers that choice.
Perhaps a better option would be a home equity loan or a home equity line of credit. Guild has both.
The tap-cash-as-you-need-it HELOC from Guild allows you to access up to 95% of your home’s equity with loan amounts up to $750,000. While HELOCs often have interest rates that vary over time, Guild offers a fixed-rate option, too. Props to Guild for revealing the minimum credit score to qualify: 660.
Keep learning: How do fixed-rate HELOCs work?
A home equity loan program allows you to borrow a lump sum of 90% of your home’s equity up to $500,000, with a minimum FICO score of 660.
Guild HELOC and home equity loan fees
No fee or rate information was available on the Guild website for either equity product.
Read more: HELOC vs. home equity loan
As for mortgage rates — Guild offers none online. When you click on the link “Primary residence mortgage rates,” you get a “What are?” explainer article. No sample interest rates. Same thing with the “Refinance rates” link.
Look, we know the generic rates most lenders publish are often of limited use. They are typically based on broad assumptions and frequently include origination fees and discount points to make them seem more attractive. Many set a high bar with credit scores and down payments, too.
However, lenders that publish mortgage rates, especially if they aren’t sweetened with fees and exceptional credit hurdles, can help set a borrower’s expectations and provide a starting point for shopping for the best mortgage lenders.
Read more: How to get the lowest mortgage rates
Yahoo Finance uses 2023 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data comprised of 10 million home loan applications to score mortgage lenders on issued mortgage rates and total loan costs. We score each lender on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest).
For example, regarding mortgage rates, a lender with a lower score charged a higher-than-median mortgage interest rate for loans issued in 2023. A higher score would indicate that a lender granted lower-than-median home loan interest rates to borrowers in 2023.
With total home loan costs, a lower score would indicate that a lender charged higher-than-median total home loan costs in 2023. A high rating would mean that a mortgage lender offered lower-than-median all-in home loan costs in 2023.
What this means: Guild offered a higher-than-median mortgage rate of 6.75% and a higher-than-median total loan cost of $8,069.99 to borrowers in 2023.
Clicking on the “Get prequalified for purchase” button gets straight to business — if you are successful in getting past a pop-up contact form. Not an easy task.
There’s no “here’s what to expect” or “get these documents together” introduction. It seems you are generally guided to contact a loan officer, but the online application is there. It begins by asking for your name and email address, then the type of loan you’re looking for and the state where the property is located.
By the fourth step, you’re asked who your loan officer is.
It feels like the “application” is just a lead-generation form, but to be fair, we didn’t go through each step. However, there appear to be only five steps to the application, and then a “Review and continue” function is listed.
There are only mentions of loan prequalification on the Guild website, not the higher standard of preapproval.
Many lenders make a big deal out of online applications, promoting fast preapprovals, or an average time to complete the application. True to Guild’s understated approach, no such claims are made.
Learn more: How to get a mortgage in 2025
Guild has a well-stocked shelf of calculators. A half-dozen tools will help you calculate a mortgage payment, refinance, and even closing costs. A couple of interesting calculators we haven’t seen often:
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Prequalification calculator. This calculator sounds a little better than it is. We were expecting a deeper dive into loan approval parameters, including things like a credit score. Still, this calculator does help you get an idea of your debt-to-income ratio.
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Net proceeds of a home sale. This is a pretty interesting tool for determining just how much you might clear on a house sale after fees and costs.
Again, as with most of the Guild website, the calculators are pretty dry graphically. And perhaps there could be a bit more user-friendly explanations of terms.
Dig deeper: How much house can I afford? Use the Yahoo Finance affordability calculator.
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Guild earns our highest 5-star rating in the Affordability category, Yahoo Finance’s measure of available loan products for a wide range of borrowers.
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Online features are another stand-out feature. There are ample educational resources and tools. We give this category 4 stars.
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Guild disappoints when it comes to mortgage rate transparency. There is none. No sample rates earns 1 star.
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Loan costs and interest rates are both above average, based on 2023 HMDA data. A mortgage from Guild might be a little pricier than some competitors.
Learn more: How mortgage lender fees add to your closing costs
Guild Mortgage is a great option if you want a low-down-payment mortgage because it has a 1% down payment loan program. But so does Rocket Mortgage. And while Rocket matches the 2% grant that Guild offers, Guild also provides a 1% interest rate buydown — in essence, a 1% discount on your mortgage rate — for one year. So Guild might be your better choice.
However, Guild Mortgage ranks below average in J.D. Power’s customer satisfaction survey, while Rocket’s above-average score is better. For service, Rocket Mortgage could have the edge.
Bank of America is a top choice for borrowers looking for financial assistance. Still, Guild Mortgage has the added flexibility of considering alternative credit, such as rent history, for those without traditional credit histories.
For home buyers looking for an edge in competitive real estate markets, Bank of America excludes student loans from debt limits for borrowers who are medical professionals. However, Guild Mortgage gives buyers the advantage of making an all-cash offer on a home with its BuyNow Advantage program listed above.
It’s a good idea to shop multiple mortgage providers to match your needs with the best lender.
Guild is an independent, direct lender and loan servicing company that is not owned by a bank. Its parent company is Guild Holdings Company, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker $GHLD.
Guild Mortgage was founded in 1960 by Martin Gleich in San Diego. He retired in 2007. It originally financed homes built by the American Housing Guild. The company now has over 5,200 employees.
Many mortgage lenders sell their loans to servicing companies that collect payments from borrowers and manage the escrow account. Guild services most of the loans that it originates.
Methodology:
Yahoo Finance reviews and scores mortgage lenders with quintile scoring in five primary categories: 1) Interest rates. Using 2023 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data comprised of 10 million home loan applications, we score mortgage lenders on issued mortgage rates below or above the annual median of reporting lenders. 2) Affordability. A measure of loan product availability and the willingness of a lender to offer government-backed loans, low down payments, down payment assistance, and consideration of nontraditional credit. 3) Loan costs. HMDA data is again analyzed, and lenders are rated based on total loan costs compared to the annual median. 4) Rate transparency. The ability of a website user to obtain a mortgage interest rate estimate. We score lenders based on whether rates are enhanced with discount points or high credit score requirements, disclaimers revealing rate assumptions, sample advertised rates, and whether adjustable or no discount point rate estimates are available. 5) Online features. An analysis of the educational material, calculators, and additional resources available to users.
Review of Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) data on regulatory actions can trigger a penalty to the score of any lender with a consumer mortgage-related administrative or enforcement action within the past five years.
Advertisers or sponsorships do not influence ratings.
Editorial disclosure for mortgages:
The information in this article has not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. The details on financial products, including interest rates and fees, are accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the lender’s website for the most current information. This site doesn’t include all currently available offers.
This article was edited by Laura Grace Tarpley.
