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.