We’re in the thick of the slow season. Through the end of the year, mortgage originations tend to take a dip along with the real estate industry. People are focusing on enjoying the holidays in their homes, not on finding new ones. 

With the new year upon us, though, new opportunities should start to materialize. 

For starters, plenty of people set a New Year’s resolution to save money. In fact, that was the leading resolution last year, with one in five people resolving to be more fiscally responsible. Pair that with yet another rate cut coming out of the Fed in December. Many people might explore how a refinance could align with that resolution.  

As temperatures heat up, the homebuying market typically does, too.

All told, there should be more opportunities for your lending institution in the coming months. If you want to make sure those chances find their way to you, consider buying mortgage leads. Here are eight solid options worth a look:

Bankrate

While Bankrate hasn’t updated its advertiser page in a while, even the 2022 numbers are pretty impressive. This mortgage lead provider reports average monthly page views of 25 million.

If you want to get your team in front of millions of potential borrowers, Bankrate is happy to oblige with its rate table advertising. You just choose what table you want to be on and the rate you want to offer. If an individual clicks through to your company and provides their contact info, you get the lead and Bankrate gets payment from you. 

The site offers rate tables covering over 650 markets across all 50 states. You can choose to advertise on a conventional, jumbo, government, or refi mortgage rate table, depending on which product(s) you want to drive. 

Own Up

Own Up runs a lender network that you can potentially join to acquire more customers. The lead provider does say it handpicks lenders, so you might need to do some wooing to get started.

Once you’re in, you complete a two-week onboarding. Then, Own Up provides a direct-to-consumer channel for your company. This mortgage lead provider prequalifies leads, then shows them options from different lenders within the Own Up network. If that lead chooses your company, you underwrite and close the loan, then pay Own Up for it. 

One huge perk of Own Up: cost transparency. The company clearly states that its fee equals 50 bps of the loan amount.

NerdWallet

NerdWallet has dumped a lot of money into national advertising lately, aiming to make itself a household name. The resulting strong market presence makes it a good candidate for high-quality leads. 

That said, it’s not necessarily a great pick if you want a low lift here. There’s no clear way to get started as an advertiser with NerdWallet. The alleged mortgage lead provider does clearly have tons of mortgage partners, so there has to be an in-road here. If you know someone in the industry who’s already working with NerdWallet, you can ask them to refer you. 

MRC

In 2024, the Mortgage Research Center (MRC) saw more than 3.6 million unique visitors a month across the websites where it features rates. Those include VALoans.com, FHALoans.com, USDALoans.com, and Military Wallet. That all culminated in this mortgage lead provider delivering more than 3 million leads in 2024. 

The MRC can be a great option if your lending institution specializes in government-backed loans, or if you want to break into that space. 

ICanBuy

A subsidiary of the MRC, ICanBuy works with more than 40 publishers through click tables. As a lending institution, you can advertise on one of those click tables to drive borrowers to your website. 

ICanBuy offers detailed reports about how traffic performs so you can optimize your spend to get the kind of mortgage leads you want. You can also set monthly and daily caps to make sure that the popularity of your click-through doesn’t eat too far into your marketing budget. 

LendingTree

LendingTree is another one of those mortgage lead providers with a decent amount of name recognition. The online lending marketplace has been helping borrowers explore their loan options for nearly 30 years. 

LendingTree is a great choice if you want to get a high volume of low-cost leads. Historically, those leads have been non-exclusive, which means your loan officers will be competing against other teams. But if you’re looking for a way to stock your LOs pipeline without a big spend, consider LendingTree.

FreeRateUpdate.com

FreeRateUpdate.com is another company presenting prospective borrowers with information, then converting those borrowers into leads. What sets this mortgage lead provider apart is its live transfer leads. Their team gets a lead on the phone, then transfers them live to one of your loan officers. 

Because that individual was willing to get on the phone, you can safely assume they have high borrowing intent. Also, because they’re live on the line, it saves your loan officer the time and energy of chasing down new leads and setting up the initial call. 

‍

These eight mortgage lead providers all give your lending institution a reliable way to get more leads into your funnel. The right one for you depends on your goals, though. 

We can help you evaluate your options and hone in on the right one. Our BankingBridge team offers adjacent features (like your own rate tables and lead forms you can use to capture traffic from these sites). That’s translated into experience with these different mortgage lead providers. 

If you want to talk to our team about your options here — and how to maximize conversions once you get the lead — book some time with us today. 

‍