Often times, when you apply for a mortgage, you’ll be bombarded with offers from competing banks and lenders.
The reason this happens is because the credit bureaus sell your information to these other companies.
Known as trigger threads, they are antiquities When you submit your loan application your credit report is pulled.
It serves as a signal that you are currently applying for a home loan and lets others know this secret.
To avoid being inundated with texts, phone calls and emails, you can unsubscribe in advance.
First some background on how this works
As mentioned, a credit application, such as a mortgage with a hard credit pull, triggers an investigation with the credit bureaus.
These offices, which include Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and even Innovis, are notified that you are looking for a loan.
While this is all well and good since you generally need a credit check to get approved for a mortgage, Credit bureaus are for-profit companies.
So instead of just making money by pulling credit, they will also sell mortgages and refinances to banks, loan officers, mortgage brokers, etc.
This allows them to make more money, and allows the loan originators who buy them to close more loans. Assuming they can win your business.
However, the collateral damage may cause you, the consumer, to be greatly inconvenienced.
You see, it’s not just a strange phone call or email. It can amount to dozens or even nearly a hundred calls, texts, and emails, all within a few days.
As a result of this perceived injustice, a number of bills have been introduced to ban controversial threads, including one that received 90 co-sponsors in the House and 43 in the Senate.
And while it looked very promising, It was recently dropped From the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
In other words, help is not coming. And credit bureaus still sell your data. So what can you do?
Use the pre-opt-out screen in advance to prevent your information from being sold
One thing you can do to avoid all these offers is to opt out of using them OptOutPrescreen.comthe official consumer credit reporting industry website that processes these requests.
It’s very simple. Simply visit this website, click unsubscribe, then fill out the short form with your name, address, marital status and date of birth.
Also indicate whether you want to opt out electronically for five years or permanently by mail. Personally, I just choose five years because it’s easier (no time for stamps and envelopes) and there may come a time when I actually want offers.
Note that your name will be removed from lists provided by credit bureaus for “commercial offers of credit or insurance” for five years.
but, It will not stop all offers. So consider it a partial solution to at least reducing offers.
advice: It can take up to five days to process your opt-out request, and it may take several weeks before you stop receiving offers. So do that well before you start shopping for your mortgage rate.
You can also add your phone number to DoNotCall.gov And if you really want to get aggressive, sign up at DMAchoice.org to reduce your email/junk. But this last option requires a small fee.
What else can you do to avoid the barrage of mortgage offers?
Some other simple things you can do to reduce offers are to silence unknown callers if that is an option on your smartphone.
You can also try using a temporary phone number like Google Voice in hopes of avoiding some calls and texts.
You can ask your loan officer or mortgage broker to do a soft credit pull first to avoid raising these leads initially.
But eventually you’ll need to make a solid withdrawal if you want to move forward with the actual mortgage application.
One last (important) thing to note here is that you may want to get more than just one mortgage rate quote.
Many consumers stop at the first offer they see and don’t take the time to shop around. This is actually why efforts to stop the trigger have failed.
Even the Federal Trade Commission has He pointed out “These offers can help you learn about what’s available, compare costs, and find the best product to fit your needs.”
A study by Freddie Mac found that getting just a second mortgage quote can save a homeowner between $966 and $2,086 over the life of the loan.
You also said that you’ll learn more about the lending process, mortgage language, and maybe be a better negotiator if you talk to a few different companies.
Of course, it’s one thing to talk to a few people, but it’s another thing to receive hundreds of unwanted texts and phone calls.
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