2 Ways to Avoid Getting Spammed While Shopping for Mortgage Rates Online

Picture this: You were recently shopping around for mortgage rates — or you applied for a home loan online — and now your phone is figuratively ringing off the hook. The emails are flooding in, too, with lenders hounding you.

You just wanted to know how much your interest rate would be on that cute bungalow! But now you’re getting spammed. And even if you are a serious buyer and you applied for a mortgage, how did so many dang companies get your contact information?

One likely scenario: Your data was sold by a credit bureau, says Fred Winchar, co-founder and CEO of MaxCash, a financial broker that connects users with lenders.

When you apply for a loan with a mortgage company, the company pulls your credit record to determine your credit score, Winchar explains. The credit bureau now has the credit inquiry record, which they sell to other mortgage companies as leads. 

“This lets the other mortgage companies know you are shopping for a mortgage, so they get in touch with you to attempt to make a sale,” Winchar says. 

In case you were wondering, yep, credit bureaus can sell information about you to lenders and insurers, who can then send you unsolicited offers of credit or insurance through “prescreening offers.” You can opt out of these offers, though according to the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer advice. Here’s how to do so. 

The other likely scenario? When you apply for a mortgage, your application gets logged in various databases or within networks that are affiliated with the initial company, explains financial planner Jeff Rose, CFP, and the founder of GoodFinancialCents.com. 

“Some companies might also sell or share lead information with other lenders, especially if they can’t service your loan, leading to multiple companies reaching out to you,” he says.

In June, a California resident filed a class-action lawsuit against Rocket Mortgage LLC, alleging the company made unsolicited phone calls and sent text messages to those who are registered on the National Do Not Call Registry.

So, how do you shop for mortgage rates without getting inundated with unsolicited calls?

Consider using a separate email address and phone number (perhaps a Google Voice number) when shopping around to keep your primary contacts spam-free, Rose says. 

You can also explore online platforms that aggregate mortgage rates from various lenders, he suggests, allowing you to compare without directly providing your information to a slew of companies. 

To put a stop to the influx of calls and emails, consider registering your number with the National Do Not Call Registry, Rose suggests. 

It’s free to register your home or cell phone number, and it should show up on the registry the next day, he says. However, it can take up to a month for sales calls to stop. 

If you’re still getting a lot of unwanted calls, they might be from scammers, as the registry only stops sales calls from real companies, Rose explains. Charities, political groups, debt collectors, and survey takers can still reach you, too.

Another strategy is once you’ve identified potential mortgage deals and you’re ready to engage with lenders, reach out to them directly via their websites or phone numbers, suggests financial expert Young Pham, an editor with Biz Report.

The takeaway: If you’re hoping to shop around for a mortgage rate (and you should — you could save $84,000 over the life of your loan by doing comparisons, according to LendingTree), but you don’t want to be spammed with calls, consider opting out of prescreened offers and be sure you’re on the Do Not Call registry. 

Learn more at Apartmenttherapy.com

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Meet the Artist: Anna Otaola

“Meraki is Greek for “doing something with soul, creativity, or love - to put something of yourself into your work.” Every piece Anna creates has a story. She creates with love and soul and she leaves a bit of herself in everything she does. She is her truest self when she is creating art that inspires. What she creates with her hands is her way of expanding, liberating, exploring, and processing the world around her.”

Anna is an artist living and creating in the Denver Metro area in Colorado. She was born and raised in Phoenix, AZ and later went to college in Santa Barbara, CA where she received a Bachelors of Fine Art. Anna has been creating since she was a child, starting with wood and glue and later moving into charcoal, paint, and canvas. 

What is your background?

I have been creating since I was a child and fell in love with art when I was in high school. I got a bachelors in Fine Art, focusing on drawing with pencil and charcoal and painting with acrylic and oil on canvas. In the years since I finished college, my relationship with creating art has changed and evolved and is now central to how I engage life.

What was the moment that you knew this was what you wanted to do?

There have been several significant moments throughout my life that have contributed to my pursuit of art. The moment that I knew that being an artist was what I wanted to do came a few years ago when I used art as part of my healing process in working through pain in my past. Not only was the act of creating through that time pivotal to my healing process, but when I shared my piece and story with people, they echoed how powerful and beautiful my work was. From that time on, I knew this is what I wanted to do - not only for myself and my inner work, but also for others and what they could experience through my creative process.

Who or what inspires you?

I am inspired by things that are ordinary or often overlooked (like drinking fountains or sewer caps) but that are unique and beautiful in a simple and unassuming way. I am inspired by traveling, experiencing and seeing different cultures and environments. Through travel, I am able to expand and grow but also reminded of how small and finite I am. The world around me is vast and beautiful and I want to experience as much of it as I can to bring pieces of it with me and into my art as I process and move within the world around me.

How do you seek out opportunity?

