With mortgage rates hitting historic lows, more and more homeowners are choosing to refinance. This practice saves most people thousands of dollars over the life of their mortgage and can mean lower payments as well. People used to review countless Yellow Page listings, looking for a bank that was offering competitive mortgage rates. Alternatively, they might have scanned the business section of the local paper, hoping to spot a deal.

These days, most mortgage refinance starts online. The Internet has become the home branch of thousands of financial institutions, all of them competing to refinance mortgages at more attractive rates. Consumers are no longer bound to choose from local banks and other mortgage lenders in their hometown. Instead, homeowners can review offers from financial services companies from across the country, soliciting multiple quotes, and choosing the one that offers the most advantageous combination of rates, service, and accessibility.

With most mortgage refinance leads being located online, consumers can usually complete the entire process without ever leaving home. They can fill out applications and other forms online from the comfort of their own computer desk. These forms can even be signed and submitted electronically. Online mortgage refinance services are easy and efficient. Most feature a quick approval process and most refinance transactions performed in an online environment are completed within the stipulated deadline. It is this kind of rapid approval, combined with competitive rates, which are tempting consumers to abandon brick and mortar financial institutions for mortgage lenders they have only encountered in cyberspace.

This kind of competitive environment can only benefit consumers. With increased competition, mortgage lenders are forced to offer better and better rates as well as find ways to provide innovative customer service. However, it’s also true that some people merely use the Internet as a comparison shopping tool. They educate themselves about the different mortgage refinance products that are available on the market, comparing rates, services, terms, and fees before approaching their own financial institution about refinancing options. This only highlights the importance of banks and other mortgage lenders maintaining relevant and effective websites. The more accurate and detailed the data they provide on their websites is, the easier it is for the consumer’s questions to be answered conveniently. The more information a website contains, the more informed the consumer is, and the more likely they are to apply for a mortgage refinance that fits their budget.

Having bad credit puts many homeowners in situations that are difficult to get out of. Many consumers ruin their credit because they are not making enough money to regularly pay their bills on time each month. However, if you have bad credit, it can be difficult to get a loan or refinance your mortgage, so that you will have more disposable income.

While this may be tough for many homeowners to hear, it will be very difficult or even impossible to refinance your home loan if you have bad credit. Lenders will be unwilling to offer a homeowner a new loan if they are not likely to make the required payments. Therefore, in order to be eligible for a refinance, you will need to determine an effective credit restoration plan.

When a consumer finds themselves overwhelmed with debt and with limited options, credit repair may seem impossible. Fortunately, in most cases, credit restoration is possible when approached logically and realistically. The first thing that a consumer must do to repair their credit is to obtain a credit report.

After obtaining a credit report, consumers can then begin the credit restoration process. Carefully review all aspects of the report, instead of only focusing on your credit score. Check that all information is correct and determine if their are any debts in collections or currently in default. These debts will generally need to be taken care of before a lender will allow a homeowner to refinance.

Once a consumer knows what is negatively affecting their credit, they can more effectively create a good credit repair plan. This will require a consumer to determine what portion of their monthly income is spent on bills and the amount of disposable income that they are left with each month. Consumers should tightly budget their disposable income, so that it will be possible to repay any debts that are currently in collections or judgements that they may have.

In order for a credit restoration to be successful, consumers will also need to be sure to pay all bills on time and keep all accounts in good standing. However, if after creating a budget, a consumer still finds him or herself unable to pay their monthly bills, they will need to seek the help of a professional. There are many credit repair professionals that are able to help clients figure out ways to repair their financial situations. Fortunately, once consumers fix their credit, they will be able to refinance their mortgage, which will lessen their financial burden even further.

Many mortgage professionals wonder how they can broaden their clientele and secure more business. While there are many homeowners and potential home buyers in need of loans, it can be difficult to find and reach out to these individuals.

