2025 Rankings
No. 1 Top Dollar Volume
Location: Waltham, Massachusetts
Years in Business: 16
2024 Production
Closed Loans: 1,594
Total Volume: $1 billion
Purchase Share: 84%
Refi Share: 16%
Shant Banosian is proud of being a successful team player. Now he’s taking a new role as one of his company’s top coaches. Banosian, Scotsman Guide’s 2025 Top Dollar Volume leader for the fourth time in his career, was named president of Rate in early March, joining CEO Victor Ciardelli as part of the company’s top leadership team.
The news for Banosian comes after an impressive 2024 when he and his team originated just over $1 billion in loan volume, a major one-year increase for the Massachusetts native who was second last year in the Scotsman Guide rankings list with a $581 million in production. Banosian said increasing the origination numbers so dramatically came down to him and his team putting in the work to serve their partners and build the company’s brand.
“Every year there are major headwinds in the business,” Banosian said. “So, I really made it a point over the course of the past two or three years to get out in front of my real estate agent partners, especially in person. I spent time on education and relationship building. I made it a point to get out in front of my clients by utilizing social media more than ever before.”
You can find Banosian on just about every social media platform from Instagram to X to YouTube, sharing his life’s journey or talking to top loan officers about the lessons they’ve learned in the mortgage business. His aim is to increase his audience and influence.
“The secret sauce we have is that it’s really about execution.”
The company has also embraced technology to meet borrower needs and reduce the time it takes to close a mortgage. In 2024, as mortgage rates jumped and home prices rose, Banosian and his team focused on educating clients about all the loan options available.
Tips of the Trade
As an originator, you need to set a goal and then develop the roadmap to complete the goal. For example, if your goal is to reach $50 million in originations this year, you need to develop all the metrics that will get you there. You should know how many partners you need and how many meetings you should have. You should know how many applications you need to process on a daily and weekly basis, how many locks you must achieve weekly. You need to map out your success and you must be willing to put in the work. So, it is really about knowing your numbers inside and out in terms of the metrics that will help you reach your goal.
“We spent more time than ever with clients on the phone helping to make sure they were prepared, empowered and confident and ready to move fast because of all the challenges of affordability and rates and home prices,” Banosian said. “We really focused on making sure we were communicating at a high level and always available to our partners. Then, it was doing things to separate our clients from all the competition out there and put them in a position where they were going to win.”
All these aspects of the business came together to create a stellar 2024. While it wasn’t the most volume his team has ever produced (he funded $2 billion in total loan volume in 2021), Banosian still sees it as his most successful year because it was the most challenging market he and his team had ever faced.
People often ask Banosian for the key to his success, but he says there really isn’t a secret at all. Instead, it’s about hard work and constant focus.
“People are looking for a magic pill or a big secret,” he said. “The secret sauce we have is that it’s really about execution. We had a plan, and we worked every day to make it happen and it resulted in us having, in my eyes, our best year in 2024.”
As president, Banosian is taking what he’s learned during his 13 years with Rate and sharing it with the rest of the company. He is planning to continue collaborating with his team in the Waltham, Mass., office. Their 2025 goal is to reach $1.4 billion in originations. He will also be traveling to company offices around the country to help employees execute every aspect of the mortgage origination process at the highest level.
“I think we are the most innovative mortgage company in the country, and my biggest focus for our originators is having them adopt the CEO mindset,” Banosian said. “I want to help them think of this business like a CEO or entrepreneur and think about how they can scale and grow their business, while having the best work-life balance possible.
“The next thing is to help them become rainmakers. These are people who are growing their business, building their audience and increasing their influence within the communities where they do business. We are going to help them do that.”
