Bilt Rewards Moves Into Mortgage Space

It’s been a big month for Ankur Jain’s Bilt Rewards, which just announced a major partnership with a home lender days after inking a lease in the Meatpacking District.

Bilt is partnering with United Wholesale Mortgage to allow homeowners to earn points when they make timely payments on new or existing mortgages through UWM, Bloomberg reported. The deal represents the first partnership Bilt has formed with a home lender.

The partnership is an expansion of Bilt’s better-known service of providing points to renters that can be redeemed for rewards. UWM is one of the nation’s largest mortgage providers and recently invested $100 million in Bilt, 40 percent of a fundraise the startup closed in July.

Mat Ishbia, UWM’s chief executive officer and the owner of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, said the reward program would help retain customers, particularly when they look to refinance or receive a fresh mortgage on a home purchase.

The points program for mortgages is expected to launch early next year.

This comes after another of the platform’s high-profile partnerships sunset. Wells Fargo was reported this summer to be ending the credit card venture it launched in 2022. The Wall Street Journal reported in July, citing people familiar with the matter, that heavy losses caused the bank to terminate the partnership ahead of its 2029 end date.

The report came a day after a bullish announcement from Bilt, which secured $250 million in a new fundraising round that tripled its valuation to $10.75 billion.

The firm also said it was ending its relationship with the bank and debuting a new card offering — developed with a fintech firm named Cardless — to launch in February, coming with benefits for rent and mortgage payments.

Bilt recently signed a 58,000-square-foot lease with Nuveen to take over the former Samsung building at 837 Washington Street in the Meatpacking District. The company also struck a deal to receive up to $6.25 million in tax credits under the state’s Excelsior Jobs Program, incentivizing growing companies to stay in New York.

Bilt’s rewards platform has relationships with more than 40,000 merchants and 70 percent of the top property managers in the country, according to the company. The company hit a $10.8 billion valuation over the summer.

— Holden Walter-Warner