One way to find potential clients is to buy mortgage leads. A mortgage lead is information about a consumer that may qualify for a certain type of mortgage loan. A lead will usually include the consumer’s name, contact information, and some financial information, like the consumer’s estimated credit score, income, and debt information. Buying mortgage leads is a great way for professionals to find potential clients that they would not find otherwise. This can increase a professionals sales and prove to be a very profitable investment.

The Different Types Of Mortgage Leads Available

When buying mortgage leads, it is important to understand the different types of leads that are sold. The three main types of mortgage leads are normal leads, live leads, and leads sold by the credit bureaus. A normal lead is one that is stored in a lead generation company’s database and sold to multiple different mortgage companies. These consumers will probably have been marketed to several times, which may make they harder to turn into clients.

Live leads are consumers that have already showed an active interest in a possible mortgage loan. These consumers may have requested loan information online or were cold called by a lead generation company. These leads are generally much more expensive than regular leads and are usually not sold to more than one company.

The three major credit bureaus also sell mortgage leads. Based on the information in the bureaus’ records, they determine who could possibly qualify for a mortgage loan. These consumers will not necessarily be interested in obtaining a loan, but may be a good candidate. However, the lead information provided is not always completely correct, but is more of an estimate of a consumer’s financial situation.

How Companies Benefit from Buying Mortgage Leads

Buying mortgage leads is beneficial in a few different ways. The first benefit is the time that it saves. Instead of wasting time cold calling uninterested, and possibly irritable consumers, mortgage professionals can spend time pursuing good candidates. Another benefit of buying mortgage leads is that many leads contain information about consumers that have already expressed interested in the loan process. These leads will be much easier to turn into clients and can greatly increase a loan officer’s monthly sales.

Lenders are finding that they can save a lot of money in their marketing budget because quality mortgage leads are generated online. Therefore, once they make the initial investment required to set up a high quality web presence for their company, mortgage leads will begin flowing rapidly.

Historically, when mortgage rates are low, lenders see a significant increase in quality mortgage leads. Right now, rates are at a point where borrowers who want to buy or refinance a loan are looking online for the best deals. The lending industry can thank the age of the internet for this behavior. Using a website, lenders can put out information about the different types of mortgages and refinance programs they offer and potential borrowers can review and compare the options to find out which might work best for their specific situation.

Quality mortgage leads are generated online. Interested borrowers can fill out a request for information from a lender, which is what constitutes a mortgage lead. Once this lead gets into the hands of a mortgage agent, there is a high likelihood that the borrower will complete and application and eventually close on a new mortgage loan. This is excellent news for lenders and it is also excellent news for interested borrowers, who will find the new trend in mortgage applications online saves them time and money.

It will be very interesting to see how this trend develops to save lenders money, and to increase the number of leads that they are able to generate using the internet. Gone are the days where lenders had to cold call local residents to talk about the option of refinancing. Costly mailings are also not an issue for most lenders today. And potential buyers and homeowners looking to refinance their mortgages have the added benefit of thousands of lenders available to provide information with a single mouse click.

These mortgage loan marketing strategies do not require a great deal of work, but the amount of payoff that you can receive for them is quite drastic.

1. Put a headline on all of you written media, whether it is posted online or it is printed in ink. This includes advertisements, greetings, and letters. The headline is what gets a reader’s attention. Without it, they are likely to simply ignore your message. The reason for this is fairly straightforward. They don’t want to read it because they don’t know what it’s about. Most people are just as busy as you are, if not more. They don’t want to waste their time reading something if they don’t know that it will be useful to them.

2. Anytime that you do something for a client, you should not be afraid to get a little boastful about it. If it took some negotiating in order to get a loan approved, don’t send a message to your client saying something boring like, “You loan was approved today.” Send them a short story about how you had to fight for them in order to get the loan approved. Customers want to know that you are actually providing a service for them. Don’t get arrogant about it, but anytime you do something for a customer, they should know it. They will have more respect for your mortgage loan marketing skills.

