The battle for ‘Super App’ Supemation

One of the largest home stories so far is this year Rocket‘s awaiting acquisition of Redfin. That acquisition also started a new battle between Rocket and Zillow about who will first reach the consumer – and serves them best – via a ‘super app’ of housing.

In one Presentation for investorsRocket sketched how Redfin’s acquisition will help the company create a more seamless and affordable way for consumers to handle real estate, which shows how consumers from the home search phase will be completely through title and closure.

If you wonder why this sounds some clocks, it is because it is more or less identical to Zillow’s “Super app strategy.”

Such as industry analyst Mike Delprete it in one Recent blog postBoth companies are now “looking for the holy grail of real estate: a one-stop shop that combines house search, buy & sell, financing and title insurance.”

The Dawn of the Super App

Zillow began to improve its Woningsuper -AAP strategy at the beginning of 2022 after announcing Ibuying’s departure during the income call in November 2021. It started as A dark and vague conceptBut Zillow’s goal to create an end-to-end home-puying platform that works together with consumers from home searching through Close has become clearer over the years as the giant of the real estate sector has put more puzzle pieces in place.

Although many others have directed to the same goal, Zillow has so far been closest to creating this complete digital integration. But Rocket’s acquisition of Redfin could change the game.

“Despite sharing the same vision, I think both companies are approaching this vision from the opposite ends of the spectrum, using where their existing canals are,” Ryan Tomasello, a director of Keef, Bruyette & Woodssaid. “Rocket has of course the canal in Mortgage and Zillow has the canal in search and agent references, so it is not surprising to see Rocket making a movement to expand his presence on the other side of the spectrum in the search and with that agent network.”

John Campbell, an analyst StephensShare a similar image.

“Rocket’s mortgage possibilities are more advanced than in fact everyone, so Zillow must continue to increase his game in mortgage – offer more financing options, offer loan types, speed up the time to close and possibly offer consumers discounts in certain areas. But Zillow has that recognizable consumer brand.”

Zillow’s benefit in user traffic

When it comes to entering into consumers at the start of their home show travel, which is measured by mentioning portals in user traffic, there is no doubt that Zillow is king.

In 2023, Zillow had an average monthly unique visitor count of 214 million, compared to the traffic of Rocket’s Home Search Platform, Rocket Homes, Van 1.5 million unique monthly visitors and the 49 million average monthly users Recorded at Redfin. The same trend can be seen in 2024, with the average monthly traffic of Zillow at 221 million visitors, while a combined rocket and Redfin add to 58 million unique monthly visitors.

“We believe that much of the success of Zillow was driven by his ability to better earn his existing top of the funnel/website traffic, which partly brings Redfin to Rocket,” Campbell said.

Rocket’s strength in mortgage

But when it comes to mortgage, Rocket has the clear advantage. From the first quarter of 2025, Zillow has only 330 loan officers, while Rocket and Redfin have told investors that they have a combined 15,000 loan officers and agents to serve contracts.

Although Zillow may be behind when it comes to the scale of his mortgage company, it is quickly growing. Year-on-year the growth of Zillow’s mortgage income increased by 51% in 2024 Up to $ 145 million.

“The director of the recent improvements of Zillow has really been a mortgage,” said Campbell. “The turnover for a mortgage is actually much higher than what they generate when a flex agent closes a sale. In some of the early integrated markets, it appears from the data that Zillow really picks this out of this cupboard for themselves. We believe that Zillow could be good to become a top 20-originator.”

But Zillow is not the only one with work to do on the mortgage side of his company. Although it excels with refinancing transactions, Rocket has difficulty generating the same number of purchasing loan transactions. However, analysts believe that this acquisition will help with this.

“This has been a strategic initiative for them for years and this will speed up the process,” Campbell said. “In that area this is a really smart deal because Redfin has a great mouse trap into a higher traffic through its portal.”

Analysts are not the only ones who look at the potential that this acquisition creates for Rocket. In an investment presentation on the acquisition, Rocket noted that the acquisition could lead to $ 200 billion plus in addressable purchase originations per year or about one-on-six-in-six-in-six-on-six regional-16% of the market for purchase.

In addition to the Purchasing Volume struggles, Jay Voorhees, the co-founder of JVM LendingNote that Rocket does not offer all mortgage loan products on the market, which can mean that, unless this changes, it will not be able to meet the purchase -origination needs of all Redfin agents and consumers.

“These products include many types of recording aid products, bridge loans, no ratio loans, no DSCR loans, no CRA loans (low incomes) and no 3% lower on PMI loans,” Voorhees written.

Who has the upper hand?

Although analysts have no doubt that the companies are working on their respective ‘weaknesses’, there are ways in which they fit evenly.

“On the one hand, Zillow has about a mid-single figure for the sale of housing sales and rocket combined with Redfin, has a similar share in purchase originations, so they start in essence of very similar points, even though those points are in mortgage versus actual agent references,” Tomasello said.

While the companies work to strengthen their relative shortages, given how evenly corresponds to volume, some believe that the scale and balance of Rocket can give the lead over Zillow.

From mid -March 2025, Zillow had a market capitalization of $ 16.73 billion, just over half of the market capitalization of Rocket of $ 28.33 billion. In addition, Rocket and Redfin’s combined marketing budgets of 2024 Zillow’s overshadowed, with $ 913 million compared to $ 175 million.

“I think it is obvious that Rocket above Zillow has its scale and balance – it is twice as large as Zillow in terms of market capitalization and profit,” Tomasello said.

In addition, Rocket’s track record of the successful implementation of his goals Larry Ulsh, a national account manager American Heritage LendingA lot of confidence that this endeavor will be no different.

“It has the budget and the scale to do this, so I would put my money on them to expand something great,” said Ulsh. “Zillow just seems to glue different pieces together, but they have a really recognizable and well -known brand and that is something that is very valuable and difficult for other players to overcome. If Zillow and Rocket had worked, it would have been a murderous.”

Larger market impact

Tomasello also feels that the combination of rocket and Redfin creates a “very formidable competitor” for Zillow, but he does not believe it is a winner-take-all scenario.

“This is a very large market and more importantly a very fragmented market,” said Tomasello. “There is clear room for multiple players to win here, so I don’t think this Rocket-Redfin development derails the chance for Zillow or someone in any way.”

It is a similar conviction that the market is large enough to accommodate several players, that Luca Dahlhausen, the CEO of Realfinitybelieves that more companies are looking for ways to integrate mortgage services into their companies.

“I think we will see more companies and that more agents decide to offer mortgage services,” said Dahlhausen. “If we see that Rocket and Zillow are successful with this, I think we will see more players think that they should offer a kind of embedded mortgage or financial option, because otherwise they can lose those buyers to another company that already does those things.”

While Ulsh agrees with Dahlhausen’s hypothesis, he says he should not see that someone really has to dive to explore this next to Rocket and Zillow.

“My biggest question in all this is: where are the other big lenders? Why is no one else trying to do something like that?” Said Ulsh. “I feel that they are all hanging around and waiting to see what happens to Rocket before they do something, but by that time it will be too late.”

Although he is doubtful, many other players consider an acquisition as great as that of Rocket, he does not rule out the possibility of seeing more mortgage and joint ventures of real estate.

“I think this will probably encourage some mortgage bankers to do more joint ventures, especially now with the CFPB Snoe -return, “he said.