Hitch a ride sites that create Real Estate leads or mortgage leads for you.
Sites like USHUD, Allhud and Hudexchange allow you to advertise only in the geographic areas you do business. These sites have been online since 1999. Other sites have sprung up using a similar targeting business method which provides Real Estate pros with a limited budget to generate leads in the area(s) that they want without the need to create complicated advertising campaigns or even a website or social media. The key reason we mention the sites above are twofold. They have a lower cost than most and they provide something that the others don’t. That being exclusivity.
As an advertiser the value of being the exclusive Real Estate agent or loan officer is incredibly valuable. This is even more important when a lead is generated through one of these types of sites. Comparatively speaking sites like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com are not only 5 to 10 times more expensive but they offer no exclusivity so many times a Real Estate pro will find themselves in a bidding war for a client. Strange how no one ever asks a heart surgeon to cut her price but with Real Estate professionals, especially loan officers the practice is all too common. We can track this back to Lendingtree.com for some of this as their advertising efforts fully focused on having the borrower negotiate the best deal without considering other equally or more valuable parts of the equation.
Service and expertise are not included in the picture by novice home-buyers as those variables are difficult to pin down. But those of us in the industry especially know the difference between poor service and great service and the fact that poor service can kill what could have been an easy transaction. While expertise can be equally important as service in assisting the home-buyer have the deal go through without a hitch. Of course the home-buyer is never aware of service or expertise until it is too late and the deal has gone south because of someone who is new to a particular market and the pitfalls of each market.
Everything starts with getting a Real Estate lead and then it is up to those of us in the business to close the deal with the least amount of drama. Real Estate leads are sometimes good and sometimes not very good just as people differ in their knowledge of their credit or what is needed to be able to purchase the home that they want. After working with doctors and lawyers the difference between the ultra-educated and the less educated is actually very small. In banking there used to be a running joke about who had the worst credit and that doctors had the worst credit by and large. This was attributed to the fact that they work long hours and are busy doing what they do and they are not often trained to be business people who understand that paying their bills on time is going to help them regardless of their income. It becomes a matter of priorities not education. Some Real Estate leads generated by doctors are great, some mortgage leads generated by doctors are horrible. The fact is that it’s a game of numbers and you have to be in the game to even try to score. So hitch a ride on one of the sites mentioned or find another that you like but get in the game or you will be forced to sit on the sideline waiting for the doctor with perfect credit to call you and beg you to sell them a house.
Matt Steinmuller