VIDEO: What Are Trigger Leads?

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I have a warning for anyone who is shopping for a home loan right now - whether it’s through me or any other lender. You are going to have the pleasure of dealing with something known as “trigger leads.”

When a someone checks your credit, it creates what’s called an inquiry on your credit report. And the credit bureaus are very smart. They know what type of inquiry it is. They know that an insurance company has checked your credit and you’re probably shopping around for insurance. And if a mortgage company checks your credit, they know you are shopping for a home loan.

The credit bureaus take advantage of that information and they sell your name and phone number to other mortgage companies. They’re called trigger leads. And they’ve become a real pain in the *****.

Here’s the deal. A lot of mortgage lenders are getting really hungry. We just had a huge refinance boom in the industry. Mortgage loans were dropping out of the sky like manna from heaven. Everybody and their brother wanted to be a loan officer so they could get in on the action. Now interest rates have risen, applications have dropped precipitously, and a lot of those loan officers are bored. And hungry. And they’re buying trigger leads to try to get business.

They are relentless. They will call you at work. They will call you in the middle of dinner. They will call your cell phone. They will make it sound like they are actually working for the lender that you are already talking to. I have heard reports of them calling and saying, “Hi, this is so-and-so with your mortgage company. I just need you to send me one more item so I can finish processing your application.”

Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do to stop these. It doesn’t mean your loan officer or the mortgage company or bank you’re working with has sold your information. I promise you, I do not want to sell your contact information to my competition. And neither does any other loan officer out there!

The credit bureaus already have this information. They know where you live. They know where you work. And they know your phone numbers.

My recommendation is that you very clearly and firmly tell these people not to call you anymore and to take you off their list. There are a couple other things you can try. I can’t guarantee that they will work but they might at least reduce the number of spam phone calls and junk mail you get.

1. Register you phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. https://www.donotcall.gov/

2. You can also opt out of prescreened offers for credit at https://www.optoutprescreen.com/.

I don’t know if it works for trigger leads, but if it helps keep at least some of the junk mail out of your mailbox, that’s a good thing in my book.

You can win when the market is changing. We can show you how. My name is Emily Caryl Ingram. I lead a team of Mortgage Loan Specialists at New American Funding in Port Townsend, WA.