Rocket wants to become a one-stop shop for the American homebuyer, said Paige Smith in Bloomberg. In the span of just three weeks, the Detroit-based mortgage lender "has thrown around $11 billion in a bid to reshape the way Americans buy, sell, and finance their homes." It first agreed to purchase the brokerage and online home-search platform Redfin for $1.75 billion. It followed that with a $9.4 billion deal to acquire Mr. Cooper, America's largest mortgage servicer. The deals "cement Rocket's position as a mortgage behemoth," now that many banks have "pulled out of the business." It also fortifies the company for almost any economic environment. Servicers like Mr. Cooper have done well when interest rates are high, because "borrowers are less likely to refinance." When rates fall, loan servicing is less profitable but Rocket's lending business "becomes more valuable."
The mortgage business has come full circle, said Felix Salmon in Axios. Banks used to originate mortgages and hold them. Then they sold the loans, and farmed out collecting the money to servicers. Now Rocket wants to go back to that older model, giving you the loan and then collecting your payments. The hope is to keep a steady train of customers that "choose the same company for their next loan"—or refinancing. Homebuyers shouldn't complain about the streamlining of "an often time-consuming and burdensome process," said Nicole Friedman in The Wall Street Journal, from finding an agent to securing a mortgage. Rocket could also offer "discounted fees for using more or all of the company's offerings" as part of "a bundled plan."
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