Place rivals mortgage fintechs with Ardley acquisition

• Key Insight: Place is adding Ardley’s artificial intelligence-fueled recapture and retention technology to its widening ecosystem.
• Supporting Data: The company acquired point-of-sale vendor Maxwell and Radian’s real estate services business this summer. 
• Forward Look: The firm’s homeownership ecosystem serves millions of consumers and supports hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals. 
  Overview bullets generated by AI with editorial review.

Place is acquiring mortgage fintech Ardley as the real estate platform is rapidly expanding its already sizable reach across the industry’s technology space.Ardley offers artificial intelligence-powered recapture and retention software for mortgage players. The announced purchase is Place’s latest during a busy summer, in which it tapped a new leader, bought point-of-sale specialist Maxwell and also added Radian Group’s real estate services. 

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“The ecosystem Place is assembling creates an enormous opportunity for our customers and the industry, combining intelligence with the scale, technology and capabilities,” said Ardley founder and CEO Nathan Den Herder in a press release Friday. 

Terms of the acquisition were undisclosed. 

The Bellingham, Washington-based Place also owns real estate intelligence platform Remine and Envoy Mortgage, a Houston-based lender which generated over $2 billion in loan volume last year. 

Place heats up

Adding Ardley helps Place serve millions of consumers across its real estate ecosystem, the company said in a press release. Its acquisition of Maxwell last month added a fintech company that serves over 400 companies and facilitates over $130 billion in annual mortgage transactions. 

Ardley and Maxwell also announced their own partnership in August and said they separately touched nearly 1 in every 10 mortgage originations last year.

“We believe the future is a connected operating system where data, intelligence, technology and services work together across the entire mortgage lifecycle,” said Ben Kinney, co-founder and CEO of PLACE, in a statement. 

The company has previously suggested that 20% of the nation’s homeowners are part of its real estate ecosystem. 

Last month Place also named veteran industry leader Chad Smith as both president of Place and CEO of Envoy. The company acquired Radian’s title agency and underwriting lines in August, after the company put up for sale some of its assets last year.

Place, founded in 2019, has been one of the more prolific buyers in the mortgage space this year as mergers, acquisitions and other partnerships have persisted despite a sluggish housing market. Aside from fintech deals, the industry has also seen massive lender moves, including CrossCountry Mortgage scooping up the Two Harbors real estate investment trust.