Mortgage leads: what you are paying for, before you pay for it

What is actually inside a lead record?

A lead is a row of data with a person attached. Its value sits in how much of that row is filled in and how fresh it is. A record that arrives with a name, a mobile and nothing else pushes all the qualifying work onto your first call, which is the work you paid to avoid.

Before the first invoice, ask a supplier to confirm which of these fields come with every record and which are optional.

PrimeLeads publishes a figure of up to 98 data points used in verification. The number matters less than the idea behind it. Every field checked before delivery is a field you are not chasing on the phone.

• Loan purpose: refinance, purchase, first home, investment or a top up
• Rough loan amount, plus the current lender when the enquiry is a refinance
• Employment type, since a self employed applicant is a different conversation
• Property status: owns, buying, under contract, or still looking
• Timing, in the enquirer's own words rather than a dropdown
• State and postcode, so the record fits your licence and your lender panel
• The time stamp and the consent record for the original enquiry

Exclusive and shared are two different products

Mortgage leads are sold two ways in this market. A shared lead goes to three or four brokers at once. All of them ring the same person within the hour, and by the third call that person has stopped picking up. The price looks better on the invoice and worse everywhere else. PrimeLeads sells exclusive leads, not shared lists.

Exclusivity also has a shelf life, so ask about it plainly. Does the supplier resell the record as aged data in ninety days? Can the same person turn up again under a different campaign name? A supplier who will not put that in writing is selling you a list with better branding.

What does SMS verification actually prove?

It proves the mobile number on the record was live and in that person's hand when they enquired. That one check strips out fake numbers, typos and bot form fills, which is most of what makes a bought list useless.

It does not prove the person can service a loan, and no supplier should imply that it does. Verification is a filter on contact, not on credit. Duplicate checking is a separate pass, and it catches the same enquirer arriving twice through two different ads.

Finance failure is a lead quality problem

PrimeLeads publishes two of its own figures here. Of high income property enquirers, 51.8% fail on finance. On leads cleared through the PrimeProof check, that failure rate sits under 5%. Both numbers are ours rather than industry data, and we label them that way.

The idea behind them is plain. Half of one measured group was never going to settle, and the broker finds that out late: after the appointment, after the document chase, after the credit talk. Filtering for it costs less than discovering it.

What happens when a lead is junk?

Wrong number, wrong state, someone who has never asked about a loan. Every supplier of mortgage leads ships some of these, and the honest ones tell you the process instead of pretending it never happens. At PrimeLeads, invalid leads are reviewed within five business days, and confirmed invalid leads are replaced or credited.

Ask two things of anyone else. What counts as invalid in their words, and who makes the call. A policy that only covers dead numbers is barely a policy, because the disputed cases are the ones where the person answers and says they never filled in a form.

Buying mortgage leads without getting burnt

Commercial terms decide as much as the data does. PrimeLeads works on a fixed cost per lead agreed before anything is delivered, with no retainer and no lock in, so the trial is short and the exit is cheap.

• Ask how the enquiry was generated, and whether the ad promised anything you would not say yourself
• Ask for delivery straight into your CRM as it happens, not a spreadsheet the next morning
• Ask where the data is held and under which entity
• Start on low volume in one state and judge contact rate before you scale
• Check the same supplier covers your other verticals, so you do not repeat this homework later

Who you are buying from

PrimeLeads was founded in 2024 by Andreas, a software engineer, and it is built in Brisbane with data held in Australia. Mortgage refinance is one of six verticals we run, alongside insurance, property, solar, real estate and B2B.