The Mortgage Lead Forum. Mortgage Leads, Lead Generation and Marketing Tips

2010-12-28T17:38:00.001-05:00

Are you considering buying a new home or refinancing your present one? With the range of mortgage products available today, many people feel as though they need a crystal ball in order to make the right choice. It certainly would be handy to see into the future, but there are more prudent and more logical ways to navigate your way through the available options.
There are many mortgage types — pick-a-payment, hybrid adjustable, fixed-rate interest only, reverse, negative amortization, 2/28, 3/27, FHA, CHFA, VA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, wrap-around, balloon at term, or adjustable rate mortgages for 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, or 10-year terms. All these mortgages are referred to as MPs (mortgage products) or MOs (mortgage options).
When you start looking for a mortgage, try to keep an open mind. Be prepared to listen carefully so you can hear about all the mortgage products available to you. What might have been right for your parents, or what might be right for a friend, might not be right for you.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself before you meet with a mortgage professional:
· How long do you plan to stay in the house? You can use a range of years — for example, 2 to 5 years, 6 to 10 years, 12 to 20 years.
· Are you anticipating large expenditures in the near future? For example, you might need a new car, or you may be saving for a child’s college education.
· Is your family getting larger or smaller? Are you planning to have more children, are your children going off to school, or are your children grown and married?
· Is your income remaining steady, increasing, or subject to large variations? Is your spouse working, or is your spouse planning to stop working? Do you anticipate cutbacks in overtime or a slowdown in business?
· Is this your dream house or an interim house? Do you expect to improve it over time?
· Will the monthly payment curtail other activities, such as vacations or hobbies? If so, are you prepared to give those up for a while?
· Will the money from a refinancing improve the property’s value? Will it improve your cash flow, or will it improve your financial condition in some way?
Your mortgage professional will help you evaluate your answers to these questions, and he or she will help you find the right mortgage product for you. A good mortgage professional is like a good physician — both probe for information to help guide them toward making a recommendation that will be best for you.
Here are a few good websites to help you learn more about mortgages:
· http://www.ired.com/news/mort/990801.htm
· www.freddiemac.com
· www.fanniemae.com
· www.home123.com
When you are ready to buy or refinance, be sure to get a referral from someone you trust an attorney, accountant, financial planner, or good friend or relative who has gone through the experience. Remember, the more you know, the better off you are. Perhaps then you won’t need that crystal ball!

2010-12-27T13:09:00.004-05:00

Home123leads effective January 1st will be offering exclusive mortgage leads. These leads will be sold on a limited basis based on our website traffic but they will ONLY be sold to one entity. We have been looking at to best serve the needs of our brokers and from the feedback we have received our lenders/brokers would rather pay more for an exclusive lead than compete with 4 other companies for the same lead. For our current clients you can certainly keep the same pricing structure you have and NOT change over to exclusive. This is simply an option we are extending based on the feedback we have received. Call 1-877-564-2726 if you are interested in learning how you can be sure they are exclusive and how you can test for yourself.

As rates increase the pool of refinance inquiries will dry up forcing many of the lead companies to increase their sales rate. What are you doing in 2011 to ensure a steady stream of leads?

2010-12-23T10:29:00.002-05:00

How To Work Internet Mortgage Leads
No matter how these leads are obtained, time is of the essence. A person making an inquiry usually does business with the first person to contact them. This ratio varies according to industry; it can be as high as 78% of the time. Successful sales people using automatic sales leads, purchased sales leads and mailing lists need a program to respond immediately. Internet mortgage leads are received directly from a web page or through a seller of sales leads. Each will be handled a little differently. Internet clients are looking for instant answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. Before investing in a strategy, businesses need to determine how to utilize the process efficiently and benefit from this endless supply of ready, willing and able borrowers.
Each business needs to determine if a salesperson will contact a potential client or if they will hire people to follow up on these leads and qualify the clients. Many businesses use their experienced salespeople to close the deal with borrowers ready to move to the next step. Statistics indicate companies using people to qualify leads have an 8% higher closing average.
A company's web page should have an auto responder acknowledging e-mails or sending the offered information. The searchers' information should be forwarded to the office for a personal response.
Purchasing mortgage leads from an Internet company selling these leads and mailing lists creates time pressure. These leads are expensive and may be sold to four or five different businesses at a time. It becomes a race to beat the competitor to a serious client needing a new loan. Salespeople or businesses buying sales leads this way can control the time this information is received. The data should be supplied when it can be used. Data received at 7 PM, two hours after the staff have gone home, is already 13 hours old by the next morning. By changing the time to match working hours, the information is fresh and can be acted on immediately.
Of all the industries in the world, the Internet is growing and thriving. People using this valuable tool for mortgage leads get motivated and informed customers. These customers searching for mortgage information are very interested in mortgages and may need one today.
Don Drapers is a human researching machine and being part of the internet by writing useful articles about mortgage leads is just one of many "must read before you buy" articles he has written in the sales lead industry. Mortgage Leads provider so they'll WANT to give you the very best leads they have. Alternatively, say these wrong things to any lead provider and you are highly likely to get burned. Visit iMarketingData.com and quickly learn how to be in control of your lead providers. Knowledge is power. How smart are you?
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Don_Drapers

2010-12-20T08:30:00.002-05:00

Here is an interesting excerpt i found on "broker lead guides".

