By Summer Knight
2025 President
Santa Barbara Association of Realtors
If you’ve ever applied for a mortgage, you may have noticed the sudden wave of calls and emails from lenders you never contacted. That happens because credit bureaus have been allowed to sell your information as soon as a lender checks your credit. Those are called “trigger leads.”
For years, REALTORS® have pushed to stop this practice. It violated privacy, confused homebuyers, and opened the door to scams. Now, that’s finally changing. Congress has passed the Homebuyer Privacy Protection Act of 2025, and the President has signed it into law.