Ex-broker slams estate agents for their ‘tick-box’ leads and poor handovers

Weak referrals and box-ticking mortgage introductions can cost agents sales and commission, warns Paul Flavin.

Ex-broker has hit out at estate agents over mortgage referrals, claiming poor introductions are damaging engagement before advisers even make contact and can cost agents sales and commission.

Paul Flavin (pictured), who is now a business coach at Paul Flavin Ltd, adds, though, that it isn’t so much the leads themselves, it’s what happens next.

He says the mortgage question typically comes up in one of two ways: a ‘placid’ ask about whether finance is sorted – a box ticked for the negotiator – or a harder sell suggesting buyers must use the in-house broker for their offer to progress. Either way, he argues, the result is the same: a referral made without genuine buy-in from either side.

“The unmotivated purchaser, whose details were passed on by an unmotivated negotiator, finally speaks to an unmotivated broker,” he says. “And we wonder why conversion rates are low.”

Flavin told Mortgage Solutions that weak handovers and delayed follow-up kill momentum. “Here’s the truth about leads: the lifespan of a lead is two hours,” he says, adding that conversion chances halve after that and that after 24 hours a lead is “pretty much dead”. Yet, he says, many referred buyers sit untouched for days, slowing progression and reducing the number of sales that reach completion.

He singles out buyers who are interested but not yet ready as the real opportunity — first-time buyers and homemovers who have already signalled intent and simply need to be kept engaged. “Not interested just means not yet,” he says.

Lack of nurture is the real problem.”

Flavin is clear about where responsibility lies, telling estate agents that their “lack of nurture is the real problem.”

He warns that weak referrals at the start of the process will then feed through into lost momentum – ultimately costing agents sales and the commission that comes with them.