Having an exclusive mortgage broker lead is one of the most important types of leads for anyone to have. As a company in the mortgage industry, it is essential you have leads you can rely on, which is why these leads in particular are some of the best to have. They provide you with top quality and the most likely source of return on your investment. Each company has a different viewpoint on what exclusive mortgage broker lead purchases mean, which is why you should invest some time in comparing companies prior to making a decision.

Find out where the leads come from first. You will want to ensure that you are getting leads coming right from the company’s mechanisms, not third party providers that may have sold the lead to other companies as well. You may also want to find out if the leads are pre-screened. This means that the leads have gone through a process of ensuring they are authentic and in some cases that they are viable. This can greatly increase your chances of closing a deal on them.

Another way to look for the illusive exclusive mortgage broker lead is through a program that allows someone to sign up for the lead on the lead generator’s website or programs and that lead comes directly to you, in near real time. This way, there is no chance of someone else also getting that lead.

Of course, the most important aspect of any lead you obtain is how well they will respond to your services. Take the time to consider an exclusive mortgage broker lead rather than looking towards simple lead generation programs unable to provide you with the quality you need. You may pay more for such a service, but if you are the only one selling your services to the lead, your chances of getting results are higher.

NOW....Here is my view on Exclusive leads Unless you as a broker or mortgage company are marketing and driving traffic to your site; it is difficult to be 100% sure your leads are exclusive to you. There are some ways to get to the truth. Any mortgage lead generation company needs to pay; in most cases upfront for online marketing dollars. In terms of banner ad contracts, warm transfers and performance based costs. The first question i would have for a broker purchasing exclusive leads is "How much are you willing to pay"? If your answer is $65-75.00 then yes I could certainly get you exclusive leads. But if you are paying $15 or $25 for exclusive leads chances are they are not. Here is why it costs on average $25.00 to produce a $150K loan amount lvt under 85% with excellent or good credit. Now how can any business turnaround and sell that to you for anything under $25.00 and still make a profit? Get in writing the sites that these exclusive leads will be generated on test them periodically by competing applications and track what occurs with those leads; not just now but over the course of 30 days to be sure that they are not resold. In their contract be sure it states clearly that YOU are the only person who will ever get these leads and that information will never be redistributed or resold

2010-12-07T12:12:00.004-05:00

Thanks to everyone for your e-mails. Keep them coming! It's obvious from the questions I have been getting that the refinance lead inventory is certainly drying up. Lead companies selling leads as much as 7 times at this point. I did want to write about one topic that came up from one particular company I had the pleasure of speaking with. I promised I would not mention his company name but thanks Alex for the suggestion.

It seems that a big problem still out there is the inability to track the actual quality of the leads. And at what point is it the lead company doing something wrong vs. the lead buyer not doing something right. I am wondering if it's the fact that we don't have tracking systems in place or if it's the fact that we are just not taking the time to really "get into" the reports and analyze the data. Yes knowing how many leads were bad is one metric but we are really missing the boat if that is all we are reviewing at the end of the month. A few of the folks I spoke with have 3rd party platforms to track performance and yet when I asked a few questions they did not know the answers off the top of their head. There are a few key metrics that we should readily have answers to. It is important for the success of your platform and also to share that information with your lead company so they can modify their program accordingly.

1. Which lead company is costing you more in terms of a cost per funded deal
2. What is the spoilage rate for each of your lead providers
3. Which loan officer works a lead source better than the other loan officers
4. Where in the process is your lead vendor falling off the radar? Prior to ap; after credit is pulled?

What information can you give your lead provider that will allow them to modify their advertising to get you better quality leads? I really look at this process as relationship building. As the lead buyer you need to know everything about that customer when that lead comes in. You should know the type of ad the person clicked on to get to the lead form. You want to know the sites/sites that hosted the banner ad. Your lead vendor should be willing to share that information with you. You also want to know how other lead buyers are doing with their leads that come from the same source as yours. So here is my little sales pitch. Home123leads provides you with all the information on that customer including the marketing around what caused that person to complete the lead form. As always feel free to give me a call about any topic here or if you have a particular question about mortgage leads. We are here to help!

2010-12-03T10:23:00.003-05:00

What is a BAD Lead? It seems like an easy question to answer, but many of us find it difficult to hold ourselves accountable to the definition. Let me explain.

