New Owner Beware!
After purchasing your home, you will receive a great amount of junk mail and even telephone calls persuading you into buying their product or service, and are sometimes scams to get your personal information. Be wise and DO NOT respond back to any of the mailings. Open each letter and pay attention particularly to notices from your lender or from your city, which would usually contain property tax information. If you are not sure about certain items such as property tax or mortgage payments, check your mortgage statement for your lender's customer service telephone number and call them. Below are some of the most common junk mail new homeowners will receive:
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Life / Disability Insurance
Often times they will try to scare you by stating if you do not have life or disability insurance and something unfortunate happens to you, you and your loved ones may lose the house due to the loss of your income and inability to make monthly payments. Life insurance is a good idea, but you should always do your own research and get quotes from leading insurance companies and do not be oversold on any policies. The point of disability and life insurance is to protect yourself or your family from losing your home or other assets should an unfortunate event occur. I've found quotes for healthy individuals in their 20s to 40s, a 10 year term life insurance policy with coverage up to $500,000 may cost around $40/month.
Refinance to Lower Mortgage Payments
There will a great deal of mail offering you a lower interest rate if you refinance and many times will have your lender's name listed somewhere on the letter to make you believe your lender is offering new interest rates. Do not pay attention to any of these types of junk mail as well. If interest rates do drop dramatically, speak with your lender directly or mortgage broker to get advice from them. They can run calculations to see what your break-even point would be (how many months or years until you recover the costs for doing a refinance).
Home Insurance
You should have already done your homework to get several home insurance quotes and have a policy from a well known insurance company prior to closing so that the effective coverage date begins on the very first day of owning the home. Since you already have home insurance and did your research, feel confident that the one you selected is giving you a decent rate. Do not pay attention to any junk mail offering cheaper home insurance.
