He isn't a broker. He isn't an agent. He has very particular skills.

Rocket Companies recently chose a new CEO for Redfin, the national real estate brokerage it acquired last year.

He isn't a broker. He isn't an agent. He hasn't spent his career in mortgage banking, title, housing or real estate technology. He knows next to nothing about real estate.

Alessio Sanfilippo comes from Meta, where he was Vice President of Insights for Reality Labs. His expertise is data science, data engineering, user research and AI.

Redfin already has an experienced real estate executive. Jason Aleem, a former broker and agent who has been with Redfin since 2010, continues to run its real estate services operation.

So when Rocket searched outside the company for Redfin's CEO, it wasn't looking for someone to teach Redfin how to sell houses.

It was looking for something else. And that "something else" was being placed at the top of the company's hierarchy.

The Houses May Not Be the Most Valuable Part of the Business

Real estate professionals tend to look at portals through a real estate lens. We think about listings, leads, traffic, advertising, agent referrals and transactions.

Rocket has been describing Redfin very differently.

When it announced the acquisition, Rocket emphasized Redfin's nearly 50 million monthly visitors and the opportunity to connect those consumers with brokerage, mortgage, title and servicing. Rocket CEO Varun Krishna has described Redfin as the top of a much larger funnel.

And he's been remarkably candid about the importance of data.

Rocket says the combined organization now holds more than 30 petabytes of data. It has discussed using thousands of data attributes, enormous volumes of customer interactions and AI to better understand consumers, personalize their experiences and predict when they may be ready for another transaction.

That's what they say.

But what I learned changes the way I view the real estate portal.

Listings Bring More Than Leads

Here's the part real estate professionals shouldn't overlook: The portals need houses.

Agents and brokerages obtain the listings. Sellers own the properties. But those listings attract consumers to portals, and those consumers do much more than submit the occasional lead form.

They search. Save. Change price ranges. They investigate neighborhoods. And they return more frequently. Their behavior can begin revealing something enormously valuable: intent.

A person who casually looks at houses every few weeks isn't behaving like someone who suddenly starts checking three times a day, narrows the search to two neighborhoods, changes the price range and saves six properties.

• The consumer hasn't necessarily called an agent.
• The consumer hasn't necessarily applied for a mortgage.
• But the data may already be saying something.

And Rocket has explicitly identified that early indication of consumer intent as one of Redfin's attractions.

This Is Bigger Than a Brokerage Acquisition

Put the pieces together.

• Redfin can encounter the consumer during the home search.
• Redfin has a national brokerage.
• Rocket has mortgage and title businesses.
• Mr. Cooper gives Rocket an enormous mortgage-servicing relationship that can continue long after closing.
• Each stage creates another consumer interaction, and consumer interactions create more information.

That's why I don't think the most interesting question about Redfin's new CEO is whether a guy from Meta knows anything about selling real estate.

It is why Rocket decided the person sitting at the top of a real estate operation should only be an expert in extracting insight and data from consumer behavior.

I went considerably further down that rabbit hole than I'm going to go here, including what Redfin itself says it can collect and infer about consumers, Rocket's own descriptions of its data strategy, several pending or resolved privacy cases, and what happens when you connect the pieces into one vertically integrated housing and financial-services system.

It's fascinating. And concerning. Also a little creepy.

Read the full analysis: “Rocket’s New Redfin CEO Doesn’t Want to Be Your Real Estate Broker. But He Does Want Your Data.”