Live mortgage leads will provide you with a great income stream to your mortgage business if you know the right ways to get high quality ones. Anyone can come to your site or call you on the phone, say that they’re qualified, and ask questions, taking up valuable time that you could be spending on someone who really could afford a mortgage. However, when you get exclusive live mortgage leads of people who are actually qualified to get a mortgage, your business has a lot better chance of success.

The top 5 ways to get hot, live mortgage leads for your business:

1.  Purchasing them from third party vendors.
2.  Word-of-mouth generated from networking online through such applications as Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social networks, and also in person through miscellaneous social functions like sponsored Chamber of Commerce Events.
3.  Outsourced call centers.
4.  Newspaper  and online display or classified ads.
5.  Generate them through properly promoted websites and blogs.

Purchasing From Third Party Vendors

Simply put, you can get any type of lead you’re interested in from quality vendors:  refinance, commercial, reverse, and more.  When buying live mortgage leads from third party vendors be prepared to pay as much as $20-$50 per lead and sometimes more to have these calls transferred to you at the time they are generated and connected to this third party’s call center.

Do research when purchasing leads from any third party vendor to know how they generate the lead and that the prospects they are sending you are fully qualified.

Word-Of-Mouth And Networking

Still probably the most effective method of all for generating rock solid leads, especially for the independent agent (as opposed to the large broker who requires hundreds or thousands of leads to satisfy an entire team of agents).  With so many avenues available today, particularly online with applications like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and literally DOZENS of others, it’s not tough to network your way into a constant lead flow.

What’s important here, and what many people in all kinds of business forget, is that networking in and of itself does not lend itself well to blatant sales pitches, online or offline.  The purpose of networking is to simply introduce yourself to as many people as possible, find out what they do, share with them what you do, swap cards and contact info (or online, create a blog or site with a link to it in your profile or signature), and always continue to mingle.

When you find someone who is interested NOW in acquiring a new or refinanced mortgage, first in mind, first in choice is the name of the game.  More importantly, when someone within the network you’ve created contacts you, then rest assured this is about as quality as live mortgage leads get because it’s not a completely “cold” contact.

Outsourced Call Centers

Call centers can come in a variety of different types and associated costs in order to help you generate live mortgage leads.  Local, US-based call centers are expensive and are usually reserved for the bigger players or agencies.  Foreign-based call centers are far less expensive, are still often used by the more savvy big players, but are also easily afforded by the smaller brokerages and even individual agents.  Although language barriers can SOMETIMES be an issue, many of the larger companies that provide these types of services in India and the Philippines are usually very good at English and only need direction and instruction, and they will be handling all incoming, outgoing, or all calls for your mortgage business.

It can also be scalable depending on the size and scope of your operation.  A quick search on Google and you can find many foreign companies that offer these services, so you can research more details, depending on exactly what you need.

Newspaper Display And Classified Ads (also, Internet Ads)

Newspaper display ads can be very costly, and like many call center operations, are usually the methods used by larger brokerages.  Classified ads are much less expensive and can easily be placed in a single, local paper or in dozens, hundreds, or thousands of papers nationwide through different online sources.

Online classified and retail display (or banner) ads “can” be costly if placed on really high profile websites, but there are so many high traffic sites ran by individuals that, with some research, can easily be contacted about rates.  For online classified ads, CraigsList is very popular and also extremely simple to place ads for free.

If you choose any of these strategies, while not needed, it’s still beneficial to have a highly functional website as an added marketing weapon to build trust and credibility.  Remember, once you’ve pre-sold someone through any method, and you’ve gotten them to contact you, then half the race is over!

Websites And Blogs (Properly Promoted)

While there certainly are other methods to generate live mortgage leads, this is how a majority of the leads are generated by third party lead vendors.  So, why not do it yourself?  If you think it’s more than you want to put on your plate to do it effectively, then you can outsource this as well, but make sure you have a rock solid plan of action in place before you invest a lot of money into an entire lead generation system for you or your brokerage.  It’s not just about building a really professional or pretty website or blog (or both), nor is it about building a series of really professional or pretty websites and blogs.

It’s about building enough of each and getting them promoted in the most effective way that matters.  Pay per click advertising is popular, but can get costly if you don’t know what you’re doing.  SEO (search engine optimization) where the sites/blogs you create are ranking high in Google or some other search engine’s rankings for terms people are using to find a mortgage, is also powerful.  Again, though, SEO is a tedious game that must be executed correctly or your site could get banned, never to be seen again.

Your mortgage business can grow, and live mortgage leads can play a significant role in it, but you have to determine which method is going to be most efficient for you.  For most, the quickest way to get new business is to purchase mortgage leads from third party lead vendors, so remember to research the source and quality before committing.