How to Generate Purchase Mortgage Leads Using Free Reports

Over the last few months, one question I’m often asked is…”How can I attract purchase money prospects without involving local Realtors/Agents in the referrals process.” Let’s face it, as mortgage rates move around and the refinance applications continue to decline, a solid system for generating purchase leads is a must to ensure your survival.

The following system can generate a huge number of qualified mortgage leads for you. There’s no begging for leads involved plus, delivering donuts and rate sheets are not a requirement. What is required to implement the system is some initiative on your part, coupled with a little today’s technology.

The technology you’ll need is called a “call capture” system. In case you’re unfamiliar with “call capture,” it’s simply a toll-free number and system that you dedicate to your personal mortgage advertising. The toll-free number captures every single phone number that dials your toll-free number. This includes unlisted, blocked, and cell phone numbers. Plus, if the number is listed in a directory you’ll also receive the name and address of the caller. A great by-product of this system is that even if your prospect hangs up before finishing his/her request…their phone number is still captured giving you the capability of following-up.

Usually, “call capture” companies and marketing programs recommend that you give the toll-free number to a Realtor/Agent and allow them use the system to capture leads via their property listings. Since you are the mortgage person of choice…you have full access to the leads as well. The problem with using the “call capture” in this manner is that it doesn’t work if you’re new to the business or haven’t established a good working relationship with a Realtor/Agent.

Using “call capture” to distribute free reports is different and…It cuts the Realtor/Agent out of the equation. The best part is that all of the leads you generate are exclusively yours.

Here’s how it works…

Incorporate and offer targeted “free reports” into all of your marketing materials, advertising, fliers, brochures, door hangers, business cards, and everything else that promotes your mortgage business.

While your competition is offering the traditional “low mortgage rates,” or “a free appraisal or pre-qualification,” you’ll be offering free information using targeted “free reports” instead. Here’s just a few examples of “free reports” you can offer:

1. 5 Mortgage Secrets Every Homeowner MUST Know, but Lenders Don’t Tell

2. Tips Your Banker Doesn’t Want You to Know About When Shopping For a Mortgage

3. 5 Reasons Why You Should Refinance

4. How to Secure a Mortgage with Damaged Credit

5. Why Owning Your Own Home Is Better Than Renting

6. Free Report Reveals Home Inspection Tips That You Need To Know Before Purchasing

By promoting simple targeted “free reports” like these, you can generate hundreds of calls, all from potential clients that want and need this valuable information. Once your caller requests the report, simply send it to them and then follow-up with a phone call. This accomplishes two very important things:

1. You have identified a potential client, and

2. This gives you a unique opportunity to present yourself as a trusted advisor and expert, not just another salesperson.

You’ll notice that I use the phase “targeted free reports.” By promoting a specific group of reports you can target the types of customers you prefer to work with. You may target home buyers, first-time buyers, refinance prospects, FSBOs or, the credit challenged. The choice is yours…and the huge number of leads that you generate using this system…are also yours.

The term “mortgage leads” is not well known to people outside the mortgage business.

Few consumers hear this term used, even though, they could be a mortgage lead themselves.

Mortgage leads include information about consumers.

Loan providers use mortgage leads in hopes of making a consumer into a borrower. These leads are given value that is based on the probability that a specific consumer will lead to a closed loan.

Whenever you, as a consumer, fill out a questionnaire about a mortgage, you become a mortgage lead.

In many cases, these questionnaires are filled out when you respond to some kind of mortgage advertisement.

If you’ve ever filled out such a questionnaire, then you noticed it included questions that a lender might use to determine whether or not to extend a loan to you: employment, income, credit, house price.

Identifying information such as telephone number and email address is also requested because of course, you aren’t a valuable mortgage lead if the loan provider can’t get in touch with you.

In pre-internet times, loan providers did the work of generating mortgage leads by using public records. Public records might give some indication as to borrower who might want to refinance their current mortgage because their current interest rate happened to be higher than the market rate.

Increased interest rates decreased this type of mortgage lead activity because there was no easy way to tell which borrowers were interested in refinancing their mortgages.

Now that the internet prevails as a means of communicating with consumers, mortgage leads have become more specialized. Leads are no longer generated by loan providers.

