Mortgage Lead – Shylock’s List
The way consumers evaluate, compare and select mortgage products has been revolutionized by the internet, and this has resulted in the growth of the mortgage/financing industry and mortgage lead generation business in the USA. Many, if not all, American mortgage companies have gone to the internet in conducting their business, from the filling out of forms to the actual approval of the mortgage (and on occasion, even to the release of the mortgaged amount). The information entered by the person who is applying for any mortgage product is an entry in a mortgage lead. Since the internet has made the application process for mortgages very accessible, the person wanting to apply for a mortgage can now easily choose from a wide-array of mortgage products being offered by companies. This activity of choosing which mortgage or loan is most suited for the mortgage applicant, as well as which mortgage companies provide the better terms, has been termed mortgage shopping or loan shopping. Mortgage shopping has resulted in many forms being filled out online, and in the creation of a database of mortgage information. These information are now being marketed and sold by mortgage lead generation companies, many of which are internet based, to interested mortgage brokers or lenders.
Because of the sharp increase in the number of companies dealing with the generation, marketing and selling of mortgage lead, many have become wary of the correctness, validity and general quality of information contained in the leads, as well as the reputation of many companies. Another reason for the increased wariness of mortgage lead buyers is the prevalence of mortgage lead generation companies engaged in bogus and unsound business practice; these companies deliberately include inaccurate information just to increase the number of entries contained in their list. Other mortgage lead generation companies recycle the entries in their list by combining old mortgage leads with new ones.
Many websites have actually been created to help mortgage lead buyers in discerning between a high-quality mortgage lead and a bogus one. These sites caution buyers against setting extremely high expectations and buying bogus mortgage leads, such as those derived from incentivized mortgage surveys or those containing inaccurate data. Any company or person who buys a mortgage lead should not expect that each entry contained in the list will result in a sale, as this would be setting one’s expectations too high. An expert would normally expect that 8-14% of a good mortgage lead would result in sales.