I look for what inspires me, what I cannot forget or ignore and run towards it. Oftentimes, the things that scare me the most are the things I am most drawn to. I try to pay attention to those feelings and be aware of when they make me a little shaky, and pursue those themes, routes, experiences, inner work, and challenges to my skill. And along the way, I feel myself become more alive and thrive.

What role do you have in society?

I wear many different hats and hold several different roles in my community. I am an artist - using art to help me process, inspire, and liberate myself and those around me. I am a wife and mother of 2 beautiful (and extremely active) boys, and I am a birth doula supporting birthing people and their partners throughout their entire pregnancy and birth journey.

ANNA OTAOLA

WWW.MERAKIBYANNA.COM
email: anna@merakibyanna.com
instagram: @Meraki.Studio.By.Anna

If you are a local artist/crafter/maker/indie business owner and would like to be featured on our blog, please fill out this form or contact Ashley at ashley@westandmainhomes.com with questions...we can't wait to learn all about you!

Meet the Maker: Bryonna Williams founder of 'Flick of the Whisk'

Tell us about yourself

Hi! My name is Bryonna and I was born in Denver but raised in Ohio. I moved here in 2013 after graduating college and worked in high-end furniture retail before becoming an interior designer in 2017. My art and interior design background has played a huge part in the style of my cakes and creating color palettes for my desserts. 

How did you get into the business of baking?

I never ever thought baking would become my career. I only ever baked chocolate chip cookies and cake from the box mix. I was working as an interior designer before becoming a baker and one day I made a list of everything I enjoy doing that I wouldn't mind turning into a business and baking was at the top of the list. I created Flick of the Whisk Cakes in 2019 and it's been the best decision I've ever made. I am completely self-taught so in the beginning it was a lot of trial and error and everyday continues to be a learning process.  

What is the best business advice you would give someone just starting out?

Bet on yourself. You will always have doubts and fear of failure. But you're in control of whether you let that stop you from achieving your dream or not. It is going to be extremely hard and some days you'll want to quit, but becoming your own boss is an everyday reward. 

What is your all time favorite flavor of cupcake/sweet and favorite savory dish?

I'm a sucker for fruity candy and triple chocolate cake. The more chocolate the better. I love italian food so any savory pasta dish will make me happy. 

How does the Denver community contribute to small business owners?

I have so many people rooting for me that I've never even met. I shared a post a few months back expressing how at one point I thought about quitting. I had so many people comment and tell me how amazing I'm doing, that i make amazing desserts, and to keep going. It was so moving. My business has reached the level of success it has because of Denver's incredible support of local business and referrals. I appreciate it so much. 

WWW.FLICKOFTHEWHISKCAKES.COM

Instagram: @flickofthewhiskcakes

Facebook: Flick of the Whisk-Custom Cakes

Email: flickofthewhiskcakes@gmail.com

Phone: 720.279.4318

If you are a local artist/crafter/maker/indie business owner and would like to be featured on our blog, please fill out this form or contact Ashley at ashley@westandmainhomes.com with questions...we can't wait to learn all about you!

Are people really fleeing cities thanks to the pandemic?

No, the Pandemic Is Not Emptying Out America’s Cities

Despite what cable news is saying every day, a mass migration to the suburbs isn’t happening.

Over the weekend, the New York Times published a story about how there are bidding wars for homes in tristate area suburbs, and how urban apartment dwellers (especially those with kids) are worried about the uncertainties of living in crowded cities come winter. It’s the latest piece to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on national housing markets, and seems to support the theory that cities are being abandoned en masse in favor of suburbs. This theory has frequently been posited by the New York City–based news media, where TV producers and newspaper editors know many professionals with the means to relocate. But it seems to be something of a distorted narrative; The past six months of housing data clearly indicate that the trend is really only visible in two places (both of which were, until recently, among the most overheated housing markets on the planet): Manhattan and San Francisco, which were seeing outbound migration prior to the pandemic because of extremely expensive housing. (Curbed)

There’s no shortage of examples of the COVID-19 urban flight story. CNBC.com doubled down on it with a June headline of “The flight to the suburbs is real and growing.” On its cable network, CNBC recycles this narrative regularly, and opened a segment on the housing market this week by saying, “The housing market is staying hot as people continue to flee the big cities for the suburbs.”

If you live in a city, you probably know people who have left for the suburbs since the pandemic hit. There’s no denying the reality that many people have done this since March; many people also did this prior to the pandemic, and many more will do so in the years to come.

“People move out of New York all the time,” says Nancy Wu, an economist with StreetEasy. “The people who are moving to the suburbs to start a family there or to have a bigger place are looking now and buying their houses now, rather than renting in Manhattan for a few more years.”

But a nationwide, pandemic- or protest-induced urban-to-suburban migration taking place on a scale that impacts both urban and suburban housing markets in a measurable way? There is zero empirical evidence to support such a trend. None. Nothing. Zero.

