Answers
One buying question per page, answered first
Short pages, each one answering a single question a lending team asks before it spends money on leads. The answer is the first paragraph; the rest is what it rests on. Where a number has no primary source, the page says so instead of repeating the figure everyone else repeats. The pages are written by VisionXLab, which sells mortgage leads on one rule: one lead goes to exactly one client.
- Are shared mortgage leads worth buying, or is a lead sold to one buyer better?For most teams the single-buyer lead is the better buy. Shared and single-buyer leads side by side, the desk a shared lead suits, and what changed in 2025 for multi-lender consent and comparison sites.
- Can I text a mortgage lead I bought?Three separate things people run together: what the law asks before the first message, what a stop obliges you to do, and why a compliant text can still never arrive.
- Can you buy mortgage leads with no contract or monthly retainer?Per-lead billing carries no monthly retainer, and "no contract" usually means no long term rather than no terms. The billing models side by side, four things to check before you sign, and the five levers that move the price.
- Do you need a dialer to work purchased leads?At low volume the honest answer is no. What a dialer buys, the volume that changes the answer, and the calling-identity weight it brings with it.
- How do I check that a lead vendor never resells my leads?Ask for the clause, not the adjective. What a no-resale clause in a lead agreement should cover, and the one thing no clause can promise.
- How do I choose a mortgage lead vendor?Five things to check before you pay a mortgage lead vendor: how many other lenders got the same consumer, whether the consent record holds up, how fast it lands, whose criteria screened it, and whether a bad lead can be returned. Plus how to read vendor reviews.
- How do I get mortgage leads without buying them?The paths that do not run through a vendor, what each one costs in time and skill rather than money, the referral-fee line RESPA draws before any of them pays, and the timeline number nobody has a source for.
- How do I know a lead is real?The records that exist behind one lead, ordered by how much each actually proves, the checks a buyer can run without taking anyone's word, and the gap between evidence of a web session and evidence of a person who wants a loan.
- How do I test a new lead source without wasting budget?Fix the length and the count before you start, hold the dialing, the script, the hours and the CRM path constant, and run it beside a source you already understand.
- How fast do you have to call a new mortgage lead?What the response-time research actually measured and where it does not apply, and the three conditions a desk needs before a fast first call is possible at all.
- How many mortgage leads does a loan officer need a month?There is no industry number for this, and the page says so. The arithmetic to work out your own, and the capacity ceiling almost nobody sizes for.
- How much do mortgage leads cost?No regulator publishes a market price, and cost per lead misleads: what decides a source is cost per funded loan against the commission the loan pays, shown worked. Our own list price for each lead type, beside the cost per funded loan it works out to and our average loan; then pay per lead against pay per funded loan; seven lead types by how each is priced and what moves the cost, what trigger leads cost since the 2026 ban, where the funded-loan ranges in AI answers come from, and six questions that make two quotes comparable.
- Is buying mortgage leads legal in the US?Buying the lead is not the regulated act. Calling it, texting it and pulling credit on it are. Which federal regimes attach to each, and what this page will not claim about state law.
- Is the FCC one-to-one consent rule in effect for mortgage leads?No. The Eleventh Circuit vacated it in January 2025 before it took effect, and the FCC restored the earlier rule text in August 2025. What still applies, and what to ask a vendor.
- Is there a legal limit on how many times you can call a lead?No federal cap on live dialling, which is not the same as permission. What the rules do limit is the manner, the intent, and one narrow case that does carry a count.
- Should a small team buy mortgage leads at all?Why bought leads reward a desk that dials fast and dials consistently, why a solo originator is usually the wrong buyer, and why a small trial order teaches nothing.
- What counts as a bad mortgage lead?The line between a defect you can prove from the record itself and an outcome that only feels like one, and what to capture the moment you find the first kind.
- What does a lead vendor owe you when a lead is bad?Why the remedy lives in the agreement rather than in a rule, which defects a vendor can check against its own file and which it cannot, and what to settle in writing before the first order.
- What does a provider of phone verified mortgage leads actually check?The four checks a provider can mean by phone verified, what each one proves and what none of them proves, how reassigned numbers undo a check, and why a phone verified lead and a live transfer are different products.
- What happens after I pay for mortgage leads, and when do leads start?A short form after payment, a 20 to 40 minute onboarding call, launch, most often on a Monday, and first leads usually 24 to 48 hours after launch. Every step, what we need from you, and what follows.
- What is a cash-out refinance lead?How the borrower’s ask differs from a rate-and-term refinance, what a self-reported form can and cannot tell you, and the two things that decide whether the lead is workable.
- What is a DSCR loan lead?How the coverage ratio is computed, why the person behind the lead is an investor rather than a first-time buyer, and what the business-purpose exemption does and does not change.
- What is a live transfer mortgage lead?A call already in progress rather than a record to work later. What the buyer is paying for, what has to be staffed for the handoff, and the trade-offs that ride along.
- What is TCPA consent on a mortgage lead?What a consent record has to name, whether it must be in writing after the 2026 Fifth Circuit ruling, what consent certificate to ask a vendor for, and why the liability for the call sits with whoever dials.
- What questions should I ask a mortgage lead vendor before I buy?Sixteen questions to put to any mortgage lead vendor, from cost per funded loan and what is self-reported to an independent penetration test and what happens to a bad lead, each with our answer, then the questions for purchase, cash-out and HELOC leads and the first order that answers what they cannot.
- What should I send my compliance team or partner before I buy mortgage leads?A checklist a loan officer can forward: the consent wording and how it is recorded, the phone check, the agreement terms, the prices and the comparison, each with the page that shows it.
- Where do mortgage leads actually come from?The routes a purchased lead travels before it reaches a loan officer, and why knowing which one it took tells you more about the first call than the price does.
- Which mortgage lead companies deliver leads into my CRM in real time, and how fast should a lead arrive?Real time means an API or webhook push that lands in seconds; a polled export or emailed file cannot. The four questions to ask a vendor, and the test lead a buyer can time alone.
- Which mortgage lead providers let you filter by state and credit score?The state follows licensing, so narrowing by state is standard. A credit score on a form lead is the borrower's own answer, not a credit file. What a ZIP-level order costs, and four questions to ask.
- Who regulates mortgage lead generation in the US?Nobody single. What the FTC, the FCC and the CFPB each hold, the statute that gives each of them that reach, where the states come in, and the question this page refuses to settle.
- Why did my cost per funded loan rise when my cost per lead fell?Why a lower price per lead can raise the cost of every loan you close, shown as arithmetic, plus the officer hours no invoice ever carries.
- Why does a lead say they never filled out a form?Six genuinely different causes produce one identical sentence on a call, and the fix is different for each of them.