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.

Are shared mortgage leads worth buying?Sometimes, and the conditions are knowable. What the lower price is paying for, the desk shape it suits, and the point where the arithmetic stops working.
Can I buy mortgage leads for specific states or ZIP codes?Why licensing makes the state the normal unit, what a ZIP-level order costs in volume, and how to tell a coverage promise that can be tested from one that cannot.
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.
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 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 fast should a purchased lead reach your CRM?Delivery latency and response latency are different things, and a vendor controls one while being judged on the other. Includes the test a buyer can run alone.
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?This page gives no figure and says why. What it gives instead: the billing models you are actually choosing between, and the 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 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 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 before it is worth anything, and why the liability for the call sits with whoever dials rather than whoever sold the record.
What makes one mortgage lead cost more than another?Five levers move the price: how many buyers receive the same lead, how the consumer was reached, what screening happened, and which state and loan product it belongs to.
What should I look for when buying mortgage leads?Four things to check before you pay: how many other lenders got the same consumer, how fast it lands, whose criteria screened it, and whether a defective lead can be returned at all.
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.
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.