In very big news today, the Rocket Companies announce plans to acquire real estate brokerage giant Redfin for $1.75 billion of equity value.

While this is obviously huge news in the mortgage/real estate space, how does this affect the lead gen market as a whole?

One, it gives Rocket a better and potentially easier entrance to the purchase mortgage market which the company has historically struggled with. Rocket is a master at refinance lead gen and they drive huge numbers both organically and through third party lead providers. However, their share of the purchase market has not kept up with their share of refinance. There is a lot of reasons for this, but this acquisition should help bolster growth there.

Two, it will be interesting to see how this affects lead generators, such as LendingTree, Zillow and other platforms. Does Rocket and their loan officers pull off of any advertising they are doing on these platforms to focus on Redfin? Can Redfin take advantage of the Rocket marketing machine to grow their own marketshare and therefore, use the newfound leads to supply Rocket with the leads they need to continue at their current or prospective level?

Three, it’s a clear sign that Rocket is not content to rest on its laurels. The company has had six consecutive quarters of YOY growth. This is a growth play and with an estimated $200 million in runrate synergies, it could be huge.

Very interesting to watch how this ripples out into the ecosystem.

And, oh yeah, Rocket is still appealing the LMB TCPA class action with briefs filed last week. So, those “synergies” could be very helpful in the future.