The Transunion Settlement: a Tool for Repairing Credit

The TransUnion settlement is being offered to an estimated 150 million consumers. Want to know if you’re one of them? Well, it’s a reasonably safe bet you are. You see, the settlement is being offered to anyone who had an open line of credit anytime from 1987 to May of 2008. Open lines of credit can include student loans, credit cars, auto loans, mortgages – pretty much anything you may have purchased on a credit account or line of credit. So you can see that’s just about anybody over the age of 18 from the last twenty years.

TransUnion is offering two options, and regardless of which you choose, you’ll have the tools you need to shift your financial destiny and become a more savvy and educated consumer, as well as work towards repairing your credit. The first option is six months of TransUnion’s credit monitoring service, free of charge. This will allow you unlimited access to your credit reports and scores, as well as email updates when something changes on your report. The second option gives consumers nine months of the credit monitoring service, as well as access to the scores used in insurance decisions and TransUnion’s mortgage simulator, helping consumers to see how their credit scores affect their mortgages.

Imagine that you’re looking for a house, and you find one that you absolutely fall in love with. It’s within your price range, let’s say 5,000. Your scores are okay – not great, but not lousy – and you get a rate of 6.5%, making your monthly payments on a 30-year mortgage somewhere around ,100. Over next 30 years, you’ll end up paying close to 0,000 for your house when you include the 5,000 paid in interest. Now, what if you had great credit and got a rate of 5.5%, just 1% lower than the previous example? On a 30-year mortgage, your payments will be roughly 0, meaning you’ll end up paying a little more than 0,000 with only 5,000 of your total payment going towards interest.

Here’s where credit repair comes into play. The difference between the total you’ll pay in the first example and the total you’ll pay in the second is ,000.

So the question is; would ,000 change your financial future? The answer for most of us is a clear and resounding “Yes!”

All it takes is a little bit of patience, dedication, and persistence to repair your credit and make the changes in your financial habits that will translate into higher credit scores, and TransUnion has delivered an unprecedented tool for you to use to repair your credit. Using the TransUnion service, you can see the effect of every financial decision you make. Opening a Home Depot card to save 10% on that purchase will have an effect on your credit score. So will paying off that Visa card, or closing it altogether. Which decisions will support you in repairing your credit and becoming financially free? Now you can know immediately the weight and effect of any decision you make, and it’s free!

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The Right Email Captures Attention. A few years ago, mortgage broker marketing was conducted through mail campaigns and drop in visits to real estate officers. Today, technology drives how most of us do business, including agents and mortgage brokers.

View full post on Jeffrey Nelson – EzineArticles Expert

Once my clients truly understand that marketing is about relationships, we start talking about how those relationships are created and maintained to determine appropriate marketing tactics for their businesses and personal styles.  But no matter what kind of business my clients are in, they all have the same excellent relationship marketing tool at their fingertips: Their e-mail messages.

E-mail messages are the most frequently overlooked (and virtually free) marketing tools available to entrepreneurs.  No, I’m not talking about electronic mail campaigns, or spamming, but using the messages you send out every day to your clients and colleagues as a subtle marketing tool.  You can do this by adding more information to your signature line in all your e-mail.

How many times have you received a message from people who aren’t using a company domain name in their e-mail address, so you’re not sure who Bill or Sally @Hotmail.com is?  Or what if you’re in that position yourself? Many low cost Web hosts will forward e-mail received to you@yourdomain.com, but don’t provide an e-mail address from your domain name.  So how do you look professional when you’re dealing with a $35 a month Web site and free Internet e-mail?  You use an annotated signature line.

Most e-mail programs allow users to create an individual signature line that is appended to all outgoing messages.  If you’re not using one, you are missing an effective and virtually free way to market your business.  And as an added bonus, your marketing message can be seen where paid advertising is forbidden such as on electronic bulletin boards, giving you a competitive edge is such circumstances.

So why bother to annotate your signature line?  Here are some good reasons:

1. Annotating your signature line makes it easy for your clients to find your contact information when they want t o buy again.  Sure you may have given them a business card, but what if business cards are lost or misfiled?  Creating a situation in which your client has to look in the Yellow Pages for your phone number may be risky, especially if a competitor has a more compelling marketing message.