3. Make sure that you are sending thanks to at least one person everyday. It you aren’t doing this, you will be shocked at how much more success you will experience when you start sending out thank you notes. Don’t just send thank you notes to people that you think will earn you money. Send them out to everybody. Anybody who does something for you that you really should be appreciating in the first place, send them a note to thank them. In some cases, this can really make somebody’s day. Mortgage loan marketing becomes much easier when everybody respects you, and the amount of respect you will earn for such a small amount of work is immense.

4. If you have a receptionist answer the phone for you, have them tell callers that you are working with a client and that they will see if you can get in touch with them. This says a couple of things. It sends the message that you are busy, and clients want to know that you are busy working for them. In addition to this, if you take the time to communicate with them, it sends the message that the client is important to you. This makes them feel that they are getting the attention that they deserve, which is a major contributing factor mortgage loan marketing.

So much discussion surrounds getting mortgage leads we often forget how to properly manage these leads once we get them. If your sales pipeline database system is automated then it can be a very time consuming job. If done correctly, a lead management database that automatically alerts you to scheduled call back or important dates ensures a smooth continuous flow of leads daily.

The benefit of a sound lead management system enables an experienced mortgage agent to make good use of mortgage lead management tools.

Increased sales conversion rates as each mortgage branch obtains new mortgage leads from various sources like websites and marketing lead providers. These leads are pre-sorted to include prospects with varying qualifications such as self rated credit, LTV, or loan amount. By qualifying leads i.e. filtering the data correctly seasoned agents can prioritize their time.

First they focus on closing the most valuable leads then work their way towards the bottom of the list. In this fashion the often cumbersome task of following up on genuine leads becomes more efficient always increasing the conversion sales rate.  A mortgage company with a solid lead management system should be able to close 20% more leads.

Remember good leads do not get lost, not even those considered aged leads. Be organized in the approach. Have an automated workflow system in place to earmark the leads and any documents to the appropriate file i.e. digital files can make searching very quick as opposed to leafing through endless paper file draws.

Highly efficient database searches for quality leads generated can be differentiated in terms of zip codes, loans required, area codes, credit history, etc. Such digital cataloging of the leads simplifies the follow-up and tracking of these leads. Many mortgage companies make their lead management database password accessible via Internet applications so that sales reps on the road can dial-in to grab new leads even accessing the information on a cell phone.

Digital lead management systems accessible remotely accelerate better sales closing response time. On average studies prove online systems save 35% to 45% off things such as travel, materials and lodging across the board while generally accelerating the rate of sales.

Ideally, the mortgage agent should theoretically never have to step foot in the office. He should be able to access all sales related leads, materials and educational training online while on the road – out-in the field making hopefully closing sales.

Although physically, the leads are maintained at the office on a computer network server, it should allow the data to be pushed out from the office over the Internet for authorized sales agents to access 24/7.

Since the database is maintained centrally it can be quickly updated with new materials or changes necessary to key documents etc. The sales lead management applications offered to the sales agents in the field should be easy to use and robust.

Whenever we talk about potentially sensitive insurance or mortgage financial information, it is necessary to ensure multiple security features are built into the system. A solid security system is also a sales benefit that can make sales prospects feel confident that your running a top quality organization that is dedicated to their success.

By implementing an intelligent mortgage lead management system you will be able to produce better customer service and data security for the sales prospect, efficiency and profits for the mortgage firm.

We often hear, “look for the pain point” in learning to sell. Is that always the magic to getting the sale? Skip Anderson, of Selling to Consumers is not so sure.

Looking for More Than Pain in Mortgage

What About Debt Settlement?

Sure, that is fine for mortgage, but all debt customers are coming with pain right? Maybe not. In fact, I would venture to guess many of your debt settlement prospects don’t even know they have pain yet. That is why aged refinance and loan modification leads are so profitable for debt settlement companies.

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Whether you are in the mortgage or the debt settlement business–loan modification leads are a good bet for prospects. If you think about it loan modification implies a crushing debt problem. Assuming that a homeowner is holding one of the largest debt burdens an average customer will encounter, a loan modification lead is someone in real debt relief need.

