Thanks for that description and I now see what you are not doing correctly.
When you are placing the type you get a registration point either Left, Center or Right under the text as well as an underscore. While you are still in that mode you can hit CMD (Ctrl on Windows) and you are temporarily entering the Transform tool. After you let go of the key the "Bounding Box" disappears because you have left the Transform tool. To enter the Transform Tool hit Cmd+T which is "Free Transform" and you can resize your text layer. You have to Commit to the changes by hitting Enter after you make the transformation or if it is not to your liking you can hit Escape to exit the Transformation.
Smart Guides do not apply in this case though I have never used them in Photoshop, just Illustrator which is why I thought initially this was an Illustrator question.