Over 80 percent of those we spoke with told us a bad lead is a bad phone number, a disconnected phone number or someone who said they did not apply. What we in fact discovered is that, at times, a good percentage of us are looking for credit for customers we cannot get in touch with or even some who want credit for leads that did not go to application. If the lead company provides a lead from an interested party and the contact information is valid, then they did their job. After that the onus is on us and our trained loan officers to close the deal.

There needs to be a healthy give-and-take in the relationship between the lead vendor and the mortgage company. Just like a dating relationship, we try to be on our best behavior, and somewhere down the line, our true colors are shown. Each of us needs to have a healthy appreciation of the other’s business; if we have that, we can put our best foot forward in maintaining a strong business partnership.

We all know changes occur in our operations, e.g., new loan officers start, programs change, new competition etc. Contrary to a few beliefs out there, not every lead you receive will fund. It is the lead provider’s responsibility to prevent you from getting “bad” leads and in fact credit those where the customer obviously was not interested. That being said, it’s the mortgage company’s responsibility to not take advantage of the situation.

In my travels to industry tradeshows and seminars, I am still amazed by the type of questions I get from lead buyers: “Greg, do you know what companies ‘guarantee’ their leads?” or “Can your company ‘guarantee’ a funding rate of 5% or higher? Do you give credit for ‘ineligible’ customers?” When I ask them their definitions of “guarantee” or “ineligible,” I get a variety of answers.

The simple truth is that their questions are a direct response to the frustration that has built up over the past couple of years. A healthy initial dialogue on the part of the lead buyer and seller is needed before marketing dollars are spent and contracts are signed. There are some specific questions to ask the lead provider in determining the overall value and lead quality they bring to your company.

2010-12-03T08:55:00.001-05:00

2011 FHA Loan Limits. Has anyone see the new limits released by Mortgagedaily yesterday? For one-unit residential properties, the "floor" limit is $271,050, while duplex loans are limited to $347,000 and triplex financing cannot exceed $419,400. On a four-unit property, the limit is $521,250.

In high-cost areas, as required in the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, the one-unit limit is $729,750, and the two-unit limit is $934,200. Three-unit high-cost loans are limited to $1,129,250, while the fourplex maximum is $1,403,400.

"Many areas are eligible for loan limits between the national FHA floor and ceiling based on area median home prices," the letter stated. "In such areas, the limits shall be at the higher of the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 calculated loan limits for 2008 and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 calculated loan limits for the effective period stated herein."

For Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands -- the one-unit cap is $1,094,625, while it jumps to $1,401,300 on two-unit buildings and $1,693,875 on triplexes. The fourplex limit in these "special exception areas" is $2,105,100.

Because of Continuing Resolution provisions, the limit on home-equity conversion mortgages will stay at $625,500. The HECM limit is 150 percent of the conforming limit.

The loan limits are in effect from Jan. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2011.

2010-12-02T15:29:00.011-05:00

Well, things certainly have changed for us who are survivors in the mortgage industry. We had some real peaks in refinancing levels throughout this year thanks to the rates. There were lots of exciting things happening here for us at Home123 as well. As you may know we re-launched the multimillion dollar brand; HOME123.com in early 2010. Just this past week we launched our new lead division home123leads.com. We now have 8 verticals for our consumers and in addition will be launching a platform for REALTORS® called MobileListingTag. As well as a consumer smartphone application HomeCompare.

For those of you who are currently clients at home123leads.com or who knew me when I ran LowerMyPayment you know the quality of the mortgage leads you received. Reputation as you know is 100% everything in this business. We will never be nor do we want to be the huge lead company; however, we are able to customize our lead programs to your specific needs. We listen and we take the time to understand your platform. And unlike many of the surviving lead companies out there we share with you how we generate our leads and provide the secret sauce so you can apply it in your branch operations. Give us a try the next time your lead volume needs a little boost. I invite you to visit home123leads.com or give me a call at 1-877-564-2726. Be sure to visit as I will be posting ways in which you can generate your own leads and reduce your overall marketing budget for your operation.

2009-01-15T09:41:00.002-05:00

Well I can't say it's been a Happy year for us in the mortgage industry. In my talks and travels the stories I hear are quite sad, brokers not knowing where their next job will be, loan officers and managers in California; in the heart of the mortgage industry who can't move because their home values have decreased to the point of taking a 25-30% loss on their home. People who were employeed with big mortgage companies waiting tables and working as bartenders, not to suggest there is anyting wrong with the professions, but it goes to show how significant the surplus of mortgage professionals are. So where is all of this going? Well if you're like me you get up each morning at 5:30 grab your coffee and the copy of the journal and begin to page through article upon article describing each author's version of doomsday. The very next day, what a surprise, there is hope in the mortgage industry. The fed decreased the rate a quarter point and wall street has settled somewhat. The fact is, nobody knows where it is going. With majority of adj arms due in Q4 of 2007 and Q1 2008 the worst is yet to come. Compounded with decreased home vaulations many believe we are on the verge of a resession in mid 2008.