Earlier this month, real-estate-listings giant Zillow published an exhaustive study examining every conceivable housing-market data point related to cities and suburbia to see if there are major divergences that suggest an urban-to-suburban migration trend.

Are pending home sales between urban and suburban areas different now than they were before the pandemic? They aren’t!

Are suburban homes selling more quickly than homes in urban areas? Nope!

Are suburban homes selling above their list price at a higher rate than urban homes? Not at all!

Are urban homes seeing price cuts at a higher rate than suburban homes? If anything, the opposite!

Are home valuations accelerating faster in suburban areas than in urban areas? Urban zip codes have a slight edge!

Are suburban home listings getting a larger share of search traffic relative to urban areas now than they were last year? The suburban share is actually down 0.2 percentage points!

This list is only a small sample of the myriad ways in which housing-market data do not support the theory of an urban exodus. (See also: People are not searching for larger homes in 2020 compared to 2019.) So why do news outlets keep repeating this thoroughly debunked narrative? Well, there are half-truths to the narrative that — if you string them together — form what sounds like a logical idea.

Yes, suburban housing markets are booming, but that’s not because of outbound migration from cities. When cities went into lockdown in the early days of the pandemic, housing markets completely stalled during what is usually the busiest time of year for home sales. In the late spring and summer, as people came came out of lockdown, markets across the country — suburban and otherwise — began seeing spikes of pent-up demand. At the same time, the number of homes for sale has plummeted and remained down around 30 percent of what it has been in recent years — leaving the market with nearly twice the demand and two-thirds of the supply. Couple that with record-low interest rates, and prices are rising dramatically all over the country.

The two exceptions to this are San Francisco and Manhattan (not Brooklyn, mind you), two of the most expensive housing markets in the country. When the pandemic hit, many did leave, although not always permanently. San Francisco and Manhattan have seen home prices drop, rental prices drop, and vacancy rates soar. (If you own in one of those places — at least for now — the shifts are really slight, and probably not an issue unless you bought very recently and need to sell right away.)

Given that the media industry is concentrated in Manhattan — with another good chunk in San Francisco — journalists seem to be confusing the minor outbound migration from two ridiculously expensive areas with the double dose of demand happening across the country.

More insidiously, some members of the media are willing to peddle stories about nonexistent carnage in the streets, extrapolating that the cities — all cities, but especially the diverse, Democratic–led ones — are headed for inevitable collapse. And it’s hard not to separate that dark fantasy from a Republican talking point.

But, according to the data, it’s just not happening.

If you are wondering how current national and global situations might be impacting your property’s value, your neighborhood, or the Real Estate market in general, we are happy to provide more specific information.

If there is a home that you would like more information about, if you are considering selling a property, or if you have questions about the housing market in your neighborhood, please reach out. We’re here to help.

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Mortgage demand from homebuyers is now 28% higher than last year

Homebuyers are rushing for mortgages, but fewer homeowners are refinancing even though rates are heading toward record lows.

Applications to refinance a home loan decreased 3% for the week, although they were 40% higher than a year ago. (CNBC)

Homebuyers are rushing for mortgages, but fewer homeowners are refinancing even though rates are heading toward record lows.

Total mortgage application volume fell 2% last week from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Volume was 35% higher one year ago.

The annual gains are getting a big boost from homebuyers. Mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 0.2% for the week but was 28% higher than a year earlier. Last year, annual gains were in the low single digits for purchase demand.

“Lenders are reporting that the strong demand for homebuying is coming from delayed activity from the spring, as well as households seeking more space in less densely populated areas,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist. 

The demand is also fueled by near record low mortgage rates. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances of up to $510,400 decreased to 3.08% from 3.11%, with points, including origination fee, decreasing to 0.36 from 0.38 for loans with a 20% down payment.

The drop in rates did little to spur current borrowers. Applications to refinance a home loan decreased 3% for the week, although they were 40% higher than a year ago. Earlier this year, refinancing had been around 100% higher annually. 

“Both conventional and government refinancing activity decreased last week, despite 30-year fixed and 15-year fixed mortgage rates declining to near historical lows,” said Kan. “Mortgage rates have remained below 3.5% for five months now, and it’s possible that refinance demand may be slowing and will not significantly increase again without another notable drop in rates.” 

Mortgage rates are falling again this week, now down to a three-week low, according to Mortgage News Daily. Part of that is due to the recent announcement that a new fee imposed on lenders that initially caused rates to go up would be delayed until the end of the year. Another part is simple bond basics.

“The Fed is setting the stage to offer the market lower rates and more bond buying for a longer period of time with less concern about inflation figures derailing their largesse,” said Matthew Graham, chief operating officer at Mortgage News Daily.

If you are wondering how current national and global situations might be impacting your property’s value, your neighborhood, or the Real Estate market in general, we are happy to provide more specific information.

If there is a home that you would like more information about, if you are considering selling a property, or if you have questions about the housing market in your neighborhood, please reach out. We’re here to help.

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