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Guild Mortgage’s focus on homebuyers and strong loan officer recruiting efforts helped it grow its mortgage originations by 57 percent last year — and swing from a $39 million 2023 loss to a $97 million 2024 profit, the company reported Thursday.
At $24 billion, Guild’s 2024 mortgage production — including $6.7 billion in Q4 — marked the San Diego-based lender’s biggest year since the pandemic-fueled refinancing boom of 2020 and 2021.
Purchase mortgages represented 88 percent of Guild’s business, compared to 72 percent for the industry as a whole — a crucial metric in a year when elevated mortgage rates continued to weigh on refinancing.
“Our focus on the purchase market, with a community-focused, customer-for-life approach, combined with our strategy of retaining servicing rights, allowed us to generate consistent cash flow growth, even in the current rate environment,” Guild CEO Terry Schmidt said, in a statement. “We are particularly pleased with our organic recruiting efforts, as our brand strength and integrated platforms continue to attract top-producing loan officers.”
Shares in Guild, which in the last 12 months have traded for as little as $11.21 and as much as $18.25, closed at $13.10 before Thursday’s earnings release and were largely unchanged in after-hours trading.
Guild’s best year for originations since refi boom
Source: Guild Holdings Co. earnings reports.
After going public in 2020, Guild had its biggest year ever, as mortgage rates dropped to historic lows during the pandemic and a refinancing boom helped drive $36.9 billion in originations.
Now Guild’s focus on homebuyers is helping it bounce back. After dropping to $15.3 billion in 2023, mortgage production rebounded to levels the lender had never achieved before the pandemic.
“Our performance demonstrates our proven approach of investing through market downturns to position Guild for long term growth,” Schmidt said.
Guild’s servicing portfolio has doubled since 2018
Source: Guild Holdings Co. earnings reports.
While rising mortgage rates slowed Guild’s loan originations, it continued to grow its mortgage servicing rights portfolio (MSRs) — loans that it collects payments on as a service to investors.
At $93 billion as of Dec. 31, Guild’s MSR portfolio is 9 percent bigger than it was a year ago, and has more than doubled since 2018.
In addition to generating $275 million in loan servicing fees in 2024, Guild’s in-house servicing platform gives the lender the inside track when existing clients are ready to refinance their mortgage or take out another purchase loan.
Guild reported a Q4 refinance recapture rate of 53 percent — meaning more than half of its servicing customers who refinanced chose Guild. Guild’s purchase recapture rate was 26 percent, “which aligns with the company’s focus on customer service and its customer-for-life strategy.”
From $39M 2023 loss to $97.1M 2024 profit
Source: Guild Holdings Co. earnings reports.
At $1.05 billion, 2024 revenue was up 60 percent from 2023, but down 10 percent from 2022, when Guild generated $1.16 in revenue and $329 million in net income.
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