As a mortgage professional what do you do? First and foremost if you are still in the industry do not assume you job is stable. One of my first bosses gave me some really good advise a long time ago he said, "the very first day of your new job is when to update your resume, face it kid, you really never know from one day to the next". Also begin to look at your overall skills you have achieved in your career and if you can develop new skills to keep yourself fresh in the marketplace. If you have time, take some classes that you believe will make you more marketable. How are your networking skills? Take this opportunity to drop people in your network an e-mail. It might not be tomorrow or a even a few months from now but you want to feel comfortable if and when that time comes so you can inform your contacts you are in play. Consider this, what would want to do right now if you could not stay within the mortgage industry? Perhaps some of the career choices you are thinking about could perfectly be adaptable to your current job.

2008-02-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

Warm transfers are really taking a front step in place of paper leads. The quality can be determined much quicker than paper leads and feedback from loan officers is almost instantaneous. This allows less spoilage on your marketing dollars. Recently Los Angeles-based Low.com, announced that is launched a new warm transfer program. You can read the full story here.
You can read the full story here.

A couple of companies have asked me if there is any success with trigger leads. well from my experiences they require much work and effort. An energetic loan officer will have some success but I would not look to trigger leads for a solution to your lead supply. Also very recently local governments have taken a very hard stance on them. Here is an article I would suggest you read before you consider trigger leads.
Story Here.

2007-10-23T16:56:00.000-05:00

For My LinkedIn profile.

2007-10-01T09:27:00.001-05:00

October was definitely a month for brokers to vent to me. Some have stopped using Internet leads all together. Their stories all seem to have one common element. Customers have been hounded to the point they no longer want to speak to a broker. This leads me to my frustration and our overall expectations with respect to Internet leads. Are brokers expecting too much with the ever shrinking origination volumes? The chart below shows the story. The later part of 2006 and all of 2007 have seen origination volumes significantly decrease.

So what does this mean for Internet lead companies; less available inventory. It's that simple. We cannot expect the lead company to have the same volume of leads they did last year or the last six months for that matter. I think we have to take a hard look at a lead company and its operations and come to grips with some realities. Each day the lead company spends thousands on advertising to generate their leads. There obviously needs to be an effective return on these advertising dollars. So here is the million dollar question. If their lead prices are not increasing and they are still able to provide the same volume of leads and can guarantee that the consumer will only receive 3-4 telephone calls, you need to ask them how this is possible. It is getting extremely difficult to cost effectively generate mortgage leads online. If a lead company is telling you their lead prices are going up that is the reason and we have to accept the reality if we want to continue to purchase Internet leads. Each lead company is going after the same customer and there are incremental costs to capture that ever shrinking customer base. The lead buyer needs to bare that cost otherwise more and more lead companies will be getting out of the business.

2007-08-16T13:31:00.000-05:00

Have you received e-mails regarding "Free Leads" lately? Like the saying goes.... If it looks too good to be true! One cannot go one day without reading about yet another mortgage company or broker getting out of the business. With so many of the larger players either filing for bankruptcy or significantly changing their lending criteria we are seeing applications of the non-prime customer not being accepted.
For the lead companies what this means is the inability to resell the leads they generated and paid marketing dollars for. Most genuine lead companies generate their online leads through the following sources:

1. SEO or search engine optimization of their site
2. Working with affiliate partners, other websites that will place their banners or send out e-mails in exchange for remuneration if someone clicks on the ad or completes the lead form
3. Pay per click advertising

Many lead companies are unable to filter their marketing dollars to attract prime credit internet customers. What this means is each day leads are going unsold. As the industry further realigns itself the cost of mortgage leads to the lead companies will further increase. So how can a company afford to give away leads for FREE? The answer is they can't. It is a common ploy to get you to try them out, some in fact will send you good “free” leads and THEN once you sign a contract they will be happy to flood you with bad lead as part of the mix. At that point you’re on the hook for the full contract amount.
We encourage you to read some of the articles on this Blog to learn more about lead generation and what a true lead generation company does how they generate leads and how they make money. Knowing this will give you a greater appreciation of why mortgage leads are going up in price and not the opposite.

2007-08-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

Ok we’re well into the summer and in about 6 weeks the kids are back from camp and ready for another year of school and the parents will settle back into their routines. What are we doing to prepare. It is really difficult tying folks down over the summer. It seems there is always something distracting us. One company I spoke to sends out cards with vacation themes to its prospects simply stating, " I hope you are enjoying your summer and look forward to reviewing your information you sent us. I will give you a call the week of (-----) so we can start working on a financial solution that best meets your needs.

Another company has had success with a vacation photo contest. Potential customer are asked to e-mail their funniest vacation photo and winners are announced on the company website.

