Every time a mortgage closes, marketers line up to pitch all sorts of fabulous offers and opportunities to new homeowners. Nearly all arrive via mail so they are, fortunately, easy to sort through and discard. On occasion a company will dispatch their best door-to-door salesman to pay the buyers a visit and congratulate them on their purchase – thankfully they are few and far between.
The special offer bounty covers a wide spectrum. Some is relevant and useful though much is opportunism, “These buyers just shelled out hundreds of thousands for a house, so maybe we can convince them that a few hundred here and there is a prudent additional expense.”
Since there is no real difference between a mortgage closing via a purchase or a refinance, we’ve been the lucky recipients of much of this marketing over the past couple months. It’s been interesting to see what is offered, how it is presented, and how persistent the different companies are. Here’s a sampling of some of the exciting opportunities that we’ve received:
- Coupons from Big Box Home Improvement Centers: Of the haul, these seem most likely to be helpful. Just about all houses need a little something here and there, whether it is a small repair or just some personalization.
- Coupons from Home Design/Accessory Stores: These can also be helpful, but the ones we received are not all that scarce. They regularly send out the same 20% off coupons, so it’s not like this is truly a special deal for home buyers – the text is just different.
- Gutter, Windows, and Roofs: We received a surprising number of offers to help out with moderately sized/priced home improvement projects. Sometimes they came from manufacturers, but more often they seemed be sent by the local contractors who would actually do the work.
- Water Treatment System: This seemed really random to me. I know that water treatment systems are critically important in some areas, but I don’t really see all that many of them in our area. The MDC water is actually quite tasty!
- Credit Card from Mortgage Servicer that Pays Down Principal: I give extra credit for being creative; this is a sales angle that I hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately the rewards points are less generous than other cards available.
- Mortgage Insurance! Mortgage insurance must be a very profitable product to sell, because we’ve received more than 20 offers so far. The companies are so aggressive that it immediately raises my guard. And the numbers don’t sit well with me. The benefit decreases over time (because I’m paying down my principal each month) even though I’ve paid more premiums and am more likely to die? I must not understand the product properly…
If you’ve been through a purchase recently, have you received anything worthwhile? What’s been the most outrageous solicitation?
I think the Big Box coupons were the most helpful. I also received some giftcards from friends and family for the same stores, so it was nice to pair these with the coupons.
We received a ton of solicitations for window treatments (we still don’t have any), interior design services, painters, new windows (which we did need, and did get, but not from any solicitations), and we keep getting letters from a few local dentists inviting us to try their practice. I did like the Ikea, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, etc coupons, although the only ones we really used were Ikea and Lowe’s/Home Depot. After 6 months of being here, everything has stopped except for the dentists- go figure!