How Mortgage Companies Can Use A Real Estate Data API To Generate Borrower Leads
Adding a Real Estate Data API can be a tremendous lead generation tool not only for brokers, but for mortgage companies as well.
Think about the position this information plays in the home buying process.
Mr. and Mrs. Home Seeker decide they want to purchase a home.
Now, we all know, the first thing they should do is get pre-qualified for a mortgage to decide how much home they can afford.
Some people do that. Some don’t.
But one of the first things Mr. and Mrs. Seeker will do is start thinking about where they want to live.
This is where a Real Estate Data API plays a critical role.
And this is where mortgage companies can seize the opportunity to start a dialogue with home buyers.
Use Real Estate Data API to answer early-stage questions
The great advantage of “big data” technology today is that a real estate agent or a local mortgage broker can display a tremendous amount of hyper-local information on their own website.
For example, here’s one website, HomeScout.com, that uses real estate market data to attract potential borrowers for lenders.
There are data aggregators out there such as Home Junction that have developed ways to aggregate an enormous amount of local market information from public records and other sources.
The real estate data companies can filter, sort and warehouse that data on their own servers.
They are then able to redistribute this data down to the local level to a mortgage broker or a bank.
Say for example, Acme Mortgage Company is focused mainly on generating loans in the Atlanta market.
That brokerage firm can order multiple layers of data from Home Junction just pertaining to Atlanta and its many neighborhoods.
The data can include:
- Recent Home Sales
- Trends in Home Prices
- School Data (this is of super-interest to parents and one of the first items they will research. Talk about reaching people early in the home buying process.)
- Boundary Information – this includes those critical School Attendance Zones (again, super important to parents) and Municipal Borders that determine property tax rates
- Neighborhood Demographics
- Cost of Living Indices
- Crime Rates
And much more.
A mortgage company can display this information on their website and promote themselves as a resource for consumers starting the home buying process.
What a valuable service to offer, right?
Free data and market research is a powerful draw
Here you have a mortgage company offering to supply FREE information to buyers that answers many of the critical questions on their minds.
Where can I afford to live?
What are the schools like in this particular neighborhood? What is the teacher to student ratio? How many students attend that school?
What’s the cost of living in this town compared to this town next door?
What’s the crime rate like?
Who lives there ? Are they older, retired people or young people with families?
What’s the trend lately in home prices?
Every, we repeat, every home buyer will want to know this information.
After all, for 99% of them, they will be making the biggest financial commitment of their lives.
A savvy mortgage company can use this valuable real estate market data to promote themselves in their target area.
Rather than just say, we have the best interest rates or best customer service, why not offer to provide a comprehensive report on property trends and other relevant data in local neighborhoods?
Send out a direct mail piece to renters.
Promote this free service on social sites – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
By the way, this information can be displayed in a variety of easy to understand charts. As we all know in this digital age, visual information is the No. 1 way to convey information. More people will look at images than read text.
A mortgage broker can display plenty of charts showing trend lines in Home Sales or Home Prices. They can also show pie charts on Neighborhood Demographics, etc.
Offer this free service on local radio and TV ads.
Post this hyper-local information on your website to rise up in the ranks on Google and Bing when people conduct searches for keywords such as school information on their target neighborhood school or recent home sales there.
Those organic rankings, which are free, are like gold to businesses.
Because here’s the bottom line.
In this day and age, where consumers are constantly being bombarded with messages and offers, not just on TV and radio, but also on their computers, laptops and cell phones, lenders need a compelling offer to catch their attention.
You also need to give something if you want to get something.
If you want to get the contact information from a potential home buyer/borrower, then it’s smart to offer them something first.
Nothing is more important to that person than this vital real estate market data.
Get it on your site. It’s simple. All you need is a Real Estate Data API from companies such as Home Junction and this real estate market data will be automatically fed right onto your web pages.
Become an important LOCAL RESOURCE. Get your customers to tell their friends and family about this resource to generate referrals.
If you want to be the mortgage company that catches home buyers in the early stages of their search, then a Real Estate Data API is one powerful hook to use.
P.S. There’s also another way mortgage companies can use a Real Estate Data API to generate leads – by examining the data for potential refinance customers. Find out what homebuyers are paying for their mortgages and at what interest rates. We will explore this is an upcoming article.
