Detroit-based homeownership platform Rocket Cos. has completed its acquisition of Redfin in Seattle, bringing the most-visited real estate brokerage website together with America’s largest mortgage lender.
“I’ve used Redfin every day for the last 20 years. It helped me find and fall in love with my first home, completely changing how I thought about real estate,” says Varun Krishna, CEO of Rocket Cos. “The Redfin team is best-in-class in building a product experience focused on simplicity. It was a perfect fit for Rocket’s vision of what the homeownership experience should be.”
The companies today also introduced Rocket Preferred Pricing. Clients who finance their home through Rocket Mortgage and buy a home listed by a Redfin agent or purchase with the help of a Redfin agent will have a one percentage point reduction in their interest rate for the first year of their loan or receive a lender credit at closing, up to $6,000.
Rocket Preferred Pricing is available to qualified clients buying a home with conventional, FHA or VA loans. Rocket Mortgage and Redfin plan to launch additional products and services for homebuyers, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers in the coming months.
Redfin has adopted a refreshed brand identity and look and feel of “Redfin Powered by Rocket” to further unify the homebuying experience.
“The gulf between the American Dream of homeownership and reality has never been wider,” says Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin. “The reason Rocket and Redfin came together was to bridge that gap, so that the people who spend their days dreaming on Redfin.com can easily use Rocket financing to own their dream.”
Morgan Stanley & Co. acted as financial advisor and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison acted as legal counsel to Rocket Cos. Goldman Sachs & Co acted as financial advisor and Fenwick & West acted as legal counsel to Redfin.
For more information visit rocketcompanies.com and redfin.com.
In Related News: Rocket Cos. completed the previously announced simplification of its organizational and capital structure.
On June 30, Rocket Cos. collapsed its “Up-C” structure, eliminated its high-vote/low-vote structure and reduced its classes of common stock from four to two (the “Up-C Collapse”). Public stockholders will continue to hold their existing common stock as Class A shares. Dan Gilbert and other Rock Holdings Inc. (RHI) stockholders will hold common stock in Rocket Cos. directly as Class L shares.
The Up-C Collapse simplifies Rocket’s organizational structure, enhances equity liquidity, improves its ability to use its common stock as currency in acquisition transactions and creates a clearer corporate profile.
