Unsubscribe before you start your mortgage search Loaner

Often when you apply for a mortgage you will be bombarded with offers from competing banks and lenders.

The reason this happens is because the credit reporting agencies sell your information to these other companies.

They are known as trigger tracks, which are triggered when you submit a loan application and your credit report is pulled.

This acts as a signal that you are currently applying for a home loan and reveals this secret to others.

To avoid being inundated with text messages, phone calls and emails, you can unsubscribe first.

First, some information on how it works

As noted, a credit application, such as a mortgage that involves a high demand for credit, triggers an inquiry with the credit bureaus.

These bureaus, including Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and even a fourth, 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 reporting agencies are for-profit businesses.

So instead of just making money from credit, they will also sell mortgages and refinance loans to banks, loan officers, mortgage brokers, etc.

This allows them to make even more money and allows the loan originators who buy them to close more loans. Assuming they can win your business.

However, collateral damage could be caused by you, the consumer, in the form of major inconvenience.

You see, it’s not just a simple phone call or email. This could be dozens, or even close to a hundred, calls, texts, and emails, all in the span of a few days.

Because of this perceived injustice, a number of bills have been introduced to ban trigger tracks, including one that garnered 90 co-sponsors in the House and 43 in the Senate.

And although it seemed very promising, it was recently abandoned of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In other words, help is not coming. And credit bureaus will still sell your data. So what can you do?

Use the opt-out pre-screening in advance to prevent your information from being sold

One thing you can do to avoid all these offers is to unsubscribe using OptOutPrescreen.comwhich is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website that processes these requests.

It’s quite simple. Simply visit this website, click unsubscribe, then fill out the short form with your name, address, social information, and date of birth.

Also indicate whether you wish to unsubscribe electronically for five years or permanently by mail. Personally, I’m happy with five years because it’s easier (no time for stamps and envelopes) and there may come a time when I actually want deals.

Note that your name will be removed from the lists provided by credit bureaus “for firm offers of credit or insurance” for a total period of five years.

However, it won’t stop all offers. So consider this a partial solution to at least reduce the offers.

Advice: It can take five days to process an unsubscribe request and several weeks before you stop receiving offers. So do this well before you start shopping for mortgage rates.

You can also add your phone number to DoNotCall.gov and if you really want to be aggressive, sign up at DMAchoice.org to reduce your email/spam. But the latter option requires a small fee.

What else can you do to avoid the barrage of mortgage offers?

Another simple thing you can do to reduce offers is to silence unknown callers if that’s 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.

And you can ask your loan officer or mortgage broker to do a soft credit application first to avoid triggering these leads in the first place.

But ultimately, you will have to make a significant effort if you want to proceed with a real mortgage application.

One last (important) thing to note here is that you may want to receive more than one mortgage rate quote.

Many consumers stop at the first deal they see and never take the time to shop. This is actually why efforts to stop trigger tracks have failed.

Even the FTC has underlines that “these offers can help you discover what’s available, compare costs, and find the product best suited to your needs.”

A Freddie Mac study found that getting a simple second mortgage quote could save a homeowner between $966 and $2,086 over the life of their loan.

I also argued that you will learn more about the loan process, mortgage jargon, and may be a better negotiator if you talk to a few different companies.

Granted, it’s one thing to talk to a few, and another to receive hundreds of unwanted texts and phone calls.