The point I am making is that the summer should not be a time to find excuses. One loan officer as she stated, "Hey if my phone is not ringing and nobody is returning my calls, I will go to them". She is sponsoring a table at her pools swim meets. What a ridiculous idea right? Wrong, the table costs $125.00 for each meet 4 weeks into it and she had three deals and the real kicker is that she went through 1000 business cards

2007-06-19T14:23:00.000-05:00

Did you ever wonder what happened to the days when a loan officer walked into the office and there were 10 Internet leads waiting for him/her to call? Well those days are gone. I have spoken to several brokers over the past 60 days who tell me of a re-occurring problem they are having with their younger loan officers; they have made a good chunk of change over the past 5 years and are now resting on their laurels. Depending on their compensation program that may be ok since they are only getting paid for funded deals. On the other hand it sends a bad message to the other loan officers who are coming in the office and hitting the phones. There are hidden jewels in old internet leads. One company I know in particular requires their loan officers to make 50 calls a day to old internet leads and closing them. Face it, you paid for them and we all know that consumer circumstances change from month to month. Loan officers should be using every available resource to drum up new business. This included hitting the phones. The industry has gotten lazy to a certain point and it will be the loan officers that change their mentality who will intimately survive.

2007-05-30T07:09:00.000-05:00

Many people have asked me how much technology is involved in getting an in-house lead gen program started. The answer depends on how involved you want it to be. You can take advantage of the technologies currently available with some of the larger networks such as Commission Junction, clixGalore and affiliateprograms.com. The tracking is hosted by them so you need to simply apply the tracking code information they give you to your "success page". This will give you a foundation as you built out your own lead gen program. Start small and get your learning. Once you have tested offers and different banners and you know what is working you are ready to look at a long-term strategy that might involve hiring a developer or consultant to custom tailor your platform based on your business or your needs.

2007-05-16T16:56:00.000-05:00

So we have relied on lead companies for several years and now we are finding some of them are not providing the volume we need. For the smaller brokers out there this poses a dilemma. We find ourselves short of lead inventory. We have little to no marketing experience and know next to nothing about internet lead generation. So what is next? There are some ways we can begin to educate ourselves without spending wasted monies. Google and Overture for the smaller broker can be costly depending on the keywords mix we manage. http://www.superpages.com./on the other hand is an easy way to start familiarizing yourself with internet marketing and generating mortgage leads. The same holds true for the yellow pages on line. They are geographically targeted and tend to be less expensive than the bidding on Google and Overture. Start contacting some of your local websites and inquire about banner ad pricing. You may be surprised how relatively inexpensive it is. Local newspapers, TV and radio stations are great starting points.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding several methods that will assist you in starting up your own small internal mortgage lead generation program.

2007-05-09T10:56:00.000-05:00

As our industry is going through some significant changes and readjustments we need pay particular attention to our lead vendors or the number of vendors we are working with if we are to maintain a profitable platform.

Many of us are discovering our vendors are running out of inventory. As we call lead companies and ask for 25 or 50 per day; many will say sure not a problem but what we are hearing is that many can not deliver. The reason, most mortgage companies and brokers are looking for lower LTV's and higher loan amounts. Program criteria is being is becoming conservative and it is getting more and more challenging to provide the type of lead the industry is looking for and still be cost-effective at the end of the day. For the lead company this means much higher lead acquisition costs as incremental advertising dollars are spent trying to get the pool of leads to satisfy the new appetites of the lead buyers. Don’t be surprised if lead prices go up or lead companies try new advertising methods to capture the audience lead buyers are now searching for.

2007-03-30T09:24:00.001-05:00

By: Jay Conners
When it comes to buying mortgage leads, there are many good companies out there for you to research, and many avenues to travel down when considering which lead type will work best for you.

When it comes to buying mortgage leads, there are many good companies out there for you to research, and many avenues to travel down when considering which lead type will work best for you. While working as a loan officer, I dealt with my fair share of mortgage lead companies. Along the way, I bought my leads in bulk, I bought them fresh, and I bought them with a live transfer.

Researching lead companies is an important aspect when deciding to invest in one, but lets be honest with each other, we really don’t know what we are getting until we begin to purchase them. When I would purchase my leads in bulk, I would take $100.00 of my hard earned money, find what I believed to be the best cherry-picking site out there, and by about fifty leads at $2.00 each. Now I know that you get what you pay for, and my goal was to close two at the most, and at the very least, one. Over the years this approach would occasionally pay off, but I had the feeling of working harder, and not smarter.

The next approach I took a shot at was the purchase of "real time leads," or "fresh leads." I would take that same hard earned $100.00 and receive approximately three to five fresh leads consisting of purchase leads and refinance. These leads I did not cherry pick, I would set up a filter before hand. The filter would be specific to state, type of loan, credit, ltv, loan amount. Etc.
When a lead came in and matched my filter, it would be stream lined directly to my e-mail account, and it would be roughly ten minutes old. I had a lot of success with these leads, but continued to keep all of my options open.

