Apping for card before mortgage shopping

[Anonymous]

---

@Walt_K wrote:

Do you know whether you'll be going conventional/FHA/something else?  The only reason I ask is that I am going FHA right now.  I have an inquiry that is from April 2011, no one has asked about it.  My midscore is 728.  It's not an issue at all for FHA.  But one of the lenders today asked me if I wanted to consider conventional, and if there was any way to get my midscore to 740.  At 740, I'd qualify for a better rate if I went conventional.  That's not an option for me, but I note that you have a 734 TU score in your signature.  If conventional is an option, I'd be hesitant to do anything that would drop that score even a few points.  If you're going FHA, I don't think it's going to matter.

---

My midscore was 747, so I guess they wreen't so concerned about my inquire this past Nov. That, and I only had 1 INQ on each CRA at mortgage app time as well. Now I'm sitting here, waiting on the process to finish so I can get a much needed Rooms To Go and Lowes CC.

[Walt_K]

Just to clarify some of what is being said here, there are a couple reasons people talk about not applying for new credit before a mortgage application.  If your score is borderline, it might be an approval issue.  But in general, I think people aren't talking about approval issues, they're talking about getting the best interest rate.  I'm not surprised to hear that lenders didn't sneeze at multiple inquiries when talking about approval.  I wouldn't expect a modest amount of inquiries to cause someone to get denied.  But the question is what you will get in terms of an interest rate.  And getting the best rate on your mortgage, which depending on the size of the loan could save many thousands of dollars, is pretty important. 

Maybe that was already clear to everyone, but it seemed that there was a little mixup between whether a lender would care about inquiries as regards approval, and whether the inquiries matter as regards interest rate. 

[drsmith]

Then I suppose it would be best to get the card asap. 

So it can age, and my score can go back before any mortgage shopping. 

[webhopper]

Would not apply for card before mortgage shopping, wait 30 days after you close to get a card, unless you don't have any cards at all, in that case a card might improve your score. Just keep utility% low durih the app process and until you close.

[Revelate]

---

@drsmith wrote:

Then I suppose it would be best to get the card asap. 

So it can age, and my score can go back before any mortgage shopping. 

---

Indeed, either apply now or as Webhopper suggested, wait till after the mortgage.  While on a FHA loan it's not going to be a problem either way, you may not want a FHA loan so why put the likely negative on your account 2-3 months before you go mortgage shopping?

If the card makes financial sense currently (floating a large balance for wedding/honeymoon expenses, not an every-day thing) then I'd say get the card if it's going to be a non-trivial expense otherwise.  If it's something you're going to pay off in a month or three anyway, don't bother getting the new tradeline would be my opinion till after the mortgage... just factor in the utilization on your card too which may bring down your score as well if it's not paid off by the time the lender pulls.