How Loan Officers Can Obtain Home Loan Referrals From Real Estate Agents

A mortgage loan officer’s primary source of new purchase loans is referrals from real estate agents. Industry research indicates that over 80% of home loans originated by a loan officer will come from an agent referral. Developing marketing relationships with real estate agents is the best method to achieve success in obtaining a constant flow of home loan referrals.

The Lender-Agent Collaboration

Real estate agents typically refer their buyer clients to two or three lenders. Their referrals are based on a business relationship established through trust and confidence that their client will receive the best loan products and service. Your goal as a loan officer is to be one of the three that the agent will recommend to the home buyer. Developing new agent relationships is difficult as there is stiff competition and you must offer something unique to the real estate agent to “open the door”.

How to Gain Respect from Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents are courted by loan officers by offering to sponsor meetings, open houses and “dropping by” with donuts and small gifts. RESPA compliance is of primary concern so “incentives” must meet those standards. In reality, real estate agents don’t want donuts but do appreciate marketing assistance in promoting their listings and obtaining buyers. What if you had a marketing system that generated home buyer leads and provided a marketing platform for the agent?

Implementing an integrated marketing system provides lenders with a process to develop relationships with real estate agents and customers. Home buyers search online so your marketing must include on online strategy. By including traditional marketing methods such as networking and advertising will facilitate the success of your system. However, since most consumers utilize the Internet in the home buying process, a loan officer should focus on achieving a dominant online presence.

Achieving Dominant Online Presence

To be successful in online marketing you must generate traffic to your website. Once the consumer visits your site, the content (website) must provide value in order to generate an interaction or a registration. The best website tool for this process is a WordPress content management system. In addition to being a website, it also provides a blog publishing system that has great features and is very easy to use. You can post unlimited articles, links and pictures that are published in real time. The WordPress platform is very “search engine friendly” and content can easily achieve front page placement with proper formatting. By having high placement in the search engine rankings with multiple articles you can receive substantial amounts of traffic on a daily basis for free.

The Lender-Agent Marketing Partnership

Once you have your lender Internet marketing system in place, with articles on the front page of Google and generating leads, you can offer agents the ability to share your marketing platform by posting their listings and articles on your WordPress site. This marketing partnership will assist you in developing a marketing relationship and encourage weekly meetings to discuss marketing strategies. As the provider of the system to the agent, you control the process which includes the tools, training and support. Agents will respect the value you bring to them as it generates business, reduces their marketing costs and learning curve in the use of technology.