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Wes Foster's Mortgage Offer

On September 9th, an ad appeared in every major newspaper in the Mid-Atlantic Region where Long & Foster does business. In this ad, which appeared in the Sunday Real Estate Section of the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, etc. Wes Foster stated that he guarantees that if Prosperity Mortgage fails to fund a loan at closing, the buyer will receive up to $5,000 toward their mortgage payment.

Having been out in the Long & Foster branch offices recently teaching classes to L&F agents on building a web presence, I am surprised at the number of agents who don't seem familiar with this ad or with this offer from Prosperity Mortgage. It makes me wonder how many consumers know about the offer. It's actually an awesome marketing tool, but like so many other things at Long & Foster, it seems to be woefully underutilized as such.

What was even more interesting about the ad that appeared in the paper is that it simply directed the consumer to "Ask your Long & Foster agent to put you in touch with a professional Prosperity Mortgage loan officer today." No website address, no phone number, no email address. So I've been asking Long & Foster agents if they know what it looks like to try and find a Long & Foster agent on the web. Or more to the point, I ask how many of them have searched for themselves on the web. It's been interesting to see what Long & Foster agents really know about what the company has to offer, and how many have actually gone to the trouble of trying to duplicate an actual consumer's experience in finding a Long & Foster agent.

Posted by Catherine S. Read on 10/14/2007 05:15 PM

Comments (10)

10 Comments on Wes Foster's Mortgage Offer

OCT

2007

I am in Arlington. I know that there are a few special offers going on right now with Prosperity. I always check with my in-house loan officer before I tell any client what's going on.

OCT

2007

Don't you think that it's the responsibility of both the company and the loan officer to promote the specials to us??? I really enjoy working with my Prosperity loan officers, they do a great job. Just as we need to get ourselves out in front of the consumer in order to do business...so should the loan officer. They need to promote themselves to the agent and the consumer. The ad was a step in the right direction.

What's the next step?

I agree that the loan officers need to be out in front "selling" these programs both internally to the agents and externally to the consumer. I would like to see more Prosperity Loan Officers involved in forums like this as a multi-prong effort in their own marketing initiatives.

OCT

2007

They could easily have offered a website that linked to more details on the advertisement. A sort of "www.SomeDomain .com/adinfo

Frank

OCT

2007

Excellent suggestion Frank! I don't think we automatically think of the use of domain names and websites for a specific purpose such as a highly targeted ad campaign, but it makes a lot of sense. It's relatively inexpensive and it draws people to exactly the information we want them to have. Political campaigns are doing the very same thing quite effectively. That's another avenue to reach the people and I will file it away for future reference.

OCT

2007

And it allows us to see if anybody is actually looking at the ad.

DEC

2007

The language you used to quote Wes Foster is: "...he guarantees that if Prosperity mortgage fails to FUND a loan at closing the buyer will receive up to $5,000 toward their mortgage payment" seems to imply that if they don't fund the loan at closing then the buyer will get the $. It is perhaps interesting that the phraseology used was not "...he guarantees that if Prosperity Mortgage fails to CLOSE a loan..." perhaps there is a difference.

It is easy to fund a loan, the hard part is ensuring every loan actually closes. Closing and Funding are two different steps.

I'm sure you are quite right. The semantics may not be exact, but the guarantee applies to whether the buyer successfully closes on the home they are purchasing using Prosperity Mortgage as their financing. This is more than just a marketing ploy, the founder and CEO of Long & Foster believes that the company's affliated mortgage company, Prosperity Mortgage, is a reliable and reputable source of mortgage financing and he's willing to back that up to the consumer with an offer that has "teeth." He wants consumers, as well as Long & Foster agents, to give Prosperity Mortgage the opportunity to provide mortgage financing to buyers using a Long & Foster agent. I can't say that I personally have knowledge of whether the offer has actually been tested. It would be interesting to know that.

DEC

2007

I'm not sure how easy it is to fund a loan these days. There have been many instances this year where a purchaser was fully approved and ready to settle but couldn't because the lender had no money to fund the loan.

JUL

2008

JUL

2008

Catherine: When I heard about this marketing tool, I got excited at first, then realized, if the loan isn't funded at settlement, then there is likely no one else that is going to be able to give the buyers the mortgage, so it seems a bit like a hollow gesture when you break it down.

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