2. Annotating your signature line reminds and makes it easy for your clients to visit your web site.  Of course that’s assuming you want your customers to visit your Web site.  And why wouldn’t you?  Your Web site is a great visibility tool that builds your relationship with your customers.

3. Annotating your signature line identifies the origin of your messages so that if they get forwarded, people who are interested in what you have to say or offer can find you easily.  Evan if you know for sure that your customers have your address, your fax number or understand the full range of your products or services, that information does not forward with your e-mail unless you put it there.  So if one of your loyal customers forwards an e-mail from you to a colleague and your contact information is not included, you’ve just closed the door to a new business opportunity that your customer opened for you by forwarding your message.

4. Annotating your signature line can be a gentle way to remind customers of upcoming events (“Sale end Friday, Dec 27th” or “Don’t miss our open house on Jan 17″) to buy again (“Call today for a free quote”), to promote a new product or service (“Ask me how our new widget will save you money”), to encourage forwarding and referrals (“Forward this newsletter to anyone you thing will find it valuable”) or to call for feedback (“If you like working with us, tell your friends.  If you don’t, tell us and we’ll make it right”).

So what should you include in an annotated signature line?  At the very least, your e-mail signature should include you full name, title, company name, web site link, plus you phone and fax numbers.  Also consider a direct access phone line (if different than the company phone number), cell phone number, company tag line or motto, an offer, a reminder to buy, last call for a special deal, teaser for the future products or services, or even an inspirational quote, if it reinforces your marketing message.

It doesn’t have to be fancy to get read.  You can make simple borders around your key messages or information by using your title key (~), a dash (-), and underline (_) or even a series of asterisks (*).  Bottom line: Every professional needs a standard signature line in all business correspondence.  Because that is exactly what e-mail is professional correspondence.  Of course, we use it so casually and so frequently that it hardly seems like something professional at all.  But bear in mind that all correspondence between you and your customers is an opportunity to enhance you business relationship, even if that communication happens only in cyberspace.

More and more mortgage originators are now turning to email mortgage marketing to keep sales rolling in. While an increasing number of people say they rarely surf the Net, the vast majority check their email inbox every day. Marketing with email is the most lucrative way to influence prospects and keep clients informed and happy. It is also extremely inexpensive. Where you might have mailed out mortgage post cards every month, you can now email a newsletter every week for a fraction of the cost.

Increasingly, mortgage originators need to embrace email mortgage marketing in a big way in order to stay competitive. Those who formerly used a service to send out their newsletters, loan programs, and rate updates are now doing all the emailing themselves using email software specifically designed for mortgage originators. This new software is powerful yet easy to use and allows any loan officer to handle their own email marketing that previously required expensive professional help.

In particular, one email program called Magnetic Email, automates the prospecting process so you can find real estate agents faster. It’s a one-of-a-kind email solution that helps you connect with more real estate agents so you can stop getting rejected. You can even purchase a bulk list of real estate email addresses from a preferred vendor and reach thousands of real estate agents with the click of a mouse.

Where do you start? If you have no email mortgage marketing experience, no knowledge of email software and no idea what to promote, the very thought of email marketing can seem intimidating.

What clients prefer to know is that they are doing business with an indusrty expert. Make clients aware of your mortgage acumen, presence, and commitment. Practice consistency with email being your tool of choice. It’s your greatest marketing weapon.

However, unless you’re testing and tracking your performance, you may be losing time and money. You can dramatically improve your new clients simply by taking the time to test and track your messages – something a good email {software|solution|program} can do for you.

Not only will it help you to determine what’s working and what’s not, but it will also enable you to focus your efforts on producing more sales.

If you have a website, that’s great, but without an effective email mortgage marketing campaign your efforts will be anemic. So how do you get started with email marketing? The best method is to begin your own client list and target real estate agents.

Email mortgage marketing has arrived, but are you using it? Good email marketing software can speed up your business in half the time and create less work if you will utilize it. Today, email mortgage marketing has become so simple, it’s no longer an acceptable excuse to say you don’t do it.