Mortgage lending companies are always on the lookout for mortgage leads in order to boost their businesses. They may acquire such leads from lead generating websites or telemarketing agencies. Many websites are dedicated to generating free leads which they pass on to mortgage lending companies in order to obtain their goodwill and future business prospects.

Whenever a person looking out for buying a mortgage calls up on an advertised number, or fills in a quotation form on the Internet, it constitutes a mortgage lead. Such mortgage leads are gathered by the call centers or the lead generating websites. Later they are classified according to their demographics - such as geographical location of the person, their monthly income, their credit ratio, the amount of mortgage they are looking for, etc. Based on this demographic information, a list of suitable leads is sold to mortgage selling companies. The cell centers or lead generating websites charge the mortgage selling companies a good sum for giving them the leads.

Once the lead is obtained, it is the responsibility of the mortgage company to follow it up and to close the loan. A good lead would be that which has higher chances of closing. Leads must be fresh, i.e. they must not have been in the market for a long time - this reduces their probability of turning into a fruitful deal. Every lead must have adequate information about the person such as name, address, contact number and financial details. There should be mention whether there is any special category such as VA or FHA qualification. Leads must not be from the "Do not call" list, which is a list of people recently called who have turned down the offer. Such people have rights to file a case against the companies if they are called again.

Leads may be exclusive or non-exclusive. Exclusive leads are those which are provided only to a single mortgage company under contract; while non-exclusive leads may be provided to a number of companies. In non-exclusive leads it is the convincing power of the mortgage company that gets the deal closed. Obviously, a non-exclusive lead is cheaper than an exclusive lead.

However, the chances of success in closing a loan from a given lead are very low, just about 8 to 10%. Lead generators do not take any responsibility of getting the loan closed. Hence, it is better to decide in advance in what manner will the payments be done, and for what kind of leads. Typically, call centers charge anywhere between $65 and $125 per lead, and lead generating websites charge about $65 per exclusive lead.