How Austin Durant Made £11k From 5 Equity Release Leads
A later-life adviser claimed five equity release leads as booked appointments. Two sold for £6,800, a third is in the pipeline for about £5k. The numbers, in his own words.
Watch the interview
Lee sat down with Austin to go through the numbers properly. The full conversation is below (about 16 minutes), and the written breakdown follows.
"It's probably the best return on investment I've seen so far. Out of the five or six I've taken, two sales, and one client who's about to convert as well."
Who is Austin Durant?
Austin isn't a generalist. He's a specialist who has spent his whole career in one corner of the market: later-life lending and equity release.
- An equity release and later-life lending adviser since 2019.
- Years at Key, one of the largest equity release advice firms in the UK.
- Experience with later-life lender LiveMore Capital.
- Went self-employed in January 2026 to build his own practice.
So when he talks about lead quality, he's not guessing. He knows exactly what a good later-life case looks like, what can and can't be done, and what a qualified equity release lead is worth. That context matters for everything that follows.
From employed at Key to self-employed
For most of his career Austin was employed, doing equity release for Key. In January he decided it was finally time to go self-employed and earn more for himself. And he ran straight into the problem every self-employed adviser hits.
"The reality is you're never going to have enough leads. That's when I came across you guys. I was looking for something else entirely at the time."
The maths on his usual source wasn't pretty. As he puts it, a decent-quality qualified equity release lead normally costs him around £200, and even then the conversion from bought data is patchy.
"With buying equity release data, the clients are generally quite uninterested. You're getting conversion between 20 and 40% depending on the batch, and the majority of customers either don't qualify or there's a better product for them."
He was one of the very first brokers to come onto MortgagesBooked, in the first two or three weeks we went live to everyone. He hasn't taken loads of appointments since, and that's the point. There's no contract, no minimum per week or per month. He dips in and out whenever his diary allows.
The five appointments
Austin bought five credits. Here's how the five appointments actually played out.
- Appointment 1, the no-show. His very first claimed appointment didn't answer. As he says, that's the moment you think "here we go, another lead company that promised the world". But a no-show gets credited back, which we always honour, so it cost him nothing.
- One lead went quiet. Interested on the first call, then didn't pick up again. It happens, and the historical data on that customer showed they'd done the same before.
- Two sales. Two cases claimed, fact found, sold.
- One converting. A third case that's about to convert to a sale.
Strip it back and that's two sold and one in progress off five appointments. A potential 60% conversion rate, which for bought appointments is phenomenal.
The £11k revenue breakdown
Austin shared the actual figures.
"Gross revenue on the two cases that have already sold: £6,800. The one I'm expecting to sell, gross commission on that will be about five grand."
- £6,800 gross from two completed cases, post-offer.
- ~£5,000 gross from one case in the pipeline, not yet submitted but expected to go on.
- ~£11,800 total gross commission from five booked appointments.
Austin is careful not to count the pipeline case before it completes. "I haircut all my business significantly for forecasting purposes, because anything can go wrong." Fair. But even on the £6,800 that's already over the line, the return on five appointments speaks for itself.
"It's probably the best return on investment I've seen so far. And if it continues like that, the missus will be very, very happy, Lee."
How we generate equity release leads (and how Austin picks them)
This is the whole reason it works for a specialist like Austin, so it's worth being precise about it.
We do generate equity release leads. We just generate them by asking the right questions. Every applicant runs through our qualifier. We ask the age of the eldest applicant, income and employment status, and the property type. For anyone aged 55 or over on a residential property, we ask a direct question: would they be open to a conversation about releasing equity or a lifetime mortgage? Only a yes routes through to a booked appointment, and we capture property value and any outstanding balance on top. We're not pushing anyone towards a lifetime mortgage. The questions surface the homeowners who genuinely want that conversation, so an adviser can claim a real equity release lead rather than a cold name on a list.
For a niche adviser, that's gold. Austin only does later-life, so he claims the equity release cases and leaves the rest.
"Your product caters to a niche broker. I'm just doing later-life stuff, so I can choose a later-life client where I know my area of expertise is. If I was dealing with adverse credit, I'd cherry-pick all the clients in mortgage arrears. It's really, really valuable."
Compare that with buying a batch of data and hoping. He sees the demographic detail up front, picks the appointments that have legs for his business, and isn't stuck with a 62-year-old who's clearly more suitable for a standard residential mortgage. The appointment also lands on his phone by email, so he doesn't have to be sat at a laptop at three in the morning hoping not to miss a good one. He claims it from the sofa if he wants it.
What he'd tried before
Austin has been around the block on lead sources, booked appointments and raw bought data both. His honest read on the whole market:
"Unless it's a direct commission split, it's never in the company's interest to send you 100% good-quality business. There are always going to be a few duds in there."
That's exactly where the freedom to choose earns its keep. A case that's perfect for Austin, he'd happily pay £50 or £100 for. Another broker wouldn't want it anywhere near their diary and would kick up a fuss about the quality. With pick-what-you-want, both brokers are happy. As for why he gave us a go in the first place:
"It was a good pitch, straight to the point. It said the problem, it said the solution, and you weren't charging a fortune. It wasn't faceless. You're a broker, not just some marketing expert, and that really resonated."
The takeaway
Austin doesn't treat us as a replacement for the business he already has. He treats us as something in the back pocket.
"It's nice having that in your back pocket. 'I'm a bit thin on the ground the next couple of weeks, let's take on a few extra cases from Lee.' I look at it as well as the business I've already got, not instead of."
That framing is why it works for him, and it's a useful lesson for any broker weighing up booked appointments. You don't need to bet your whole pipeline on a lead source. You need a tap you can turn on when your diary's light, that only charges you for appointments you chose, and that credits the no-shows back. For a specialist who knows precisely what a good case looks like, that's a very efficient way to add five grand here and six grand there.
He's even started passing our details to equity release advisers he met at a recent boutique conference, on the basis that he can't take every appointment and a good product is worth sharing.
If you want to see the kind of appointments Austin is choosing from, the free preview shows this week's available appointments, including the later-life and equity-release-flagged cases. Pick the ones that suit your business, the same way he does.