Who Owns Redfin?

Redfin was founded in Seattle in 2004 by David Eraker, Michael Dougherty, and David Selinger as Appliance Computing, Inc., initially a mapping technology project. The founders believed real estate search and brokerage should merge: put every listing on an interactive map, then employ agents who would close transactions for a fraction of traditional commission.

Glenn Kelman joined as CEO in 2006 and became the company's defining leader. Under him, Redfin pioneered the model that made it famous: salaried agents paid on customer satisfaction rather than pure commission, listing fees discounted to roughly 1 to 1.5 percent against the traditional 2.5 to 3 percent, and a website that put MLS inventory on maps years before competitors.

The company launched buyer services market by market through the late 2000s and 2010s, surviving the housing crash and expanding into mortgages (Redfin Mortgage), title services, instant offers (RedfinNow, an iBuyer experiment closed in 2022), and rentals. Its website became the most-visited brokerage site in America.

Redfin went public on Nasdaq in July 2017 under ticker RDFN. The public years were financially difficult: the company produced consistent revenue, roughly $1 billion annually, but persistent GAAP losses as agent payroll and technology costs outran the discounted-commission economics. Layoffs and restructuring marked 2022 and 2023.

The NAR commission settlement of 2024, which reshaped how buyer-agent fees are paid, upended the industry's economics just as housing transaction volume fell to multi-decade lows. In March 2025, Rocket Companies agreed to acquire Redfin for approximately $1.75 billion in stock, closing July 1, 2025. Post-close, Rocket launched Rocket Preferred Pricing, offering rate discounts or lender credits to buyers who use both Redfin agents and Rocket Mortgage, the first concrete product of the combined platform.