Instead, there are lead specialists who do nothing but seek out mortgage leads. These lead specialists often have no mortgage experience. Rather they take advantage of a marketing background to develop advertisements to entice consumers to respond and give information that will lead them to become a mortgage lead.

Some people might think that if a mortgage lead gets you a mortgage, then there is no harm in filling out the questionnaire. It’s better to be approached by a loan provider than it is to have to hunt them down, right?

To answer that question, consider this. The lead specialist is paid to do one thing: generate mortgage leads. Once he has been paid for those leads he has no stake in whether those leads turn into closed loans or not.

In essence, the lead specialist can make all the loan promises necessary to get you to give your personal information, yet he has no responsibility to ensure those promises are kept.

The nature of the mortgage leads business is an impersonal one. With lead specialists selling to the loan providers that pay the highest price for their leads and often selling single leads to multiple loan providers.

In some businesses there is an intermediary between the lead specialist and the loan provider. The lack of personality in this relationship will likely carry over to the one that you have with the loan specialist – one that is purely financial.

A Complete Guide to Internet Mortgage Leads.

The Internet has revolutionized the way consumer’s evaluate, compare and choose mortgage products and services. Every day more and more mortgage shoppers utilize the Internet to study and purchase home mortgages. As a mortgage broker you must recognize this industry shift and learn to utilize this tool. Each day thousands of mortgage seekers fill out forms on thousands of mortgage leads generation websites requesting more information on mortgage loans or quotes from mortgage lenders. These mortgage leads are made available to you by an array of internet mortgage leads generation brokers. The BIG question is, are these internet mortgage leads worth your effort and money? Will the return on investment be there? In this article we will discuss the in and outs, do and don’ts and questions you should ask when purchasing internet mortgage leads. Careful consideration must be given to purchasing internet mortgage leads. In this mortgage lead guide we will discuss:

• What makes a quality Internet Mortgage Leads
• What you should expect from an Internet Mortgage Leads
• Closing the sell to your Internet Mortgage Leads
• Questions to ask before purchasing Internet Mortgage Leads

Quality Internet Mortgage Leads
What makes a quality internet mortgage lead? A lead that CLOSES. Not necessarily. We all know that not all leads will close. In fact if I was able to close between 8% and 14% of the mortgage leads I purchase on the internet, I would be happy. I consider a mortgage lead to be a high quality lead if it meets the following criteria:

-The Lead is Fresh -

It is critical to find out how quickly mortgage lead brokers turns the lead around and delivers it to you. Best case scenario, the lead is delivered instantly (a real-time mortgage lead) and it is an exclusive mortgage lead (only delivered to you). At a minimum you want to make sure the lead is delivered in less than 48 hours. Otherwise, the lead is less valuable and should not be sold at the same premium as a real-time mortgage lead. The more time that passes from the time the user requested information, the less your chances of closing the sale to this lead. I’ve seen many cases where users deny even requesting information. The quicker you contact them, the less likely this is to happen. Hit while the iron is hot.

-The Lead is Accurate

One of the biggest challenges mortgage lead generation companies face is obtaining accurate data from users. No matter what type of technology a mortgage lead company claims to have, no company can completely stop users from entering inaccurate data. A recent example of technology to improve data accuracy is telephone number/location verification. Companies use software to make sure the area code in the phone number matches the state. This is a nice feature because chances are if a user is going to enter a bogus phone number they will not enter the correct area code. What you must do is evaluate mortgage lead generation companies and decide who has the best solution to fit your needs.

-The Lead is a True Lead

What do I mean by a true lead? I consider a true lead to be a lead that was actually generated by someone that is truly interested in obtaining a mortgage. You have to be careful that the lead is not an ‘Incentivized Lead’. For those of you that aren’t familiar with this new term I will explain. Many websites today offer users incentives to fill out forms. In exchange for filling out these forms users are given points towards the purchase of merchandise or even money. Make sure you stay away from companies that have anything to do with incentivized leads. These leads are worthless !!!
What you should expect from an Internet Mortgage Lead?
This is simple. Don’t set your expectations to high. Like I said earlier it would be great to close at a rate 8% – 14%. Remember that you are buying leads, not sales. Expect accurate data 80% of the time and try to close at least 8% of these leads and you should be doing very well for yourself.
Closing the sell to your Internet Mortgage Leads
Again, this is a simple concept. The quicker you contact the lead, the better the chance of closing the sale. The first thing you should do is make contact. Once you have made contact with the lead ask questions and find out what they are looking for. After this initial contact you can follow up with a quote and answers to their questions. Quick response, quick response, quick response !!!!

