Rocket Is Acquiring Redfin’s Huge Flow Of Purchase Leads. Can The Mortgage Giant Convert Them?

Rocket Companies hopes to close a $1.75 billion deal to acquire resi brokerage and portal Redfin in Q2 or Q3 2025.

It seems that everyone in mortgage and real estate has an opinion about Rocket Mortgage‘s pending $1.75 billion deal for Redfin. At the ICE Experience 2025 conference, the halls of the Wynn casino were replete with downright spicy takes.

“It won’t do much now because their market shares are relatively small, but in a couple years they’re going to have a wall of scalps,” said one attendee. “They’re going to pick [other lenders] off because they’re actually, legitimately vertically integrated.”

“Real estate is still a physical, relationship-driven business,” said another. “Spending nearly $2 billion on a money-losing tech company with entry-level agents doesn’t change that.”

Put simply, Rocket believes the combination of core strengths and synergies between the two companies makes this gambit a worthwhile one.

After the deal was announced, CEO Varun Krishna told investors that he expects a lift in purchase mortgage growth after the deal closes. He rattled off some compelling statistics: Redfin attracts 50 million potential homebuyers each month (mostly on mobile). Rocket connects with 2 million purchase contracts annually when they explore affordability and mortgage financing. In fact, he said, 40% of homebuyers start their journey by determining how much home they can afford.

“These are highly valuable buyers and sellers with a strong intent to transact. When these clients are then connected with the best agents and the best loan officers, it creates a virtuous cycle. Redfin’s 2,200 lead agents and 5,000 partner agents are among the very best in the industry. Now, by joining forces with Rocket’s 3,000 loan officers and expansive mortgage broker network, we’re building a highly efficient funnel that matches motivated buyers with top professionals.”

Krishna, who has previously described Rocket’s goal to “become the Apple of homeownership,” also highlighted the companies’ plans for an integrated end-to-end ecosystem in which Rocket and Redfin each serve functions in home search, rentals, home financing and title, loan servicing and closing. Essentially, it’s the holy grail of mortgage and real estate tech.

In the presentation to investors, Rocket claimed that with a simple process where the buyer only needs to interact with Rocket and Redfin, total client costs could decrease by 50% to $20,000. What consumer wouldn’t be tempted?
And then there’s a funnel that features 62 million monthly visitors, 3 million buy/sell contracts, along with 15,000 loan officers and agents to serve contracts that could result in $200 billion-plus in addressable purchase originations per year, Rocket told investors. That’s roughly one-in-six purchase mortgage originations. Such a scenario would see Rocket, which currently lags behind arch-rival United Wholesale Mortgage, capture about 16% of the purchase market.

Rocket also expects to achieve about $200 million or more in run-rate synergies by 2027, starting with a $60 million boost in attaching mortgage and title transactions to Redfin’s real estate brokerage transactions and likewise, attaching real estate brokerage to mortgage clients in Rocket’s funnel ($140 million in savings would come on the expense side).

But becoming the Apple of homeownership hinges on Rocket boasting a top-notch capture rate.

In a YouTube debrief between MortgageCoach‘s Dave Savage and Brian Hale of Mortgage Advisory Partners, Hale characterized Redfin’s current 25%-27% capture rate as “admirable.” With Rocket steering the ship, he added, that number should improve further.

“There’s still going to be deals out on the streets for these guys, but I do think they will continue to integrate their technology into, ‘Push button, Get home,” Hale said. “It’s a very compelling sell for a lot of consumers who want to do it all on their own. But the vast majority of homeowners look for someone they can touch, trust, see and talk to, too.”

Julia Brown, the founder of Teloscope Advisors and the former senior vice president of M&A and Integration at rival lender Lower, is doubtful that the deal will make a splash on the originations landscape in the near-term.

“Redfin’s brokerage makes up just a fraction of a percentage of the active real estate licenses nationwide, so no, I don’t expect a surge in origination volume to the Rocket brokers,” she said. “There may be a bit of a network effect, but lead flow relief would be a by-product of the acquisition, not a deal objective.”

Brown says the acquisition is more like “a budding garden that will grow over time” rather than instantaneous.

“When you make it easier for the current to flow, the current responds. They will gain market share over time,” she said. “Rocket is seeking to consolidate power and lead the end-to-end customer experience of homeownership.”

The potential for a changed homebuyer experience

Michael Kelleher, the co-founder of Easy Mortgage Apps, says the move has the potential to change the entire home buying experience, particularly given Rocket and Redfin’s use of AI.

“Rocket’s acquisition of Redfin is a strategic move to integrate digital platforms in real estate, creating a seamless marketplace that connects search, brokerage, and financing with capital markets,” Kelleher shared. “Eyeballs has been the number one currency for mortgage and it has to be in a native app…The mortgage and real estate industries do not understand the confidence level of the shift in what this market will be in 15 years has changed from maybe to certain.”

“Over the past year or two we’ve seen an increased preference amongst consumers for a less transactional and more advisory interaction with mortgage lenders,” commented Bruce Gehrke, senior director of lending intelligence at J.D. Power. “We’re up to seeing 43-44% of all borrowers reaching out to lenders before they even start looking for a home. I think what Rocket amongst other things is doing is looking to engage, to get other alternative methodologies besides marketing, to get to some of those folks earlier. An operation like Redfin will have folks coming in to start to research houses that are available in different areas and things of that nature. And so this is an opportunity to get further up into that sales funnel.”

Gehrke says Rocket’s past marketing campaigns have shaped their ability to potentially take on a heavier conversion rate through the Redfin deal.

“Rocket’s ‘Push button, Get mortgage‘ campaign sort of changed the refinance dynamic out there to some degree, and they were able to do that at scale. So I think one of the things that they’re able to do, and have experience doing, is executing at scale, which is something that has been missed in some of these other partnerships that have been attempted in the past. Here’s somebody with experience in how to do this, drive it at high volumes, and do it successfully, which is key to this conversion.”

He argued that Redfin’s own ability to squeeze out conversions offers upside potential, but their consumer data is just as appealing to Rocket.

“Redfin will have a lot of data, along with Rocket which has other properties out in the financial planning and financial wellness areas that they can pull data from to get a better sense of consumer behavior, which is only going to enhance conversion rate,” Gehrke explained. “Overall, I think it’s a warning shot for a lot of lenders that just going with the status quo is not a good strategy. You have to start looking at what the future is and how you’re going to get the borrowers earlier and earlier.”

Competing against Zillow

The deal inevitably now makes Rocket a direct competitor to real estate marketplace Zillow, the clear market leader in the home search space. Zillow, which has been ramping up its mortgage business, attracted an average of 233 million unique monthly users across its apps and websites during Q3 2024, far in excess of Redfin’s numbers.

“I think what Zillow will have to do is try to figure out the best balance because they are heavily tied into the existing real estate business with their revenue streams,” Gehrke said. “But I think at the end of the day, the key here is buyer and prospect data and getting access to it earlier and getting access to those potential customers earlier. So the real question is, how they go about maximizing that and converting those leads, not just into real estate leads for somebody else, but mortgage lending leads for themselves?”

Gehrke pointed out that the Redfin and Rocket deal presents opportunities to refine a large financial transaction, such as educating borrowers and customer ROI.

“We see the more successful real estate and mortgage companies talk about this customer-for-life mentality, and it trades over into that servicing process. The big servicers are then using that customer data and that customer interaction, to try to lock down that next loan.”