The other type of lead I decided to take a shot at was the live transfer lead. I believed this to be a wonderful concept, and a very efficient way of obtaining leads and increasing my applications.
I basically sat at my desk and waited for the lead company to transfer customers to me by way of the telephone. Sometimes this worked and sometimes it didn’t. The problem was, there was no guarantee that I was going to answer the phone. I worked in an office with ten other loan officers, if I stepped away from my desk, they would end up in my voice mailbox, or if the phone went unanswered, the potential customer would hang up.

It is pointless to go into further detail, I think you get the picture, the live transfer at times could be a mess. Again, I felt as though I was working harder and not smarter. Before investing with mortgage lead companies, make sure you do your home work thoroughly. Read the companies "terms of service," find out what their return policy is, call and speak with a representative, ask about a free trial. Does it consist of a free lead or some type of credit toward your first deposit? If they are confident in the quality of their leads, than they should not have a problem accommodating you.

I have had, and know loan officers who have had success with all of the above mentioned lead type scenarios. Some may work for you and some may not. But remember, if you find yourself working too hard to make the lead work for you, consider a different type of lead!Jay Conners has more than fifteen years of experience in the banking and Mortgage Industry, He is the owner of http://www.jconners.com a mortgage resource site.

2007-03-16T13:14:00.000-05:00

Sharon Hassler gives some great incite with her top 10 list of Steps to Finding the Best Mortgage Lead Companies. If you would like to read the entire article you can visit her site at http://www.blogaea.com/telemarketinglists/10-steps-to-finding-the-best-mortgage-leads-companies/

1. Does the mortgage leads company seem reputable?
2. Where do the leads come from?
3. How many times do they sell or recycle the same lead?
4. How about exclusive mortgage leads?
5. Can you cherry pick or filter your mortgage leads?
6. Is there a guarantee?
7. How much will each mortgage lead cost?
8. What exactly is your financial commitment?
9. Set aside a block of time to research companies.
10. Where do you find mortgage leads companies?

2007-03-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

Saw a great article on Leadpoint Vs. Root Exchange on http://morinsight.com/about/ it goes into some nice detail as to the advantages and disadvantages of each platform. One of the main disadvantages people have told me is that some of us can get caught up in the bidding process. Those smaller brokers might be willing to hike up the price $50-$55 per lead but the larger brokers working on volume tend to bid around $35 therefore their lead volume might suffer. If anyone has direct experience with these companies we would be interested in your opinion

Thanks
Greg

2007-02-20T17:35:00.000-05:00

What Is A Bad Lead?
It seems like an easy question to answer, but many of us find it difficult to hold ourselves accountable to the definition. Let me explain. Over 80 percent of the companies we spoke with told us a bad lead is simply a bad phone number, a disconnected phone number or someone who said they did not apply. What we in fact discovered is that, at times, some of us who are newer to Internet lead purchasing are requesting credit for customers we cannot get in touch with or even some who want credit for leads that did not go to application.

If the lead company provides a lead from an interested party and the contact information is valid, then they did their job. After that the onus is on us and our trained loan officers to close the deal. There needs to be a healthy give-and-take in the relationship between the lead vendor and the mortgage company. Just like a dating relationship, we try to be on our best behavior, and somewhere along the line, our true colors are shown. Each of us needs to have a healthy appreciation of the other’s business; if we have that, we can put our best foot forward from the start and maintain a strong business partnership throughout.We all know things occur in our operations, e.g., new loan officers start, our programs change, new competition etc. Contrary to a few beliefs out there, not every lead you receive will fund. It is the lead provider’s responsibility to prevent you from getting “bad” leads and in fact credit those where the customer obviously was not interested. That said, it’s the mortgage company’s responsibility to not take advantage of the situation.

In my travels to industry tradeshows and seminars, I am still amazed by the type of questions I get from lead buyers: “Greg, do you know what companies ‘guarantee’ their leads?” or “Can your company ‘guarantee’ a funding rate of 5% or higher? Do you give credit for ‘ineligible’ customers?” When I ask them their definitions of “guarantee” or “ineligible,” I get a variety of answers. The simple truth is that their questions are a direct response to the frustration that has built up over the years from dealing with various lead companies in the industry. A healthy initial dialogue on the part of the lead buyer and seller is needed before marketing dollars are spent and contracts are signed. There are some very specific questions to ask the lead provider in determining the overall value and lead quality they bring to your company. Once you have those down your lead provider becomes and extension of your marketing department and not just a vendor.

Submitted by Greg Kazmierczak

2006-12-08T09:59:00.000-05:00

Holiday Times In Your Office
So the holidays are just around the corner. The office is decorated and gift packages are making the rounds throughout the office. Each day we find new treats in the kitchen or on the receptionist’s desk, and everyone seems to be relaxing. Hey…business is off by 50%. Right?

Hey it's the holidays, and business is down. Well, although I hear that logic from many brokers we deal with, it should not be the case. We need to be careful not to use the holidays as an excuse for month-end volumes. Instead, we should be taking advantage of this precious time.

Let's face it. Throughout the year, we're lucky we have enough time to finish our coffee before it gets cold — let alone worry about tasks that don’t specifically generate closed loans. But now is really your time to set the groundwork for 2007.