Questions to ask your Mortgage Lead Generation Company
These are the not so obvious but very important questions to ask.

What is your lead return policy?

It is vital that you find this out before purchasing Internet Mortgage Leads. Bad leads are worthless to you and at approximately $50 each, this can get expensive quick. No batch of leads will be completely accurate, but you want to make sure that the percentage that is bad is not greater than 10% – 15%. Tip:
Ask the company what makes a lead returnable. What makes the lead invalid? Different companies will have different policies on what constitutes a bad lead.

How many times are your leads sold?

When purchasing leads you must make sure those companies aren’t overselling the leads they generate. The best lead is an exclusive mortgage lead, meaning you are the only person the lead was sold to. Exclusive mortgage leads are more expensive but you are ensured that you should be the only person receiving the lead. If the lead isn’t exclusive find out how many other times the lead has been sold. The more mortgage brokers that receive the same lead the less chance you have of closing the sale.  

What filters are available for your leads?

Filters allow you to set criteria for the mortgage leads you receive. Example: You could specify that you only want leads for mortgage seekers that have a ‘Good’ credit rating or better or you could specify that you only want leads from ‘Colorado’.

How are the leads delivered?

Find out what format the leads are delivered. Leads may be delivered in text format, Microsoft Excel, email, etc. Make sure it is a format you are able to work with.

How do you generate your leads?

Find out what method the company uses to generate Internet Mortgage Leads. Make absolutely sure there is NO INCENTIVIZING.

-Mortgage Lead Guide-

So you have reasons for getting aged mortgage leads. There is the reason for cheap rates. Among mortgages lists, fresh leads are the most expensive. In fact, it’s too expensive that you get it at $20 to $30 per lead. Comparing it with aged mortgage leads, you only pay cents to $3 per lead. This drop in prices is the most common reasons why most brokers and call center companies get such mortgage lists rather than the fresh one. Then there is the use for new employee’s training. Instead of giving them fresh leads, new hires should be given mortgage lists with aged mortgage leads where they can practice their calls at less costly leads. Then there’s the simple fact that the aged mortgage leads has no much competition. Nevertheless, there is still chance that you close a loan with an overdue interested person.

Having aged mortgage leads is not without use and success. As mentioned, you can still get considerable profit from them, only if you really know how to play it well. Although they are in the historical mortgage lists, you can still be able to close loans especially that they are still open for possible loans. Usually those in the historical mortgage lists are those who have not completed a loan or those who are possibly interested in refinance. In any way, you need to be able to utilize the leads to maximize closing of loans. Meaning, if ever you’re going to pay low rates for them, better utilize it to maximize profit. You can do so by following the simple tips below. 

• The first rule is always to treat them as humans and not as data or machines. As aged mortgage leads, they probably have talked to someone before whom they have liked or disliked. In any way, you should treat them as if it’s their first call and that you’re offering something new worth their time.

• Consider aged mortgage leads as people who are still interested. Remember they still exist in the mortgage lists because they either have not completed loans or have the possibility to refinance. Don’t just talk to them as if they have been in secondary list. Talk to them as if you are offering something new.

• Although you would seem to sell as if it’s a new lead, don’t be too pushy. Remember that it’s not their first time to receive calls and they may have the tendency to close on your calls immediately. Simply be conversant and friendly no matter how rude their responses are. Aged mortgage leads are still worth your time so better make the most of it.

• Get aged mortgage leads in quality. Quality leads means those that are still interested and has data that matches your offer. Find companies that offer quality aged mortgaged leads on their mortgage lists.

Once you bear these tips in mind, you can still make the most of the aged mortgage leads. Sure they may not provide you high success rates as with fresh leads but it depends on your strategy to maximize it. You can share these tips to the new hires so they would still value the mortgage lists in the aged group. It’s a matter of utilizing it for maximum profit; taking into account the low rate you paid and getting close loans among many aged leads on the mortgage lists.