What to look for when buying mortgage leads
A short checklist for judging a mortgage lead source: how many other lenders got the same lead, how fast it lands, who actually sets the screening criteria, and whether a defective one can be returned.
Look for four things before you pay for a mortgage lead: how many other lenders got the same consumer's information, how fast the lead reaches your system after the consumer submits it, whose screening criteria decided it qualified, and what the vendor does when a lead turns out to be wrong. Everything else is presentation.
How many lenders already have this consumer's information
Ask directly how many buyers received the same consumer's information, not simply how the source is marketed. A consumer whose information reaches five lenders hears the same introduction five times and remembers none of it, so the count predicts the temperature of your first call better than any other single fact about a source. It is a commercial question. Whether you may dial that consumer at all is a separate one, decided by the consent record travelling with the lead, and a consent a consumer gave may lawfully name a list of partners rather than you alone.
Source: Insurance Marketing Coalition Ltd. v. FCC, No. 24-10277 (11th Cir., 24 January 2025), which vacated the FCC rule that would have required consent to name one seller at a time. media.ca11.uscourts.gov · Bundled consent is therefore still lawful, which is exactly why reading the record matters more than trusting the label on it.Who set the screening criteria, and can you see them
Every lead source screens for something, credit bracket, home value, timeline, and the real question is who set that bar and whether it moves. A vendor that lets a buyer pick their own floor is selling a filter, not a screen, because a floor set by the buyer can be loosened the moment volume drops. Ask instead what the fixed criteria are, who owns them, and what happens to a submission that misses one: it should never reach a paying customer.
What happens when a lead is provably wrong
A disconnected number or a wrong state on a single submission is one defect, and a vendor should credit or replace what went wrong without an argument. A pattern across several leads in a row is a different problem, pointing at the source itself rather than bad luck. Before paying, ask what proof they need for the first case, and how many wrong leads in a row it takes before they treat it as the second. What the answers to those questions rest on, which defects a vendor can actually check against its own file and which it cannot, is set out in what a lead vendor owes you when a lead is bad.
Which of these a vendor answers on its own public pages, and which it leaves unsaid, differs by vendor. Our review of fifteen named mortgage lead sources, each fact tagged by where it came from and dated, is published at our disclosed comparison section.
No regulator or trade body publishes what share of paid mortgage leads carry a documented consent record end to end. We looked for one rather than a vendor's own number, and found none, so no figure for that appears here.
Questions this page answers
Ask the vendor directly and expect a plain number, not a marketing label. A vendor selling the same consumer’s information to multiple lenders can still describe the arrangement honestly, so listen for whether they name a limit or talk around the question instead. The practical test is what the consumer reports back on the call: somebody who has already heard the same pitch two or three times is telling you exactly how many buyers got there first, regardless of what the sales page said.
On most sources it is the vendor, not the buyer, and that is worth confirming before you pay rather than after. A criteria list a buyer can loosen on request is not a screen, it is a preference that erodes the moment volume slows down. Ask what the fixed thresholds actually are, whether they are written down anywhere a buyer can see, and what happens to a submission that misses one. A vendor unwilling to name a threshold has probably not fixed one.
A single bad number or a wrong state on one submission should be credited or replaced without an argument, because a mistake that size happens on any list. A pattern across several leads in a row is a different problem, and it says something about the source rather than about chance. Before paying anyone, ask what proof they need for a single defect, and what run of bad leads it takes before they treat it as a pattern rather than a coincidence.
Buying questions rather than research ones are answered on the FAQ, and anything that is not there gets asked on a call.
More in Resources
Where mortgage leads come from, and what origin predicts
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.
AnswersWhy a lead says 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.
AnswersBuying mortgage leads by state or by ZIP code
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.
AnswersCan 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.
AnswersCost per lead against cost per funded loan
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.