Dust off your old leads, and get some phone time in with your newer loan officers. Schedule training within your office. Look at your internal systems and what problems you have experienced over the past year, and determine what needs improvement. Get your IT dept to take a peek into your database, and do some housekeeping. Consider a holiday e-mail to your house file. Contact your vendors , and take some time to review both the good and bad that you experienced throughout the year. Look through your schedules or planners of clients you wanted to meet, but did not have the luxury to schedule time with them.

Although the holidays do slow down your business, it should not prevent you from reallocating your efforts to insure that 2007 starts off solid. I wish you and your families the very best this holiday season!

Submitted by Greg Kazmierczak

2006-11-18T11:40:00.000-05:00

WebMktgSolutions.com released its first ever focus group which explores what mortgage companies and brokers feel about the mortgage lead generation industry. Below are some of the highlights of the findings. Why do you use lead companies? The vast majority, eighty three percent of us use internet leads to supplement our existing lead flow followed by the fact that smaller brokers do not have the experienced marketing staff to generate a cost effective internet lead

Overall satisfaction with your lead provider. This was broken down into 4 main categories

Price was the least sensitive variable. Most of us are willing to pay an additional cost for a lead that we know is a valid lead. Some indicated they would be willing to spend as much as $10.00 more per lead. Of those respondents who provided us with narrative feedback, the #1 issue addressed was the return policy. At times return policies were not up-held or worse the solution was simply replacement leads of the same poor quality

Over the past several months WebMktgSolutions.com has taken a very pro-active approach in identifying what the internet lead industry needs to do to earn your business. We have spoken and corresponded with brokers, mortgage companies and our own clients throughout the U.S. They have shared with us their frustrations, success stories and overall thoughts on improving the relationship between the lead buyer and seller. Our focus here is to assist you in making sound decisions on what companies to use and how to develop that relationship along the way

There are several blogs out there that provide great feedback on lead companies so you don’t make the same mistakes. A few are http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/ http://www.mortgageleadsguide.com/Mortgage_Leads_Reviews.asp. For the complete results of the Mortgage Lead Report click on 2006 Mortgage Lead Industry Review

Submitted by Greg Kazmierczak

2006-01-01T16:22:00.000-05:00

Learning to get the most use out of your Internet mortgage leads can take some time, particularity if you have newer loan officers. Your loan officer is your first line of defense on lead quality. Your star Loan Officer’s opinion counts. Your best non-biased feedback will come from your top producers in your office. In many cases they are the most experienced and will give invaluable input on the lead quality. It was surprising for me to discover just how many brokers gave new Internet lead sources to their new loan officers, some who have never worked Internet leads before. We all are concerned with loan officer retention but in order for us to draw a fair conclusion on a new lead source we need to filter them through the loan officers in our office with the most experience in Internet leads. This brings me to the next subject.

Loan Officer History

How many of us at then end of the week or month know how many leads we gave our loan officers and more importantly what lead source it came from? Chances are if you are a large mortgage company your system generates these reports but if you are a smaller company you probably have to rely on verbal feedback. I have heard many situations of companies going through leads month after month without knowing anything about the lead, other than it was bad. Don’t rely on loan officers to give you all the feedback you are looking for. Tracking your lead quality and costs goes hand-in-hand with loan officer productivity on the lead source.

Let’s walk through the below example for June:

You spend a total of $10,875.00 on your leads. You just signed on Acme Lead Co. as a new lead source who sent you 95 leads for June. All your loan officers received leads from that source but one loan officer in particular received 75% of the leads from Acme. Would your company be able to identify that particular loan officer if you had this scenario? If you are able to identify the loan officer you can greatly decrease your lead costs and also identify your weaker loan officers. Let’s assume Terry received 75% of the leads from Acme. Now you are in a position to go to Terry and begin your discovery process. Also it allows you to look at Terry’s overall performance against his other lead sources to determine if, in fact it’s the lead source. Perhaps Terry is a newer loan officer. Reference Terry’s pervious months against June to determine any inconstancies.
Within your company you should be able to determine not only which loan officers are closing leads and from what source but also which loan officers are spending most of your lead budget. Determining your cost per funded loan per loan officer is just as important as determining your overall lead cost per loan officer. Now you are in a much better position to make an educated decision about the quality of a lead source

2005-10-19T13:46:00.000-05:00

Successful Telemarketing Leads

If you are purchasing telemarketing leads, see if you can get a copy of the script or the questions that the customer is asked. This will determine if there are any incentive-based methods used to generate their leads. This is by far the most common problem we hear about telemarketing leads. “The customer would say, well I am not interested in a mortgage; I just wanted the free offer” or “I told them I wasn’t interested in a mortgage, but they transferred me anyway”.

