7 Reasons Why Loan Officers SHOULD NOT Market to REALTORS Part 2

5. Market to renters. Many renters that I have known were unaware that they could be living in their own home right now. For whatever reason, they were given a lot of mis-information about what it takes to qualify to purchase a home, and have never really looked into it. Here is another idea that worked well for me. You are going to do a postcard mailing to a targeted apartment complex near you. It will simply state, "For what you are paying in rent right now, you could be living in a $120,000 home. Call me today for a free consultation, and I will tell you the steps you need to take to own your own home." Trust me, you will get a ton of calls. Many people won't people to qualify at this point, but you can give them a plan on how to improve their finances and possibly qualify them later when they are ready. But you will get another group who can qualify, but never thought they could.

6. Market to your past customers. In this instance, I would use a direct mail campaign with a checklist letter. Many of your customers may have thought about purchasing more real estate, but it wasn't a strong enough concern to warrant calling you for advice. In this letter, you are going to ask them to call. You are going to say something like, "Right now is the perfect time for buying a home. If you have questions about any of the following topics, please give me a call this week." You will then have a checklist including several reasons why someone who need financing assistance like: buying investment property, buying a vacation home, buying a second home, purchasing a smaller home because the kids have moved out, purchasing a bigger home because the family size is increasing, etc. And please make it easy as possible for them to contact you to get the largest response.

7. Market to builders. This is similar to marketing to FSBOs except that this would be on an ongoing basis. Most builders that I know don't really like dealing with the selling and financing of their homes. They want to focus on what they do best, which is building more homes. Being able to partner up with a successful builder would provide you with many, many leads. Not only will you be helping those who want to purchase the new construction home that the builder is selling, but you will be helping many MORE of the people who aren't interested in that particular home, but are still want to purchase.

So do I think that you should never market to real estate agents? No, I just believe that it shouldn't be the first or only option that mortgage professionals turn to. As you have seen above, there are so many other possibilities to find referral sources for purchase loans. And once you establish these referral sources and can develop working relationships with buyers before the REALTOR does, than you will now have control of the situation and you will start to get real estate agents calling YOU for business.