Growing up with a real estate agent mom and CPA/chief financial officer dad helped forge the direction of Katie Hammes’ career. “By working in mortgage lending, I’m combining their passions, financing and real estate,” shares Hammes, vice president of mortgage lending with Guaranteed Rate Affinity. Also with 13 years in residential lending and five years in business banking, she continues to share that passion with them.

A recipient of Guaranteed Rate Affinity’s President’s Club award for the past three consecutive years, Hammes is a 2024 Scotsman Guide Top Female Originator, a four-time Scotsman Guide Top Originator and a six-time Five Star Mortgage Professional. She values trust, communication and integrity in her work. An expert in home financing, she loves strategizing with clients and agents to compete in multiple-offer situations, where cash is king. “One of my clients won a bidding war for having ‘the cleanest offer,” even though it wasn’t the highest offer,” she says.

Hammes attended Saint Louis University, where she continued playing Division I women’s soccer after recovering from two torn ACLs. She and her husband, who is director of the North Shore United Soccer Club, have three daughters. Hammes feels blessed to utilize multiple tools, like first-time-buyer, conventional, jumbo, VA, FHA and specialized loan products, to help clients finance properties. “I believe that I was destined to help people with their financial goals,” she says, “to build wealth through real estate.”

Guaranteed Rate Affinity, Inc. is a private corporation organized under the laws of the state of Delaware. It has no affiliation with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture or any other government agency.