A mortgage lead is a potential customer for a mortgage loan. Mortgage loan professionals, including mortgage brokers, mortgage loan originators and loan officers, rely on mortgage leads that they can turn into borrowers. There are many ways to get mortgage leads, which is a process called lead generation. If you are interested in obtaining mortgage leads, use these methods for how to generate mortgage leads.[1]

Method 1
Method 1 of 4:

Mining Your Network for Mortgage Leads

  1. Joining your son or daughter's PTA, the local Habitat for Humanity, or simply becoming a more active member of your congregation will generate leads by exposing you to more members of the community.
  2. Business cards are a necessity, as well as flyers and mailers advertising your mortgage loan office's strongest loan products. You'll also want to prepare a short stock statement outlining your mortgage loan benefits and rates that you can use. Be prepared with these materials before you reach out to your network.[2]
    • Don't be pushy. Try hard not to become the overbearing salesperson who just uses people for their leads. Invest in people, and they will invest in you. Showing a genuine appreciation for people's problems, concerns, and desires will go a long way in the mortgage loan business.
  3. Who says that business can't start at home? For many mortgage brokers, it does. Make a list of all the people that you come into regular or semi-regular contact with. Reach out to them by sending a letter (your stock statement will do) detailing general mortgage loan benefits, as well as your competitive rates.
    • Keep track of who you send your letter to and occasionally remind them about your services by sending out reminder postcards and mailings. Your persistence will pay off.
  4. Let them know that a referral is the biggest compliment that they can pay. If their referrals end up being clients, follow up with thank-you notes or emails. Your clients will get satisfaction knowing that you took time out to appreciate their kindness.[3]
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Method 2
Method 2 of 4:

Using Realtors and Real Estate to Generate Leads

  1. Real estate agents, or realtors, come into contact with hopeful home buyers and generate mortgage leads on a regular basis. Solicit referrals from real estate professionals in the following way:[4]
    • Look through local real estate magazines and search online real estate office sites to identify realtors who have a lot of listings.
    • Either stop in to the real estate offices or make telephone calls and leave messages in order to establish initial contact. Follow up your office visit or phone call with another phone call, asking to speak specifically with the realtor you're targeting.
    • Once you have the realtor on the line, explain who you are and what your mortgage office has to offer to the realtor and any mortgage lead they refer to you. Ask them what is important to them in a mortgage partner and what they want in a mutually beneficial relationship. Then, address how you can help meet those needs.
  2. Approach homeowners who are selling their homes without the help of a realtor. They are able to make their own choices regarding the advertising and financing of their property for sale, and may allow you to place signs advertising your mortgage loan services alongside their FSBO signs. Make sure that your signs are compliant with all necessary groups.
  3. Realtors often have open houses during the weekends, where they hold a house they have listed for sale as open to the public in order to allow potential home buyers to walk through and explore the home. Open houses are generally listed in the classifieds, and are also advertised by way of street signage. Focus on spending your time at the open house building a relationship with the realtor. If you can build a strong rapport, the benefits later on could be major.[5]
    • Ask to leave business cards and your company's brochures in a conspicuous place for potential home buyers.
    • If you develop a relationship with a realtor, you may be able to sit for an entire open house in order to greet potential home buyers as they tour the house for sale.
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Method 3
Method 3 of 4:

Advertising to the Community

  1. Set up a personal website that will generate mortgage leads for you. Post ads in print and web classifieds, place signs along street-sides and take out advertisements in newspapers as well as local trade publications.[6]
    • Use the amazing power of the internet to advertise your service. Online mortgage forums, email marketing, pay-per-click, and banners are all lead generating. Be sure to include a call-to-action message such as "Message us with any questions about mortgages you may have" in order to drive more demand.
  2. This is an effective way to gain familiarity in the home-shopping crowd and generate mortgage leads.
  3. Obtain a list of property owners and their addresses from the county property appraiser's office.
  4. Set up a booth at any type of trade show and advertise your service, making sure to target your marketing to the theme of the tradeshow. For example, at a home improvement tradeshow, you may advertise home equity lines that will allow visitors to cash out on their home's equity in order to invest in any new home additions they're interested in.
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Method 4
Method 4 of 4:

Other Ways to Generate Leads

  1. Verify that the leads you buy are fresh, and that they have not also been sold to other parties.
    • Search online for companies that sell mortgage leads to mortgage loan professionals.
    • Only purchase leads that are purportedly fresh and exclusive to you.
    • Ask about the company's guarantee and lead return policy, and buy only a few leads to begin with, in order to test them for quality.
    • When you call a lead, verify the timing and exclusivity of the lead with the potential customer in order to determine the company's lead quality.
    • Always verify that leads are fresh and exclusive before you enter into a contract to purchase them.
  2. Orphan files are the mortgage lead files left behind by loan officers who are no longer working in your office. Taking the time to contact those potential customers could yield new clients for you.
  3. MLS is a database of properties for sale that are listed with a real estate agent.[7]
    • Search the Internet for MLS listings websites.
    • Call or mail the sellers with information about you and your company.
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Tips

  • When prospecting from MLS listings, you may choose to forgo contacting the listing realtor for permission to contact the seller. Conduct a search of the property address in the county tax assessor's records in order to find the sellers' information and contact them directly.
  • Check with your local business regulatory agency when placing ads for lead generation. There are laws governing specific information you must include in such ads.
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Warnings

  • When approaching realtors, beware of accepting "dead leads." Dead leads are leads that they have already been rejected by a lender. Taking on a dead lead is setting yourself up for failure, as it has already been proven that that particular client is unable to secure a mortgage loan.
  • Many times when working with realtors, if they send you a "dead" lead, chances are that the realtor has a preferred loan officer/lender that either denied the loan because the borrower was not eligible or because the loan officer was a rookie (or someone looking for the easy deals that can't handle the complicated ones). At this point if you can spark the dead deal into a real deal, there is a good chance the realtor is going to begin pitching you solid deals from that point forward.
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About this article

Ryan Baril
Co-authored by:
VP, CAPITALPlus Mortgage
This article was co-authored by Ryan Baril. Ryan Baril is the Vice President of CAPITALPlus Mortgage, a boutique mortgage origination and underwriting company founded in 2001. Ryan has been educating consumers about the mortgage process and general finance for almost 20 years. He graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2012 with a B.S.B.A. in Marketing. This article has been viewed 189,125 times.
12 votes - 92%
Co-authors: 23
Updated: January 31, 2023
Views: 189,125
Article SummaryX

To generate mortgage leads, reach out to your personal network to find people who are potentially in the market for a mortgage loan. Talk to your friends and family, but don’t overlook other sources of potential leads, like PTA groups or people you go to church with. Keep promotional materials on hand, and pass them out when you come across someone who has been thinking about buying a home. Keep reading for tips from our mortgage reviewer on finding mortgage leads from realtors and real estate agents!

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  • Louis Teoh

    Louis Teoh

    Apr 15, 2017

    "I am a mortgage broker looking for more ideas on how to generate more leads, and this article has definitely done..." more
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