For the mortgage industry, 2025 is likely to go down as the year of the big deal. But that could be a temporary title as some experts expect the consolidation wave to continue in the new year.

Still among the biggest of the big:

• Rocket first purchased Redfin, expanding its reach in real estate sales. Then it became the industry's largest servicer by merging with Mr. Cooper.
• Guild elected to undertake a going private transaction with Bayview.
• Plus, with two weeks left in the year, United Wholesale Mortgage agreed to acquire Two Harbors (branded as Two), which owns mortgage servicer Roundpoint.

But what might have been the most celebrated deal of all, one that was pitched by Pres. Trump, did not take place.In August, the president posted on Truth Social a generated image of The Great American Mortgage Corp. listing on the New York Stock Exchange in November.

Speculation indicated it was to be an initial public offering of the merged Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start taking them out of conservatorship.

Well, November has come and gone, and other rumors/proposals, including that of an uplisting of both companies, have been floated with no official action for now.

But the most unusual 2025 announcement came from Stratmor and Teraverde, which announced in June they had terminated their agreement to combine 11 months earlier.

Why did it take so long to let everyone know? The misconception, both Teraverde's Jim Deitch and Stratmor's Garth Graham said, came about from an artificial intelligence-generated answer to a search engine question.

It became clear that the market was unaware the deal ended when Deitch was shown the message at an industry conference.

With all of the transactions, actual and contemplated which went on in 2025, here are some highlights that National Mortgage News covered: