Fintech reporter Ryan Lawler shares his take on Rocket’s endgame in the homeownership space after it agreed to buy Mr. Cooper for $9.4 billion this morning.

Rocket Cos. (NYSE: RKT) agreement today to acquire Mr. Cooper (Nasdaq: COOP) puts another brick in its real estate foundation.

Why it matters: With this deal and the acquisition of Redfin, Rocket can shift to a more proactive stance.

By the numbers: The combined entity will have a servicing book of $2.1 trillion across nearly 10 million clients, representing about 1 in 6 mortgages in America.

• The $9.4 billion deal will make it the country’s largest mortgage lender and also the largest mortgage servicer.
• Coupled with Redfin, the company could power home search, financing, and servicing, monetizing each stage of the homeownership journey.

State of play: With that scale comes data, which Rocket believes it can use to grow its recapture rate.

• Rocket has a recapture rate of around 83%, with customers returning to refinance every five to seven years.
• It sees an opportunity to conservatively increase Mr. Cooper’s recapture rate from 50% to 65%, Rocket CFO Brian Brown said on the conference call announcing the deal.
• “If we get all the way to the Rocket recapture rate of 83%, and I assume rates go down to 6%, that’s $330 million of upside,” Brown said.

Between the lines: Executives on the call suggested that by owning the full data loop, they could go from being a reactive lender to a proactive homeownership platform.

• “We’re not waiting for clients to raise their hand. Our data signals tell us when it’s time to reach out, engage and guide,” Rocket CEO Varun Krishna said on the call.

The intrigue: The company also teased the possibility of white-labeling its servicing platform for the broker community.

• Krishna said the combined platform will give brokers more technology and tools to bolster their businesses.
• But, he added, “Looking ahead, we envision mortgage brokers having access to servicing capabilities for their own clients in a future where their name appears on the mortgage statement.”