Rocket Pro's Niemiec looks to 'help brokers win in this new world'
After a major year of acquisitions in 2025, Rocket announced a major partnership on Thursday that will continue to grow its mortgage ecosystem.
At the end of Rocket Pro’s Ignite26 event, the head of Rocket Pro, Rocket Mortgage CRO Austin Niemiec, was joined by Rocket Mortgage president and CEO Jay Bray to announce a partnership with Compass.
The new partnership will connect Rocket Pro brokers with Compass real estate agents. It was announced as a three-year strategic alliance.
According to a press release about the partnership, Compass “coming soon” listings will appear immediately on Redfin, with “private exclusive” properties to follow. The move could add more than 500,000 additional listings to the Redfin platform.
Rocket Pro brokers working with a Compass agent will get 80 bps in purchase credits to further incentivize the partnership.
“We're on a mission to help everyone home,” Niemiec told Mortgage Professional America. “It's literally our mission at our company, and it's a purchase market right now that is interesting. It's competitive, but there's very low inventory. Affordability is a challenge, and so we partnered up with Compass to help more Americans win the dream of home ownership.
“Brokers are going to win big because Compass is massive. They're powerful, and they have hundreds of thousands of agents entrenched in all major communities across the country, and we at Rocket Pro have tens of thousands of brokers entrenched in local communities across the country. And so we can help brokers work with Compass agents to help Americans win the dream. We couldn't be more excited.”
Scope of the partnership
The move continues the trend of acquisitions, mergers, and partnerships as large companies continue their growth in the space. The most recent one was Pennymac’s purchase of Cenlar’s subservicing contracts and mortgage servicing operations.
Bray, the former chairman and CEO of Mr. Cooper, said they hope this partnership will energize a stagnant housing market.
“Today, Rocket is announcing a nationwide partnership with one of the largest agent networks in the world, with Compass,” Bray said. “Compass represents hundreds of thousands of real estate agents across the country. That's scale, that's ecosystem, that's real purchase opportunity. And why are we doing this? The housing market has been stagnant for too long. Affordability and supply are real issues.
“We believe this partnership unlocks these barriers by working closely with sellers to drive more supply, improve affordability, and ignite buyers. This is alignment inside one of the most significant real estate ecosystems in the country. And when you connect that to Redfin at the top of the funnel and Mr. Cooper in servicing, you create a more integrated path from search to financing to home ownership. That's what redefining wholesale looks like.”
Niemiec said building the wholesale channel and working with brokers has been critical for Rocket for more than a decade.
“We have been investing relentlessly year after year,” Niemiec said. “Today was about us taking that momentum and just doubling down on it. We believe now it's our responsibility to transform how a modern wholesale mortgage company works to support brokers, and you saw it today.”
In addition to the Compass partnership, the company announced a new LOS called Jupiter. They also revealed a national marketing campaign for their broker locator website and added new tools for brokers in Rocket Pro Navigate.
“The awesome thing is, today was just a kickoff to what we're going to be doing all year long,” Niemiec said. “So we're reinventing what it means to be a wholesaler, not just enhancing. We're going to reinvent it, and we're going to help brokers win in this new world.”
Q4 numbers strong
Rocket also announced its Q4 earnings on Thursday afternoon. The company generated total revenue of $2.69 billion in the quarter and $6.7 billion overall in 2025. Total adjusted revenue for the quarter was $2.44 billion, with adjusted net income of $316 million.
Rocket posted $47.3 billion in total closed mortgage origination volume. It had $35.6 billion in total net rate lock volume, $41.0 billion in closed loan volume (excluding correspondent), and a gain on sale margin excluding correspondent of 3.20%. Those Q4 metrics were the highest in a fourth quarter for the company in four years.
Varun Krishna, CEO and director of Rocket Companies, said the report was a great way to end a strong year for the company.
"Rocket proved itself this quarter as a category of one,” Krishna said. “This is the power of an integrated homeownership ecosystem - massive top of funnel, scaled origination-servicing recapture, expansive distribution for industry professionals, and a technologically advanced foundation for infinite capacity - built for the AI era. We exceeded guidance in a quarter that closed out a transformational year. I'm so proud of how the Rocket, Mr. Cooper, and Redfin teams executed together."
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