Redfin Grows NH Mortgage Footprint with Bay Equity Acquisition


Online brokerage Redfin has agreed to acquire mortgage lender Bay Equity Home Loans in a move Redfin said would increase its scale and efficiency while giving customers more lending options. 

“For years, Redfin has talked about becoming a one-stop shop for brokerage, mortgage, iBuying and title services,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in a statement. “Just having one company offer all these services is more efficient, letting us keep customers’ lending fees low. But our long-term vision is to combine lending and brokerage services into new ways for people to move from one home to another. Buying Bay Equity not only gives us the scale to execute better on the first stage of this vision; it also gives us the latitude to start earlier on the second stage, which will let Redfin customers buy homes they couldn’t have gotten through a stand-alone broker or lender.” 

Bay Equity, which is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay area, is a licensed mortgage lender in 42 states including New Hampshire, where it made 35 residential purchase loans and 54refinance loans worth a combined $24.67 million in the first three quarters of 2021 according to The Warren Group, publisher of The Registry Review. Redfin Mortgage, the company’s lending division, originated 11 purchase loans worth $4 million in the state during the same period.

Processing efficiency and technology are factors driving the deal. Redfin said Bay Equity’s scale makes it more efficient at producing loans, adding that Bay Equity can get better terms when selling those loans to investors. And using Bay Equity’s loan-origination system will reduce Redfin’s 2022 investment in lending software, the company said. 

“With Bay Equity’s geographic presence and full product suite, we’ll be able to offer mortgages to a larger share of Redfin’s home-buying customers right away, including jumbo loans and loans for veterans and folks with lower credit scores,” Adam Wiener, Redfin’s president of real estate operations, said in a statement.  

The Bay Equity management team will continue to operate under the Bay Equity name after the deal closes, the statement said, and Bay Equity will originate mortgages for customers working with Redfin agents and other brokerages, as well as with customers seeking to refinance. Redfin’s mortgage lending operations will be consolidated into Bay Equity’s operations. 

Bay Equity has branches in Salem, Nashua and Portsmouth.