Rocket Companies has completed its acquisition of Redfin. The companies said they expect the $1.75 billion deal, announced in March, will help make the homebuying process more efficient and less costly.
“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,” Rocket Companies CEO Varun Krishna said in a release. “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.”
Rocket Close CEO Nicole Beattie said it was hard to find the words to describe how proud she was of the deal being finalized.
“Leading the Rocket integration team and working alongside the incredible team at Redfin truly been a career highlight,” Beattie said in a LinkedIn post. “I’ve met so many great people who are now friends, discovered new things about myself, and had a front row seat to Rocket history. It really doesn’t get much better than that.”
She thanked Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman for being a partner with her through the acquisition. “Learning the ropes of a new industry through the eyes of a true trailblazer has been something special,” Beattie said.
“The gulf between the American Dream of homeownership and reality has never been wider,” Kelman said. “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.”
The companies also unveiled a new feature, Rocket Preferred Pricing, available to qualified homebuyers with conventional, FHA or VA loans who buy with a Redfin agent and finance through Rocket Mortgage. Buyers will be able to choose between a 1 percent lower interest rate for the first year of their loan or up to $6,000 in lender credits from Rocket Mortgage.
Rocket Companies also announced it completed the previously announced simplification of its organizational and capital structure, collapsing its “Up-C” structure, eliminating its high-vote / low-vote structure and reducing its classes of common stock from four to two. Public stockholders will continue to hold their existing common stock as Class A shares. Rocket Companies founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert and other Rock Holdings Inc. stockholders will hold common stock in Rocket Companies directly as Class L shares.
Rocket Companies said the changes enhance equity liquidity, improve its ability to use its common stock as currency in acquisition transactions and create a clearer corporate profile.