Portal leads vs. Money Tree Leads.
“Portal leads” are the inquiries realtors buy from listing portals and aggregators — names captured by a form on someone else's site, often resold to several agents at once. Money Tree Leads takes the opposite approach: qualify first, deliver second, one realtor per lead. Here is the honest side-by-side.
The comparison
| Comparison | Portal leads | Money Tree Leads |
|---|---|---|
| Lead source | Cold portal scrape | AI-driven intent capture |
| Qualification | Form-only | 23-signal MTL Score |
| Bot/fake filter | Manual | Model auto-rejects |
| Outreach | You write it | AI-drafted opener |
| Avg. close rate | 4–6% | 18–22% |
| Monthly cost | $600+ | From $179 |
Why the close rates differ
The 4–6% close rate typical of portal leads isn't a sales-skill problem — it's structural. A portal lead is a form submission: unverified, unenriched, and usually sold to more than one agent, so the race is to be first on the phone with a stranger who may not be able to transact at all.
Money Tree Leads inverts that structure. Before a lead reaches a realtor it has been bot-filtered, enriched with 23 signals (mortgage status, employer signal, listing history, household composition), and scored against a model trained on 4.1 million closed transactions. Leads under a 70/100 score are discarded, and each qualified lead is routed to exactly one realtor by territory, price band, and specialty. The full pipeline is documented on the how it works page.
Warmer lead, no shared inbox race, and an AI-drafted opener to start the conversation — that combination is what moves close rates into the 18–22% range.
When portal leads still make sense
A fair comparison cuts both ways. Portal leads can be reasonable if you want maximum raw volume and have a team built to grind through it — high-capacity inside sales agents who can call hundreds of numbers and tolerate single-digit conversion. The portals also offer brand visibility alongside the leads, which some teams value in itself.
If you are an individual agent or a small team whose time is the scarce resource, paying more per month for colder, shared inquiries is hard to justify — that is the realtor Money Tree Leads is built for, starting at $179/month.
Common questions
Are Money Tree leads exclusive?
Yes. Each qualified lead is routed to one realtor based on FSA/ZIP territory, price band, and specialty match. Portal leads, by contrast, are commonly distributed to multiple competing agents.
What is a good close rate for purchased real estate leads?
Industry-typical close rates for shared portal leads sit around 4–6%. Pre-qualified, exclusive leads convert substantially better — Money Tree Leads subscribers typically see 18–22%.
Why are portal leads considered cold?
Because qualification stops at the form. Nothing verifies the person's financing, timeline, or even that they are human before the lead is sold — the verification work is pushed onto the agent after purchase.