» By: Nate Garin

One of the best ways to generate mortgage leads is through working with home sellers who are going it alone as For Sale By Owner or FSBO.

The key to FSBO marketing is creating partnerships with home sellers. Since almost every buyer needs a mortgage, you provide a necessary service that will enable a seller's home to be sold. Real estate agents traditionally refer buyers to loan officers during the home-selling process, but with FSBOs, there is no agent. That means the seller assumes the role of referring buyers to loan officers and that's where you come in.

Most sellers are not very familiar with the process of selling real estate and won't know that they should require interested buyers to be pre-qualified prior to accepting an offer. Helping sellers understand that you can save them oodles of time by pre-qualifying their potential buyers is a literal gold mine. You could also prepare a flyer on a variety of loan types and payments for a mortgage on that seller's home. FSBOs want to sell their home and, therefore, they will give your business card to everyone that comes through. That means fresh mortgage leads for you, whether for this property or another one.

The most effective way to secure relationships with for-sale-by-owner sellers is to offer more than pre-qualification services. FSBOs need marketing help like a free ad on a for-sale-by-owner website and promotion to buyer lists. They also need sample contracts and disclosures, industry contacts like title companies and appraisers, yard signs, and even home flyers. These items can be bundled together into a "for-sale-by-owner kit," which can be offered to sellers in exchange for the opportunity to pre-qualify all buyers showing interest in the home.

You can use a variety of sources to locate FSBOs in your area, including:

• Local Newspapers
• Yard Signs
• Paid service that scours websites and newspapers every day

Some of the popular methods of contacting FSBO sellers are:

• Phone
• Direct Mail
• Door Hangers
• Web Links

Most FSBO sellers will be very enthusiastic about the services you can offer them and will gladly refer buyers to you. Additionally, the sellers themselves will most likely need a loan to purchase their next home, and, having established a professional relationship of trust with them, you put yourself in a great position to provide that loan. That's another mortgage lead.

The author is involved in several online real estate businesses, including http://www.fsbo3k.com, one of the leading FSBO websites in the United States, and a resource for mortgage brokers looking for http://www.mywholesalelenders.com wholesale lenders.