We had worked with Guaranteed Rate previously and had a fantastic experience then. So it was a no-brainer to use them again. While Dan was always available and had a good team with him, we did run into issues in terms of lack of communication between all of the parties, and not alerting us early on that we would be in risk of missing our original closing date set out in the real estate contract. As we were selling our existing home and needed the proceeds for our new home, the cadence of the sale and purchase needed to be coordinated so that we weren't 'homeless.' While Dan was aware of this, he took the closing date agreed-to on the contract as a suggestion. The result of that was that we closed a week and a half later, causing us to have to manage a move and figure out a living situation for that week, which also caused stress and anxiety on both our part and that of the seller. In the end, everything worked out well, but if we had to do it again, we would have asked our real estate agent for a recommendation on a particular person - not just a company - that we should use.
One person I would like to call out is Marla Brown at Guaranteed Rate. She works on Dan's team and literally moved heaven & earth to close our home as soon as possible once she was aware of the situation. She was extremely communicative and advocated on our behalf to get things through the system faster and correctly. We believe we were able to close only a week and a half later because of her.