Rocket Pro Has ARIVE'd

After shoring up one in six U.S. mortgages with its Mr. Cooper acquisition and amassing a network of Redfin real estate agents — provided those transactions meet with regulatory and shareholder approval — Rocket Companies now has its sights set on mortgage brokers. Today, Rocket Pro announces its integration into the ARIVE platform, an all-in-one loan origination system and lender marketplace built for independent mortgage brokers and non-delegated correspondent lenders.

Starting April 22, Rocket Pro will be accessible to ARIVE’s network of more than 28,000 active users, offering real-time pricing, interest rates, and product eligibility directly within the platform.  

“There really is nothing else like ARIVE,” said Dan Sogorka, general manager of Rocket Pro, in an interview with NMP. “It’s the size of the network, it’s where many of our broker partners are, and it aligns with our strategy to use technology to make the process faster, easier, and more cost-effective for both partners and clients.”

The addition of Rocket Pro marks a significant milestone for ARIVE’s growing platform, according to the company’s CEO, Harish Tejwani, with Rocket Pro becoming the 22nd lender to join the platform.

“There has been a lot of demand for adding Rocket to our ecosystem. Rocket is the second-largest wholesale lender in the country, with a strong brand, reputation, and operations team,” Tejwani said. Because of those strengths, Rocket will be "a good partner [to have] joining our ecosystem," he added. "Our loan officers and brokers can benefit from that.”

Among its active users, Tejwani noted that the platform serves 23,000 loan officers across 4,300 companies with its all-in-one loan origination system (LOS), consumer point of sale (POS), product and pricing engine (PPE), and wholesale lender marketplace. 

Offered at a competitive low monthly subscription fee, ARIVE also provides a free trial with no setup or onboarding fees, allowing brokers to explore its features without any initial investment. The program is also offered to members of the Association of Independent Mortgage Experts (AIME) and the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB).

“So not only are we making them highly efficient and helping them scale their business, our products help broker owners attract more loan officers,” Tejwani added. “But it’s offered at a very nominal flat fee, and all the training setup support.”

The integration of Rocket Pro into the ARIVE platform represents a significant milestone for both companies and underscores their shared commitment to drive innovation in the mortgage industry. 

Sogorka emphasized Rocket’s shared focus on streamlining the mortgage process. He noted that a sizable portion of a broker’s day — up to 30 percent — is spent navigating multiple systems just to advance a loan application. Rocket Pro aims to change that by leveraging enterprise-grade, AI-powered tools to automate back-end functions and reduce the administrative burden on brokers.

“Our goal is to free up brokers to spend more time with clients and real estate agents, and less time filling out forms,” Sogorka said.

Tejwani echoed the sentiment, pointing to ARIVE’s all-in-one approach as a solution to the fragmented tech stack within which many brokers have long been forced to work.

“Traditionally, brokers have worked in siloed systems,” Tejwani said. “The technology landscape was very fragmented [with] a different point-of-sale; a different CRM; a different agent portal; a different LOS, and different lender portals. They have to log in to create applications, so brokers are juggling with multiple systems, [and] duplicating data entries," he explained. “So we are building this all-in-one solution that combines all these tools into one platform, so brokers have one login, one user experience, and they can operate and run their business with different tools."

ARIVE was acquired by Tejwani’s LendWize in 2020 from its former owner and founder, Anthony Casa, now president and CEO of UMortgage. In tandem with its initial launch, Casa was spearheading his Brokers Rallying Against Whole-tail Lending (BRAWL) which took issue with larger lenders that offer both retail and wholesale divisions, claiming it creates cross-channel conflict.

In a 2018 interview with MPA, Casa claimed "Quicken Loans was part of my inspiration to create the BRAWL movement in the first place...  I closed hundreds of loans per year with Quicken [and] I grew tired of losing my clients." Notably, there has been no evidence to suggest the retail arm of Rocket Mortgage pulls business away from its Rocket Pro broker partners.

"Quicken Loans, PennyMac and other companies decided to take an alternate route because it didn’t align with their long-term goals." Casa stated in 2018. But times have changed, including the ARIVE platform itself, and now both PennyMac and now Rocket Pro will be available to brokers shopping in its marketplace.

Rocket Pro Executive Vice President, Katie Sweeney, was an early pioneer on the platform. In her former position as vice president of front-end solutions, and ushered several major mortgage technology projects forward such as custom application development initiatives, according to a 2018 press release. However, Tejwani’s in-house team completely revamped the platform once it took the company in 2020.

“I bought the company, the product was decommissioned, the technology was not working, and then we took over,” Tejwani explained. “ It was all our in-house team. But she is an awesome friend. She is a big champion of the broker community just like us, and we talk all the time. So, hopefully, with this partnership we'll be collaborating more with her.”

This integration marks the first phase of Rocket’s broader strategy with ARIVE. Sogorka alludes to more exciting enhancements and features that are planned for later this year as the partnership deepens. 

“This is just the first step,” Sogorka added. “So as we enable more AI-fueled automation, it'll be a lot easier for them to focus on the things that they're great at, which is interacting with clients, putting them in the right products for their lifestyle, and less of the manual work around manufacturing the loan.” 

For ARIVE, the integration of Rocket Pro marks another step in ARIVE’s rapid evolution, as it continues to attract major players and modernize how independent originators do business.

Tejwani said he looks forward to deepening ARIVE’s partnership with Rocket Pro: “Over next several months, we'll continue to collaborate on opportunities that make sense for our mutual customers, making them more efficient., have them shine in front of their customers, and saving lenders time and money, so it creates efficiencies on on all sides.”

Rocket Pro’s integration into ARIVE’s platform that allows brokers to compare loan options from multiple lenders folds well into Rocket’s campaign to promote brokers ability to choose freely between lenders without restrictions, unlike its wholesale rival United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM). 

“Choice is a broker’s superpower and this integration with ARIVE will help brokers quickly compare loan options from multiple lenders within a single platform, reducing manual effort and saving brokers’ time,” said a Rocket Companies spokesperson. 

UWM had championed ARIVE since it was founded in 2018, but the lending giant is no longer only listed on ARIVE's marketplace. Additionally, its decided to set up shop with another leading software system in the wholesale space, LendingPad, which provides automated solutions to mortgage brokers, non-delegated correspondent lenders, and delegated correspondent lenders.