In case you’re wondering if it’s worth the hassle of setting up your own lead generation business, compared to just getting offers from a CPA network. Here’s my local lead generation story. You make the call.

About a year ago, I was involved in renting out real estate to tenants. I’d run about $500 worth of classifieds and display ads in the local media. I had a number of prospects contact me, but they didn’t proceed to make an offer.

I’d also added the property to internal realtor databases (MLS – multi listing services) and that didn’t generate any leads, even if there were at least 20,000 realtors accessing the system.

So I went through some of the most popular community sites in my geographical area (Singapore) and posted a number of ads on these sites. They were a combination of social networks, forums, chat sites. Total investment: about 2 hours.

A couple of days later, I got an email enquiry from a prospective tenant and I brought them to check out the property. They made an offer about 6 hours later. 2 weeks later, I collected a nice $3,500 check from the property agency.

With about 5 hours invested into the deal for a $3,500 ROI (or about $500/hour), looking at possibilities outside the networks can be very rewarding (This is not factoring that the 50+ leads which could be sold or distributed via a revshare basis to other realtors).

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If you’re interested in finding out more about local lead generation, be sure to check out my review of Chad Frederiksen’s Local Lead Plan.