Rocket CEO’s vision: Stop consumers from getting ‘screwed over’ 

SAN DIEGO — From brokerage leadership changes to unexpected stock surges, the real estate industry has weathered shakeup after shakeup so far this year. Among the most surprising: Rocket Companies' announcement on March 10 that it had decided to acquire Redfin.

At the time, Rocket CEO Varun Krishna said the move reflected the companies' "unified vision of a better way to buy and sell homes."

This idea of working together drove not only Rocket's alignment with Redfin but its acquisition weeks later of mortgage rival Mr. Cooper, Krishna explained during a Sept. 18 panel discussion at NAHREP at AVANCE Global, a conference hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.

"I think part of the problem with homeownership is we just don't work together often enough," he said. While Rocket may have been "a little bit more insular" in the past, that's not how Krishna intends to operate the company as long as he's in charge.

"We are all about building community partnerships, acquisitions," he said. "I think we are greater together than we are apart. It's a huge market; there's plenty of share, there's plenty of opportunity. But let's work together."

A desire to 'make a difference': Krishna, who stepped into the CEO role two years ago, said part of what intrigued him about the mortgage industry was "this realization that the financial system is very predatory and it does not help the consumer." He felt determined to "make a difference."

"Home is a very important thing — it's a longevity thing, it's generational wealth," he said. "We need to make sure that homeownership happens for people in this country."

A 'common bond' with Redfin's CEO: When he joined Rocket, Krishna said he realized real estate companies were competing against each other more than they were working together. "The consumer just gets screwed over," he said.

That "very simple realization" led Krishna to wonder: "Could we do more things together than we could apart?"

"A lot of it was this logical conclusion to me that we have a very adversarial dynamic in the homeownership industry, and we can do a lot together."

Krishna found "a common bond" with Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, who also "saw an opportunity to create better relationships, lower fees, lower costs," Krishna recalled.

"Part of the reason that we brought Redfin, Rocket and Mr. Cooper together is that we want to build an end-to-end homeownership platform," Krishna explained. "If we do a good job with that, we invest very big in AI, we can ultimately offer consumers a lower price."

The 'best way' to invest in homeownership: According to NAHREP data, Latinos will likely account for nearly 3 in 4 new homeowners over the next 20 years — and from Krishna's perspective, focusing on this group is "the best way for us to invest" in homeownership.

"The products, the services, the technology has to serve that population," Krishna said. "We are very committed to that population. We are very committed to its growth."

Investing in AI: Rocket spends about $500 million annually in data and AI technology, said Krishna, who described AI specifically as "a big deal" and "not a fad."

"I think that we probably need to pay attention to it, and it's going to have a transformative effect on housing," he predicted.

Most steps involved in the process of buying and selling a home "are incredibly applicable to the AI world," he added. "I think they are profoundly going to be transformed by these technologies."