Redfin CEO says employees and agents ‘over the moon’ about Rocket’s vision for Seattle company

This story originally appeared on Real Estate News.

Redfin on Tuesday announced its last quarterly earnings results as an independent company, with its acquisition by mortgage giant Rocket to be finalized later this summer. 

The Seattle-based brokerage and home search portal saw a decline in most major metrics compared to the previous quarter, including a drop in revenue and transactions, and increasing net losses stemming largely from its real estate services division and corporate overhead. The rentals and title divisions were profitable. 

Due to its pending acquisition, Redfin did not host an investor call, but its earnings release highlighted some recent wins. The company saw an increase in loyalty transactions, noting that 40% of sales came from loyalty customers during the first quarter — a significant amount of its total business. The brokerage also noted big gains in agent count. The number of lead agents was up 32% year-over-year, reaching 2,265 by the end of March.

What Redfin had to say 

In a press release, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said the rise in lead agents was “thanks to our new plan to pay agents entirely on commission.” That plan — Redfin Next — rolled out nationwide in October. 

The acquisition news, Kelman said, also gave the company a boost. 

“Since the March 10th announcement of Redfin’s agreement to be bought by Rocket, many Redfin employees, from agents to engineers, have been over the moon about Rocket’s vision of a home-ownership platform. We can’t wait to join Rocket and build the future of homeownership,” he said.

Key numbers

Revenue: $221 million, which was down from $244.3 million reported in the previous quarter but off by just 2% from the $225.5 million reported in the first quarter of 2024. 

Cash and cash equivalents: $183.5 million cash on hand at the end of the quarter, up from $124.7 million at the end of 2024. 

Net income/loss: Net loss of $92.5 million, which was higher than the net loss of $66.8 million reported a year ago and more than double the $36.4 net loss from Q4 2024.

Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before income, taxes, depreciation and amortization): A loss of $32 million for Q1 2025 compared to a loss of $27.6 million in Q1 2024.

Average number of lead agents: An average of 2,190 lead agents throughout the quarter and 2,265 lead agents at the end of March 2025, a 32% gain year-over-year. 

Transactions: 12,255 total transactions between brokerage and partner deals in the first quarter, which was down from 14,363 in the previous quarter but close to the 12,730 transactions from Q1 2024.  

Site traffic: 46 million monthly average visitors, down slightly compared to 49 million the first quarter of 2024 but an increase from the reported 43 million average monthly users in Q4 2024. 

Notable moves

The company’s pending acquisition was the big news of the quarter, but earlier in the year, Redfin also announced a rentals deal with Zillow.

Per the terms of the partnership, Zillow agreed to pay Redfin $100 million to be the exclusive provider of multifamily rental listings on Redfin and its owned rental sites, Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com.

While Redfin’s real estate and mortgage business reported net losses in Q1, rentals was in the black with a net profit of $3.6 million.