A major player in the reverse Mortgage lead-generation space announced the launch of a consumer-facing website this week, with an eye toward expanding their business by matching potential borrowers with product-specific experts.

Best Rate Referrals recently rolled out Mortgage Advisor, a website designed to consolidate the Clearwater, Fla.-based firm’s consumer outreach into a single place — and, in the process, take direct aim at similar websites such as LendingTree.

The company had previously operated a host of sites dedicated to single types of loans, including reverse mortgages, Best Rate senior vice president of mortgage partnerships Ray Bartreau told RMD. But that system — which typically attracted consumers looking for a mortgage based on interest rate alone — didn’t match the company’s internal research into borrower behaviors, which indicated that more and more would-be lenders are searching based on loan type, Bartreau said.

“A lot of the search terms that people are using today aren’t just specific to the interest rate environment,” Bartreau said.

The lead-generation company sees potential in increasing specialization, bucking the recent trend of “generational lending” — in which brokers attempt to offer a wide range of loan products in an attempt to cast a broad net and generate organic referrals among borrowers.

“They don’t service the consumers the same,” Bartreau said of brokers or lenders that specialize in purchase, refinance, or reverse mortgages, for instance. “When you’re working with specialists, they know the loan more, and that leads to a higher conversion on the leads themselves, and it allows us to grow as a company.”

“Our partners are converting more because they’re specific, and consult on a specific loan niche,” he said.

Bartreau and Best Rate plan to reap extensive growth from the new website: While the company currently generates about 20,000 leads per month, Bartreau said he hopes to raise that number to more than 100,000 within the next six to nine months, as consumer awareness of the Mortgage Advisor brand grows and the company rolls out a planned nationwide television and radio ad campaign. Like LendingTree’s spokespuppet Lenny, Best Rate’s new site will come with a character, though Bartreau said the Mortgage Advisor pitchman is still in the works — with a goal of premiering within the next 60 to 90 days.

Best Rate currently generates about 20% to 25% of its business from reverse mortgage leads, Bartreau said, and while he doesn’t expect the proportion of Home Equity Conversion Mortgage inquiries to grow, Bartreau said he anticipates a reverse mortgage increase on a volume basis through the company’s 800-number.

“When you bring in TV and radio, you’re bringing in people who aren’t looking for anything at the moment,” Bartreau said of the anticipated gains.

Written by Alex Spanko