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Canadian real estate agents who use RESAAS to track market trends, generate referral business, post new listings and get buyer leads will also use the platform to send their clients to get prequalified with Rocket Mortgage Canada under a “preliminary partnership” agreement.
Under the terms of a one-year agreement signed on March 1, RESAAS and Rocket Mortgage Canada will share the revenue generated by the partnership from all new mortgages, mortgage renewals and refinances, the companies said Tuesday. Although monthly payments are based on a 25-year amortization schedule, most Canadian mortgages have a term of five years or less and borrowers typically renew their mortgages several times before they own their homes.
Hash Aboulhosn
“As a fintech company, Rocket Mortgage Canada understands the value of a digital experience to help simplify the mortgage process for both clients and their real estate agents,” Rocket Mortgage Canada President Hash Aboulhosn said in a statement. “That’s why this partnership with RESAAS makes sense — their technology for the real estate professional provides yet another digital touchpoint on our way toward fully digitizing the mortgage process.”
Formerly known as Edison Financial, Windsor-based Rocket Mortgage Canada is a subsidiary of Rocket Companies that rebranded as Rocket Mortgage in August and began making direct loans. Unlike its U.S.-based sister company Rocket Mortgage, Rocket Mortgage Canada is also a mortgage brokerage offering loan products from more than 50 lenders.
Vancouver-based RESAAS claims more than 500,000 real estate agents use its software solutions for the real estate industry, including listing solution and communication platform RealTimeMLS, communication hub BrokerOS and a referral network that allows agents to earn fees by recommending clients to agents in other markets. RESAAS is also a data provider to other services and the industry at large.
Tom Rossiter
“Exclusive real estate data gathered by RESAAS shows real estate agents generate higher referral fees when referring clients that are preapproved for a mortgage,” RESAAS CEO Tom Rossiter said in a statement. “RESAAS has selected Rocket Mortgage Canada because its digital experience is complimentary with RESAAS’ technology-forward solution. Our goal is simple: To enable RESAAS agents to prequalify their clients quickly for the best mortgage products and lowest rates available.”
In the U.S., the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) requires that borrowers be provided with disclosures that describe the business relationships between lenders and other settlement service providers and prohibits kickbacks, referral fees and fee-splitting with other settlement service providers in exchange for the referral of business.
In Canada, referral fees are regulated at the province level. Ontario’s Real Estate and Business Brokers Act, for example, allows compensation for referrals between registered parties, but they must be disclosed to all parties.
In February, RESAAS announced a partnership with Open AI’s ChatGPT that allows real estate agents to automatically generate property descriptions simply by inputting key information. The partnership was just the latest example of how ChatGPT and related technologies can speed up the creation of sales and marketing collateral.
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