Rocket Mortgage Purchases Redfin, But It’s the CEO’s Blog Post That’s Really News I Think

Redfin recently announced its sale to Rocket Mortgage, but it’s the CEO Glenn Kelman’s blog post announcing the brokerage’s $1.75 billion sale that caught my interest.

On July 1, Redfin announced that it is now officially part of Rocket Companies, the parent company of Rocket Mortgage, which they say will create a more integrated experience from home search to closing. The company sale, first revealed in March 2025, wraps Rocket-powered mortgages into homes listed on Redfin. The new brand will be called “Redfin Powered by Rocket.”

Specifically, the merger introduces “Rocket Preferred Pricing,” which offers Redfin buyers financing through Rocket Mortgage either a 1% lower interest rate for the first year or up to $6,000 in lender credits. The offer also applies to buyers of Redfin-listed homes, providing a competitive edge for sellers, Redfin says.

Kelman’s name has been in the news after Compass, in a 60-page lawsuit that at times read like a diary, called Redfin a co-conspirator to Zillow’s so-called private listings ban. The Redfin CEO sounds like a “Let me just talk to the guy” kind of wheeler-dealer, but no dice in this late-night exchange.

But the wheeler-dealer I expected was not the one I found. Kelman wrote an honest and positively human letter to employees announcing the sale in March 2025, commenting on how corporate mergers can feel like “us vs. them.” It was a smart observation of corporate tribalism.

“Redfin has lived in its own world for a long time, and so it’ll be natural for us to think of Redfin as “we” and Rocket as “them.” And because humans are tribal, it may feel good in the moment to form a sense of us that excludes Rocket people, or for Rocket folks to do that in return. But Rocket people will soon be my people, your people, our people. We are the they. Redfin is the future of Rocket. Rocket is the future of Redfin.”

His latest blog post, “The Tale of the Tribe,” is just as human as he describes rolling down the door of the moving van for this acquisition.

Kelman says early on, Redfin aspired to be a brokerage and not just a listing website. I imagine many outsiders viewed Redfin as another Zillow or fully confused it with Realtor.com, forgetting that it was a licensed real estate brokerage.

Redfin.com serves 50 million visitors a month, providing “everything there is to know about the housing market,” Kelman writes in the July 1 post. “But we’ve only partly lived up to our name: Redfin is supposed to be real estate redefined. Finding a home is still hard. Fees are still high.”

For the record, Kelman has been writing blog posts supporting efforts to end pocket listings since September 2024, saying, “pocket listings are part of our exclusionary past.”

Apparently, he’s kinda known for this. “Redfin’s CEO has a rare knack for delivering colorful quotes and off-the-wall zingers — keeping analysts and investors entertained, at least, in what’s normally a dry and obligatory exercise for public companies,” Todd Bishop of Geek Wire wrote.

“I spent half the Super Bowl in the bathroom or upstairs making nachos because I didn’t want to see these competitor ads.” — Kelman explained in 2024 that Redfin saw more website traffic despite rival CoStar Group’s massive spending on Homes.com ads during the big game.

“Nobody is more afraid of Amazon than me. I mean, those guys are animals.” — Addressing questions about a 2019 collaboration between Amazon and Realogy, Kelman offered this perspective as context for his opinion that the partnership wouldn’t amount to much. He was right.

“Redfin believes in technology, but technology on its own is just a glorified toaster oven.” — Kelman said in a 2019 earnings call describing Redfin’s culture and approach to innovation.

You know what, I like this guy. So I wrote to Kelman like he was my 5th grade pen pal.

“Glenn, you’ve gotta have writing in your background because you don’t sound like a typical Silicon Valley guy. Because your posts, and even the letter announcing the sale, are so personal, I, as a reporter, feel emboldened to write this email to a $2-billion company CEO, asking where your voice for writing comes from. Why do you write in such a personal way and what has been the response?”

I didn’t sign-off the letter TTYL XOXO, but I might as well have. Embarrassing.

So far, no response. Presumably, he read my message, thought about replying for a minute, and deleted it like any sane tech exec would.

7/8/25 Update: P.S. He wrote back.