No. 1 Originator Shant Banosian called President of Rate

Shant Banosian, ranked the number 1 loan -originator in the country for at least five years per volume, assumes the role of president Aim the mortgagethe company announced on Tuesday. Victor Ciardelli remains the CEO of tariff companies.

Rate, previously known as a guaranteed rate before a rebrand in 2024, arranged as number 8 on the internal mortgage financing ranking of top investors in just under $ 40 billion. Banosian has been more than a decade as an executive vice-president of sale on rate, creating its Boston-based team in 2021 more than $ 2 billion. During his 20-year career, he has made more than 40,000 units and $ 9 billion in financed loans.

In his new role, Banosian said that he will use his success as a top -producing loan -originator to help other rate LOs grow their business and take market share. He sat down for an exclusive interview with editor -in -chief Sarah Wheeler to talk about his goals and prospects while playing the new role.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sarah Wheeler: How do you translate your success as an individual LO and with your team to the entire company?

Shant Banosian: My task as a president will really focus on doing everything I can do to make us the number 1 mortgage company in America. I will start making rate the absolute best place for every loan officer to work on – to find ways in which we can develop them, they give all the skills, the coaching, mentoring and the tools, so that they can have a great company, but also better from all their customers and all their partners.

It will be impossible for me to tackle every problem that there is, but luckily we already have a great platform. In my opinion I go to work on the company that has the best platform, that I was lucky to go for the ride since back to 2012, so I feel that I get the keys to already like a high -performance vehicle. But my biggest focus initially becomes the loan officials. And nobody understands modern legal remedies better than me because I am one of them.

SW: What is the biggest challenge for loan officials?

SB: Some challenges are affordability, lack of home inventory and slow sales. So what that means for me is that we have to give loan officials a platform to better train their customers, to combat the combination of rates that are rising and house prices rise – you must enable them to have them prepared on the market.

It is also very difficult to get an offer that is accepted in most markets. There are several offers in many of the markets, with competing bidding wars and people who are willing to quickly and refrain from unforeseen events. So you have to give your customers everything you are on and we concentrate here is certainty and speed, the use of our tools such as the same day mortgage and all the different technologies that go to our platform.

The tools we use enable us to be really available to our customers when they need it the most, when it matters the most – whether they are nights or weekends. With the platform, our loan officers can be mobile and be of better service of our customers. It enables us to better serve our partners, including brokers. We know that every deal matters, so we have to be part of their team to help them do more business.

There is also another challenge. We have been in a home recession for quite some time, but at some point that recession will end. The sale of home will rise, the inventory will increase, and suddenly you will lower the rates – and all those things can theoretically happen at the same time. So what is a better time than to get everything perfect and really sharpening for every facet of our company to ensure that when that time strikes, that everyone is ready, prepared and able to take advantage of the market opportunities for us. That is a big challenge that nobody is talking about, but I am thinking about it.

SW: You have spoken here and in earlier interviews about the role of technology in your success. What distinguishes the technology from Rate?

SB: Our technology is great. You can now receive a complete approval of the loan within a few hours, such as a real approval of the loan. One of the things I learned early in my career is how important access and availability for your customers and your brokers are, and that is what our technology enables us to do. And it enables us not only to be accessible and available, but to be able to provide real -time, accurate information with which people can make life -changing decisions.

We are constantly re -investing in the technology here with speed and it has made a huge difference. I was able to scale my company here when I arrived here for the first time in 2012 with $ 47 million to more than a billion dollars in a year. And if you close more than $ 2 billion, without having worked for more hours, without burning out – I was able to work less and I was able to grow my family. That is another part that is really important to me. I want people to be able to scale their affairs, have more success, have more impact in their communities, while they also have a great quality of life.

The whole point of success in life is to be able to have great success at work and to let that happen to your personal life and vice versa. So we want to create an environment where you can have the best of both, and the technology does that too. It gives you freedom, it gives you fulfillment. I think that is really important.

SW: That balance of work and personal life seems a very different vision than some lenders who have leaders. What else do you think of your success?

SB: I am generally an optimistic and positive person and I think that is a reason why I am successful. I’m looking for the chance in every market. The number of loans has shrunk a lot in recent years – that is really terrible. For the people in it, however, that means many more opportunities. I did a billion dollars in 2024 when there was less home sales than there had been in decades – in the light of rates in the 7S and 8s. One of the reasons is because there is less competition.

People are distracted to listen to the noise, where I just concentrate on the possibility that is obvious, and the market share that I could now get and win. We have done more than in years. Such as 2020, 2016, 2017, 2018 – where there were more home sales and lower rates. So I am usually very optimistic. I think that is the right way to approach life – it attracts the right kind of partners, the right kind of customers. And hopefully it will help me in this case to attract owners -originators who want their business to grow. For some they will look at some of the numbers and think it is impossible. I just don’t think it’s impossible. One of my goals is to let more people come to this company, and more people to take advantage of this great opportunity we have in the housing market.

SW: How are you going to assess your success in this role?

SB: It is about how happy the loan assignments are. If they come to work every day and feel that they are supported – authorized with the right training, the coaching, the mentoring, the development of skills – and they can change all those feelings in success, I will ultimately judge it.

I want to help in developing and maintaining the highest number of top producers. Of course I want to make the no. 1 mortgage company in the country. But if I do all those other things first, all those other things will come. One of the biggest reasons why I play this new role is that this company has been super, super, super great for me. It has been life -changing for me in terms of some things I have been able to achieve, so if I can just do a little in terms of only sharing all the success I have had and passing it on to everyone, that would be success. I want to share all the things that this company has meant for me – all the things I have learned, all the experiences, all the mistakes I have made, all the success I have had here with the team, and hopefully that is able to raise the expectations, the standards, the standards, the opportunities, the opportunities, the possibilities for us all for us. So that’s my degree of success.

I know how to do the mortgage company. One of the ways in which things have changed is not only technology, it is that your impact is ultimately determined by your audience. And I am going to do everything to teach the team and to help the team to increase their audience and to influence as much as possible. Whether that is social media, personal, events, database, communication; Whether it is per e -mail, text message, telephone, call, personal, as if we do everything we can to increase our audience here and just be market leaders in terms of the way we market ourselves and forbid us. That has had a huge impact for me to be able to create this brand for myself. My goal is to help do the same here.

SW: Victor Ciardelli will still be CEO – How are you going to work with him?

SB: Victor doesn’t go anywhere! Victor is CEO and president of Assess companieswho has 15 companies. I am becoming the president of tariff mortgage. Victor is still our visionary, he is our leader. I am going to work directly with Victor on everything, but he is just as focused, motivated and determined as I have ever seen him, and I am looking forward to working with him every day.