@Thomas_Thumb wrote:OP - The age off of potential negative impact of a hard inquiry on Fico scores is based on actual date - not the month of. So, 12 months from INQ date.
My observation is that inquiries are binned (or grouped in categories) - at least for Fico 08. Given that, not all inquiries impact score as adding/aging off one or two may not change bin status. Also, it is well understood that inquiries reach a saturation point (for all Fico models) beyond which additional inquiries have no impact. Some people have over 60 inquiries on a CRA and likely stopped seeing any negative impact after exceeding 9 or 10 inquiries.
The older Fico mortgage models appear to be more front end loaded relative to Fico 08. Inverse reported his Fico 08 scores rising from 840 to 845 to 850 as inquiries went from 2 to 1 to 0 at 12 months aging. I experienced a 13 point increase 796 => 809 on my EQ mortgage score 5 (a Fico 04 model score) when I dropped from 1 INQ to 0 INQ.
Cool. So maybe I'll get a little boost in Feb for the two inquiries made this year (assuming I don't make any more- which I won't). Thank you! 
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I have a rather silly question. I am trying to scrape together a 680 midpoint on the mortgage FICOs early next month. I have an inquiry that will be a year old on 11/3. Does it on 11/4 stop impacting my score? Or not till December? :/
Hey Thom Thumb! You write:
OP - The age off of potential negative impact of a hard inquiry on Fico scores is based on actual date - not the month of. So, 12 months from INQ date.
We had a long discussion maybe a year ago about this very question, which is when precisely the FICO algorithms started ignoring a given inquiry. For example, is it exactly 366 days later? Or is it 365 days later plus whatever number of extra days are needed to bring a person to the 1st of the following month?
There was no consensus reached, though people leaned a bit toward the guess that it was exactly 366 days. But nobody could really say for sure.
Do you know of anything that would give us certainty? CaptainKangaroo (above) was I think asking about when the precise date would be that his inquiry would fall off of FICO's radar. E.g will that happen on Nov 4? Or is he wiser to expect that it might not happen until Dec 1?
Ok and thank you. The good news is there is plenty of time before I will apply for a mortgage for the older inquiries to drop off the report.
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I have a rather silly question. I am trying to scrape together a 680 midpoint on the mortgage FICOs early next month. I have an inquiry that will be a year old on 11/3. Does it on 11/4 stop impacting my score? Or not till December? :/
1 year max. Depending on your profile, far sooner than that. I scooped up 2 inquiries per bureau back in June and their impact was gone in 2 months and in 3 months to now my scores have gone up higher than they were before the inquiries. Unless you have a very thin file I personally believe that a single inquiry will stop impacting your FICO scores in a matter of months from what I've seen.
Below is a link to an article on inquiries along with an image paste of some text. The article was written in 2/2010.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/how-credit-inquiries-affect-credit-score.aspx
P.S. There are some indications that VantageScore 3.0 (which rolled out after the above article) may factor obtaining new credit differently from inquiries in the scoring timeline as suggested below. Perhaps Fico 08 does as well. If so, there could be confusion on influence of new accounts vs associated inquiries. If, as a suspect, inquiries are binned then not every HP will impact score. Also, the articles linked DO state inquiry impaci is profile dependent.
Here is another link on an inquiry article.
http://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-long-do-inquiries-impact-my-scores-2/
The chart from VantageScore speaks to new accounts - not inquiries. I suspect any scoring changes that may be taking place during an initial 90 day window are new account related.
My EQ VS3 score was always lower than TU and EX. When my sole inquiry dropped off at 2 years, score increased 3 points. I knew the inquiry was falling off and avoided making any significant changes to spending pattern between April thru June. CK report details did show INQ on June 17th but not June 30th.
Ag UT % was maintained in the 1% to 2% range. during the March - July timeframe.
