Rocket Mortgage
| File:Ql logo w home.gif | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Finance and Mortgage |
| Founded | 1985 |
| Headquarters | Livonia, MI, the United States |
Key people | Dan Gilbert, Founder and Chairman William Emerson, CEO (since 2002) Patrick McInnis, President (since 2002) |
| Products | Mortgage |
Number of employees | 2,450 |
| Website | www.quickenloans.com |
Quicken Loans Corporation is an online retail home mortgage lending firm in the US. Quicken Loans Inc. is comprised of the Quicken Loans and Rock Financial, and Title Source, a settlement service provider. Quicken Loans closed $18 billion in residential mortgage loans in 2006. The company employs about 2,450 workers and is headquartered in Livonia, Michigan.
History
Quicken Loans, originally Rock Financial Corporation, was founded in 1985 by Dan Gilbert and Ron Berman and soon became one of the largest independent mortgage companies in the country. In May 1998, Gilbert took Rock Financial public, launching a successful IPO underwritten by Bear Stearns and Prudential Securities.
In December 1999, Intuit Inc. (makers of QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Quicken) purchased Rock Financial. The company was renamed Quicken Loans. In June 2002, Gilbert led a small group of private investors in purchasing the Quicken Loans subsidiary back from Intuit.
In the Winter of 2006-2007, speculation was that Dan Gilbert would announce plans to relocate his headquarters to Detroit.[citation needed]
As of September 2007, no further information on this speculation have been announced.
2007 Credit Crunch
In August of 2007 the entire mortgage industry faced a crisis in obtaining new credit from banking institutions and hedge funds. In response to that Quicken Loans stopped doing all:[1]
- Second Mortgages
- Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC)
- Stated Income Loans
- Alt-A Products
- Deferred Interest Loans
Gilbert is quoted as saying that Quicken is active in closing "plain vanilla loans".
Employment Levels
While Quicken Loans has not had the massive layoffs of other companies in the industry employment levels have dropped drastically due to attrition. With having little or no new hires from June of 2007 until at least the beginning of 2008 and having a huge turnover rate, employment levels as of September of 2007 dropped below 3,000 people. The Department of Labor and Economic Growth in the State of Michigan currently gives a tax credit of $16,000 per new hire.
Class Action Lawsuit
Quicken Loans Inc. is currently the defendant in a major class action lawsuit. This was filed against the company on behalf of employees who worked as loan consultants for any Quicken office within the past three years. The suit alleges that Quicken is in violation of the Fair Labor Act for failing to pay the plaintiffs overtime for working beyond a 40-hour work week.[2]
Employee Wages
Dan Gilbert has spent $25,000,000 on a new practice facility for his basketball team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. [3] For a new Salesperson to earn enough to pay for the facility they would have to close 125,000 loans. Or about 342 per day for a year.
References
- ^ "Gilbert: Mortgage squeeze could be blessing for Quicken". The Detroit Free Press. 2007-8-16. Retrieved 2007-8-16.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help) - ^ Dybis, Karen (February 10), "Former Quicken Loans workers file suit", The Detroit News
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|date=and|year=/|date=mismatch (help) - ^ Dybis, Karen (September 19), "Former Quicken Loans workers file suit", Sports Illustrated
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