![]() ![]() “Ultimately, they have so much data that they could use it for other ways to make money.” “Rocket has really been a data and technology company for a long time now,” said Matt Gouge, a mortgage broker in Sacramento. The other is that Rocket is throwing its hat in an exclusive ring to be a one-stop shop for homebuyers.Ĭonsumers know Rocket best for an app that lets them quickly learn if they are pre-approved for a loan – a process that, of course, involves providing one’s financial history. If the numbers are small, why does Rocket Homes matter? Industry insiders gave two reasons – one is that Rocket has not just a lot of capital, but a lot of people’s information. Redfin claims 49 million unique monthly visitors. Rocket Homes’ home listings website is aesthetically similar to Redfin, and someone entering their contact information there is quickly emailed and called by a Rocket representative.īut Rocket Homes averaged 485,000 unique visitors a month in quarter three (which is up from 372,000 a year before), small traffic numbers in the soaring business of home-viewing. Rocket has its work cut out in getting customers to think of them as a real estate source, along with a mortgage lender. Rocket reported a total of $13.28 million in referral fees in their third-quarter earnings. But, up until now, money in real estate referrals is a drop in the bucket. In Kortas’ stomping grounds of central Arizona, some real estate agents, he said, have begun to gobble up business as Rocket-preferred agents. If the agent closes a sale, Rocket gets a referral fee. The agent is not necessarily exclusive to Rocket, and could be doing the same gig with Redfin, or another company. They apply, are vetted, have a brief orientation session, and field leads as a buy-side agent at certain times. primarily for Rocket team members.”)įor an agent, enrolling in a real estate partnership is like signing up to be a driver on a rideshare app. (For those wondering, then, what in-house Rocket real estate agents do, Seabolt stated they “provide real estate services across the U.S. The company’s public filings indicate it has 15,000 real estate agents across the country, who, while affiliated with a separate brokerage, are Rocket partner agents. Instead, Seabolt said, the adviser boosts Rocket in the small but growing world of real estate partnerships. Seabolt says it’s not, despite the adviser performing preliminary, agent-like tasks such as pointing consumers to different homes in the market. Rocket is a licensed brokerage and retains Rocket-affiliated real estate agents: So, is the real estate adviser another Rocket real estate agent? “They stay with them whether it’s three days, three months, or three years,” said Doug Seabolt, CEO of Rocket Homes. The applicant should be ready to glue themselves to the potential homebuyer. The adviser, states the job ad, must be able to work nights and weekends as they “build and maintain a pipeline of over 750 clients and build a business relationship with our nationwide network of real estate agents.” Over the past two months, a new posting from Rocket Homes hit LinkedIn – “A real estate advisor.” “Rocket’s real estate game play is going to have firepower.” “They’re aggressive,” said Mike Kortas, the president and CEO of Nexa Mortgage, a mortgage brokerage. But Rocket is looking to throw its considerable weight around in real estate – positioning itself as a one-stop shop for homebuyers. The company’s real estate arm, Rocket Homes, has historically been a tiny part of the company’s revenue. The company created by Dan Gilbert went public last year, and it reported a cushy $6.6 billion in profits through the first nine months of 2020.īut a company like Rocket – both ambitious and these days heavily reliant on the refi revenue stream – is looking for ways to get more purchase business, and one of them is real estate. Rocket has since ridden the wave of famously low interest-rates, which juiced the mortgage refinancing market. They surpassed Wells Fargo through persistent marketing (ginning up interest in the Rocket app), robust customer service and benefited from industry-wide retreat from the depository banks. Rocket rocketed to being the highest volume mortgage lender in the country by late 2017. ![]() That raises a question of perhaps little interest to National Basketball Association fans but a great deal of interest to National Association of Realtors members – where is the real estate agent in this picture? The ads are mostly set not in a loan office, but a home showing. “Find the right mortgage with a local broker and Rocket technology,” intoned the narrator on the commercials, which premiered during the Super Bowl. During breaks in nearly every televised basketball game, it’s there: Tracy Morgan imploring pensive homebuyers “pretty sure” is not enough, and that they can only be certain about their giant life choice with Rocket Mortgage. ![]()
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