11 of the Best Mortgage Lead Providers in California

California can be a great place to live and work. From the towering sequoias in the forested parts of the state to the more than 800 miles of coastline, natural beauty abounds. Plus, it’s a hotbed of economic opportunity, with a GDP that makes it the fifth-largest economy in the world. 

If you’re operating a mortgage lending institution here, you get to capitalize on this. By providing people with the financing they need to buy in what can be an expensive locale, you help folks seize the California dream. And you get to make some (or, ideally, a good bit of) money yourself in the process.

Mortgage lenders, brokers, and credit unions all continually have to find new ways to drum up new business, though. Fortunately, they have plenty of California mortgage lead generation opportunities, whether they’re looking for leads in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, or anywhere else. 

A look at mortgage lending in California

If you’re a mortgage loan provider operating in the Golden State, you face a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges. 

On one hand, the state’s large population size means you have a big pool of potential borrowers to explore. And California’s relatively high housing prices mean lenders generally stand to earn more per closed loan. Plus, state programs like grant money for first-time buyers can help to get more people to the closing table. 

On the other hand, California has one of the lowest homeownership rates in the country. Even though it has a population of more than 39 million — the biggest of any state — only 56% of households own versus rent. 

Plus, you’ve got a lot of competition. Per the latest Annual Report of Activity under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, there are 439 licensed lenders and servicers across the state. 

That means you need to beat out your competitors to capture leads. Fortunately, tapping into some California mortgage lead generation opportunities helps. 

Top providers of California mortgage leads 

Your loan officers and marketing team don’t have to be the only way you cultivate leads. Throughout the Golden State, there are groups that gather up mortgage leads and pass them to qualified lenders. 

If you’d like to get yourself in the running for some of these leads, you have quite a few options to consider. Here are some of the best California mortgage lead providers to look at. 

#1: CalHFA leads

The California Housing Finance Agency — or CalHFA, for short — runs a program to help low and moderate-income borrowers get financing.  If your institution becomes a CalHFA-approved lender, which means meeting certain criteria and submitting an application to the agency, you could be in the running to get leads from CalHFA. 

Specifically, if your loan officers can hit the benchmarks for minimum number of closed and purchased CalHFA first mortgage loans, they’ll become what the agency calls a Preferred Loan Officer. They get listed on that webpage so that potential borrowers can find them. On top of that, CalHFA distributes leads to its Preferred Loan Officers. 

#2: Bankrate

Bankrate’s website gets millions of views each month, primarily from folks who are exploring their personal finance options. A huge portion of the articles Bankrate publishes focus specifically on mortgages and home buying. As a result, it’s a resource many prospective homebuyers use to look into their loan options. 

That can translate directly into lead generation for California mortgage lenders. Because Bankrate has rate tables on its site, potential borrowers use the site to compare lenders. And if your rate is on one of those tables, an interested lead could click through to your site or one of your lead workflows. 

While this is an excellent California lead generation opportunity, you can’t only be operating in the Golden State to tap into it. Bankrate requires lenders to be licensed in more than 10 states to get on its rate tables. 

If you lend in multiple states, Bankrate’s absolutely worth a look. Many lending institutions have reported to us that Bankrate delivers high-quality mortgage leads. 

We did a deep dive into lead generation with Bankrate if you want to learn more. 

#3: Zillow

Zillow isn’t just a place to look at online real estate listings. It also offers California mortgage lead opportunities.

In a webinar with us, a Zillow team member said that the company’s site captures more than two-thirds of the total market share for the online real estate category in the U.S. And if you position your loan offerings on Zillow, you can redirect some of that traffic to your loan officers.

Zillow offers a couple of mortgage lead generation opportunities. One — Connect — works as its name suggests. When potential borrowers choose Connect, they’re asking to connect to a mortgage lender who can answer their questions. In this way, you can generate high-intent leads who are early in their homebuying process. 

Zillow also offers Custom Quotes, its umbrella term for advertising on its rate tables and providing personalized rates to prospective borrowers. 

To learn more about using Zillow to generate mortgage leads in California, check out our guide. 

#4–11: Other options

This is just a sampling of some of the options you can explore when it comes to California mortgage lead providers. There are a lot of other companies that operate strong websites that they use to provide mortgage information and to generate leads in areas from large cities like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, and Fresno to small California towns. 

Other options that operate nationally but can provide California mortgage leads include:

• NerdWallet
• LendingTree
• Credit Karma
• Best Money
• I Can Buy from the Mortgage Research Center
• Bundle Loans
• Own Up
• Movoto

We have an overview highlighting these mortgage lead providers where you can learn more. 

Evidently, if you originate mortgage loans in California, you’ve got quite a few options for lead generation. Some of these California mortgage lead providers cost more than others, but the more expensive ones generally provide higher-quality leads. 

Pinpointing the right option(s) for your company depends on a lot of factors that are specific to you, like your advertising budget and the bandwidth of your loan officers. Our team has experience helping California mortgage lenders get set up with lead providers like these. As a result, we have an inside look at how they operate. 

If you want to talk with our team about these choices and which might best fit your lending operation, book some time with us. We’re always happy to help California mortgage lenders get the leads they need to help their businesses thrive.