Why Loan Modification Leads?

If you are in the debt settlement business you may be wondering why I would recommend loan modification leads. The answer has a lot to do with detecting the intent of the person inquiring and how close they may be to taking action.

As you know most debt leads are people very early in knowing (or admitting) they have a debt problem. That means you are spending much of your time convincing them that they need to take care of their debt problems now.

To the contrary, someone who has inquired about a loan modification knows they have a crisis on their hands. They also are probably a bit more sophisticated, in that (believe it or not) most consumers still don’t know what about loan modifications.

Opportunity to Set-up Mortgage Referrals

It is also a fair bet that if someone is having problems paying their mortgage they are there because of credit problems, credit card debt, installment loans and the like. Sounds like the perfect person for you, in the debt settlement business, to help.

Ultimately, getting them into a stronger financial situation to support that mortgage payment.

However, you might not have the expertise or licensing in your debt settlement practice to solve the mortgage issue. Never fear, this is a perfect opportunity to set up a referral relationship with a mortgage broker or loan modification specialist.

Ideally, these loan modification leads will not only get you some more debt settlement deals, but they may also get you some referrals flowing from mortgage partners.
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I am curious what the general sentiment is on this topic. I hear a lot of my customers having to make adjustments because of all of the regulatory changes. There’s HVCC, loan modification rule changes, increased mortgage licensing requirements, robocall bans, and a host of other changes that target the financial services industry.

How are you dealing with these and other market changes?

Here are some of the trends I am seeing with my clients and in the market:

1. Small and independent brokers are having to find bigger shops to join or operate under in order to stay compliant
2. Everyone is monitoring regulatory issues and legislation much more closely
3. Costs are going up and most increases are attributable to compliance
4. There are fewer sources of funding for lenders
5. The government is forcing more inefficiency, while cutting profit opportunity

This certainly is making it tougher to run a debt or mortgage business. However, I think there are some great opportunities to excel in this environment too.

• If you look for the right savings, like buying aged leads versus real-time leads, you can stretch your advertising budget a lot farther.
• The regulatory environment also weeds out the bad apples-improving the image and the trust of those remaining in the business.
• Finally, I think whenever market sand is shifting creativity always wins-learn to do something faster, more efficient, or more appealing.

Then, while your competitor are moping with their heads down you will be passing them by.

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Loan modifications are all the rage in government and the media, but where the rubber meets the road they may not be getting it done. It seems that very few of these troubled loans are actually getting modified and when they do they simple seem to be delaying an inevitable foreclosure.

Loan Modification Doesn’t Mean Debt Forgiveness

Although there are many statistics showing the powerful effect of debt forgiveness in recovering troubled borrowers few loan modification programs are using this tool. Holden Lewis’ article on FrontDoor.com confirms this fact:

“Less than one in 50 mortgage modifications includes debt forgiveness, which is considered the surest way to prevent foreclosure.”

“For every troubled homeowner whose mortgage principal is reduced in a modification, 39 others end up with more housing debt as lenders tack on missed payments, late charges and even attorney fees to the loan balance.”

But would that strategy help?

“A number of researchers found that the most successful mortgage modifications involve debt forgiveness. Yet, according to the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, just 1.8 percent of modifications in the first quarter of 2009 forgave debt. That’s about one in 50 modifications.”

“The other 49 modifications consisted of rate reductions or rate freezes, term extensions and “capitalization,” which means that the missed payments and fees were added to the homeowner’s debt burden. Some 70.2 percent of modifications included capitalization: That means that for every troubled borrower who got debt forgiveness, 39 ended up owing more.”

Looks like a big disconnect to me and why there are so many consumers willing to take a chance on using the services of a loan modification firm. These consumers have usually tried repeatedly on their own to see what relief their bank or government programs could offer them and have been left out in the cold.  As usual since America’s founding, if you want results look to the private sector.

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