If a customer only completed an application to get a gift certificate or some “Free Offer.” Chances are they are not going to be too interested in home financing. Also, see if your own phone number can be added to their call list so you can test the program for yourself prior to taking any leads. Make sure you know exactly how they are acquiring their phone list and that it is scrubbed against the do-not-call registry. You might also want to get a little extra protection and insist that their agreement specifically states that they are compliant with the do-not-call registry.

2005-10-17T14:09:00.000-05:00

Lead Broker vs. Lead Generator

Make Sure You Know Who You Are Dealing With!
This is the single most important piece of information you need when looking for a source for your mortgage leads. Are you working with a lead broker or a lead generator? What’s the difference? A lead broker generally purchases leads from third parties (a lead generator) and will resell them to you. A lead generator, on the other hand, generates its own leads directly on its website through its own marketing efforts and sells them directly to you. With a lead broker, it will be difficult to determine how and where they are getting their leads. You should still try, even if it requires you to agree that you will not engage in business with their sources.

It is best to know as much as possible about HOW the lead was actually generated. This will clear up any questions regarding whether a company markets “incentive” offers to consumers. You also want to know when the lead was received and how many times the source sells its leads. If they tell you only four times test them out. Go to the website and complete an application. Sit and wait to see how many calls you get from lenders. Without this information, there is no real way of knowing if four companies or 15 companies received the same lead. Lead generators who wants to earn your business should have no problem giving you the details of their lead generation process. If they won’t, you might be working with a lead broker. Not that this is bad; however, if they are unable to provide you specific information, it does raise the question of the age of the lead and the number of times the lead was actually sold or resold. A lead generator by contrast manages its own website and spends its own advertising dollars to generate its own leads.

Submitted Greg Kazmierczak

2005-10-03T13:19:00.000-05:00

How To Generate Your Own Leads

The fastest and most effective way to start getting quality traffic to your website is by using Pay Per Click Ads. Two of the most popular PPC (Pay Per Click) search engines are Google Ad words http://www.google.com, which are featured on many websites including the monster of all search engine GOOGLE and Overture http://www.overture.com, which shows your listings on sites like Yahoo, AltaVista, MSN, and more! PPC advertising offers you the best bang for your buck.

Here is how it works: You bid on specific keywords or key-phrases to have your ad come up when people search for that specific keyword. Take for example, when a person searches for "Refinance." If the person sees your ad and is interested they click on it and you simply pay your bid amount. You may bid $1.00 to get listed at the top of the search # result, but your competitor could then bid $1.05 and outbid and move ahead of you. Bids for the top positions vary from pennies to a few dollars, but most PPC search engines have keyword suggestion tools to help you find keywords and their search results to suit your budget. You may bid on as many keywords as your budget can handle. A general rule of thumb would be to aim for one of the top two positions for keywords with low bid searches and aim for top five for keywords with higher volume searches. You must be careful, though, to bid within your means! PPC’s are all about conversion rates. For example, if you bid $2.00 per click and get 10 clicks and one mortgage lead from those 10 clicks, this means you paid $20.00 for that lead and have a 10% conversion.

Be sure that if you are licensed in only certain states that you bid on state specific keywords, for example "Florida Home Loans" instead of "Home Loans." If not you will get tons of clicks for leads you cannot use.Finally, your ad should follow certain guidelines. You want to describe your product or service in your ad as precisely as possible. Remember, you are not looking for “random visitors” because you are paying for their click whether they become a lead/sale or not! Try to include keywords in the subject that not only bring in good prospects for you but also thwart "curiosity seekers" from clicking on your PPC ad.

You may reproduce or reprint this article if you include the following. This article is provided by TheMortgageWire.com Mortgage Industry News and Marketing Portal.

Submitted by Staff Writer WebMktgSolutions.com

2005-09-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

We would like to welcome you to The Mortgage Lead Forum. Based on the responses we have received it was evident the need was there for a healthy exchange among lead buyers to discuss their experiences with the lead industry in general. This is not mean to be an avenue to take our frustrations out on lead companies, however tempting it might be. WebMktgSolutions.com encourages you to share you experiences, both good and bad, with our members. We make every attempt to update our mortgage lead forum on a regular basis and provide informative content, links and articles. If you are working with a mortgage lead generation company currently or are new to the industry and looking for some valuable incite from your peers you reached the right place. When posting please feel free to leave your name (no e-mail address please), as we are trying to keep this as informative as possible but also at the same time respect our visitors privacy.

P.S. If you do not wish to create an account, you can still post by using anonymous.

Thank you
Greg Kazmierczak
Founder
WebMktgSolutions.com

2005-09-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

About WebMktgSolutions.com
WebMktgSolutions.com provides mortgage companies and brokers with the tools they need to increase their lead volumes. We assist in developing successful marketing programs both on-line and offline. Our services run from developing internet-based lead generation programs to working with and managing your lead company affiliations. If you are looking to start an internal lead generation program we can help you in setting up the internal infrastructure, technical components and provide you with the resources you need to attain your monthly funding goals