The Ten: Rocket’s determination to break the industry mold 

Editor's note: In a year of epic mergers — and industry division — a handful of people and themes have emerged as defining forces. Real Estate News has selected the top newsmakers of 2025, based on their industry impact and influence. They are The Ten.

In a year of major M&As, some deals still managed to take the industry by surprise. 

Few people expected the nation's largest mortgage company to scoop up a top brokerage and home search portal in a quest to create an end-to-end consumer experience — but when Rocket Companies announced plans to acquire Redfin in March, Rocket CEO Varun Krishna quickly mapped out his plans to transform real estate.

The acquisition of Redfin wasn't the surprising part. Some had even speculated that Zillow might buy Redfin after the companies partnered on rental listings in February. It was Rocket's confident push beyond ancillary services — and Krishna's clear messaging about wanting to see industry change — that stood out.

Rocket's ultimate goal, according to its CEO? To move away from "a fragmented and costly" homebuying process toward one that enables consumers to "search, buy, finance and manage their home in one modern, fully connected, beautiful, end-to-end experience."

"Historically, our industry has operated in silos," he told investors in October. "Rocket breaks that mold."

Rocket's bold move

Rocket entered the brokerage space with a bang. Its $1.75 billion acquisition of Redfin bolstered the brokerage and promised heightened competition for portal rivals like Zillow and CoStar.

At the time, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told the Puget Sound Business Journal that the deal helped the Seattle-based company avoid being "stripped for parts." Kelman later revealed that Krishna had expressed interest in buying Redfin in 2023 — just after joining Rocket — a proposition Kelman began to consider the following year.

Kelman has described Rocket as "by far the best" of Redfin's potential partners due to a shared "bizarre belief in technology and service." Meanwhile, Krishna saw in Redfin — and in Mr. Cooper, the mortgage rival Rocket acquired for $9.4 billion weeks after announcing the Redfin deal — a "powerful springboard for growth."

In pursuit of an end-to-end homebuying experience

Rocket's acquisitions boiled down to three main goals: Create stronger business models, locate new data partners to support AI initiatives and elevate the consumer experience.

With Redfin and Mr. Cooper in the mix, Krishna told investors that the three united companies could "lead the future of homeownership together" by devising a more efficient end-to-end homebuying process. Together, the companies can offer lower costs, shared infrastructure and connectivity, according to Rocket CFO and Treasurer Brian Brown.

So far, the plan appears to be working. Krishna told investors that more than 500,000 Redfin users started home financing applications through Rocket in September — more than double the number of users who did so in the weeks after the Redfin deal closed.

Prioritizing consumer interests

Rocket has a "vision of a better way to buy and sell homes," according to Krishna, and he aspires to improve the consumer experience "by connecting traditionally disparate steps of the search and financing process" to "increase value to American homebuyers," he said in March.

Krishna reiterated his commitment to consumers in the months that followed. While speaking at a conference in September, Krishna observed that the mortgage industry can be "very predatory" and "does not help the consumer," and he said real estate companies tend to compete more than they work together. "The consumer just gets screwed over," he said bluntly.

By investing heavily in AI and creating a more consumer-friendly platform, however, Krishna believes it will be possible to forge stronger client relationships — and lower costs.

Rocket's goals for the future

So what is Rocket's next move now that it has emerged as a major competitor in the brokerage space?

Krishna wants Rocket to help foster a culture of collaboration in real estate, with the end goal of helping consumers. He pointed to the industry's insularity — something he has worked to change at Rocket — as "part of the problem with homeownership."

"We are all about building community partnerships, acquisitions," he said in September. "I think we are greater together than we are apart."

While industry consolidation has raised alarm bells for some, Krishna believes there is still "plenty of opportunity" within what he described as "a huge market" — where he expects Rocket to be one of the major players.

"We are not just one part of the process. We are all of them," he told investors during the company's last earnings call of 2025. "We are a homeownership company bringing end-to-end integration to housing at a scale the industry has never seen."