Redfin is being taken private in an all-stock transaction that values the real estate listing platform at $1.75 billion.
The acquiring company is Rocket Companies, a Detroit, Michigan-based finance and real estate holding firm that operates various brands including Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Money, and Rocket Loans.
“Rocket and Redfin have a unified vision of a better way to buy and sell homes,” Rocket Companies’ CEO Varun Krishna said in a statement. “Together, we will improve the experience by connecting traditionally disparate steps of the search and financing process with leading technology that removes friction, reduces costs and increases value to American homebuyers.”
Founded out of Seattle in 2004, Redfin serves a residential real estate brokerage platform for the U.S. and Canadian markets. The self-proclaimed “Amazon of real estate” went public in 2017, and its shares generally traded flat at around $20 in the subsequent few years. But as with many tech companies, Redfin soared during the pandemic, with its stock hitting an all-time high of $96 in early 2021, before plummeting to below $10 for most of the past three years.
Redfin’s shares had fallen more than 30% in the past couple of weeks, after its Q4 2024 earnings missed estimates, while the company also provided weak guidance for the current quarter.
Rocket Companies, for its part, went public in 2020, and today has a market cap of $31 billion. The company’s proposed bid of $12.50 represents a 63% premium over Redfin’s volume weighted average price (VWAP) for the month leading up to March 7, 2025. The offer entails exchanging 0.7926 shares of Rocket Companies’ Class A stock for each share of Redfin common stock, with Rocket Companies shareholders owning 95% of the new combined entity and Redfin shareholders owning 5%.
While both boards of directors have already approved the transaction, it does still require Redfin’s shareholders to rubberstamp the deal, which Redfin says it expects to happen in Q3, 2025. Redfin CEO and President Glenn Kelman, who has led the company since 2005, will continue at the helm of Redfin, reporting directly to Krishna.
