Often times when you apply for a mortgage, you’ll be bombarded by offers from competing banks and lenders.
The reason this happens is because the credit bureaus sell your information to these other companies.
They’re known as trigger leads, which are triggered when you submit a loan application and your credit report is pulled.
It acts as a signal that you’re currently applying for a home loan and lets others in on that secret.
To avoid getting inundated with texts, phone calls, and emails, you can opt-out beforehand.
First Some Background on How This Works
As noted, a credit application, such as a mortgage that involves a hard credit pull, triggers an inquiry with the credit bureaus.
These bureaus, which include Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and even a fourth one, Innovis, are notified that you’re looking for a loan.
While this is all good and well since you generally need a credit check to get approved for a mortgage, the credit bureaus are for-profit companies.
So instead of simply making money on the credit pull, they will also sell mortgage and refinance leads to banks, loan officers, mortgage brokers, etc.
This allows them to make even more money, and it allows the loan originators who buy them to close more loans. Assuming they can win your business.
However, the collateral damage might be you, the consumer, by way of major annoyance.
You see, it’s not just the odd phone call or email. It could be dozens or even close to a hundred calls, texts, and emails, all within the span of a few days.
As a result of this perceived injustice, a number of bills were introduced to ban trigger leads, including one that garnered 90 co-sponsors in the House and 43 in the Senate.
And while it looked very promising to pass, it was recently dropped from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
In other words, help isn’t coming. And the credit bureaus are still going to sell your data. So what can you do?
Use Opt-Out Prescreen in Advance to Keep Your Information from Being Sold
One thing you can do to head off all these offers is to opt-out using OptOutPrescreen.com, which is the official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website that processes these requests.
It’s pretty simple. Just visit that website, click on opt-out, then fill out the short form with your name, address, social, and date of birth.
Also indicate if you want to opt-out electronically for five years or permanently via mail. Personally, I just go with five years because it’s easier (no time for stamps and envelopes) and there might be a time when I actually want offers.
Note that your name will be removed from lists provided by the credit bureaus “for firm offers of credit or insurance” for a total of five years.
However, it won’t stop all offers. So consider it a partial solution to at least cut down on the offers.
Tip: It can take five days for an opt-out request to be processed, and may take several weeks before you stop receiving offers. So do it well before you begin your mortgage rate shopping.
You can also add your phone number to DoNotCall.gov and if you really want to be aggressive, register at DMAchoice.org to reduce your email/junk mail. But that latter option requires a small fee.
What Else Can You Do to Avoid the Barrage of Mortgage Offers?
Some other simple things you can to do to cut down on the offers is to silence unknown callers if it’s an option on your smartphone.
You can also try to use a temporary phone number like Google Voice in the hopes of avoiding some calls and texts.
And you can ask your loan officer or mortgage broker to do a soft credit pull first to avoid triggering these leads to begin with.
But eventually you’ll need to do a hard pull if you want to proceed with an actual mortgage application.
One last (important) thing to note here is you might actually want to receive more than just one mortgage rate quote.
Many consumers stop at the first offer they see and never put in the time to shop around. This is actually why efforts to stop trigger leads have failed.
Even the FTC has pointed out that “these offers can help you learn about what’s available, compare costs, and find the best product for your needs.”
A Freddie Mac study found that getting just a second mortgage quote could save a homeowner between $966 and $2,086 over the life of their loan.
I’ve also argued that you’ll learn more about the lending process, the mortgage lingo, and possibly be a better negotiator if you speak to a few different companies.
Granted, it’s one thing to speak to a few, and another to receive hundreds of unwanted texts and phone calls.
Before creating this site, I worked as an account executive for a wholesale mortgage lender in Los Angeles. My hands-on experience in the early 2000s inspired me to begin writing about mortgages 18 years ago to help prospective (and existing) home buyers better navigate the home loan process. Follow me on Twitter for hot takes.