@Anonymous wrote:
Is there any stats out there for either how many times on average people pull their credit every day (like, "on average 10,000 people apply for loans every day") or how many inquiries is considered good? (so I have 2 right now, would that be a detriment if I try to apply for a credit card soon?)
No idea about how many people apply for loans each day. As far as number of inquiries, the answer is: It depends.
The fewer inquiries you have the better. For people new to credit, even if you have decent scores in the 700 range, even 2-3 inquiries in a short spell could result in denials. People with established credit files and decent scores in the 700+ range can often have more inquiries without denials. In the past I have had over 40 inquiries in a 1 year period with 10 or more inquiries on each of my credit reports without getting too many denials. Some people on this forum have many more inquiries and are able to successfully get approvals for credit.
The number of inquiries per credit report (TU, EX, EQ) you have in a short period of time also matters. Five inquiries on your TU report over a year is not a red flag for most issuers. But 5 inquiries in a month will likely get people with excellent (both in terms of score and trade lines) credit denied for loans.
For scoring purposes, only the inquiries in the last 12 months count. Inquiries in the last 24 months can be seen if you pull your own report. For people with excellent credit and thick files, 12 (36 across all three reports) or so spaced out inquiries over a year is about as high as you can relatively safely push it before seeing a lot of denials. Some issuers might be more sensitive to inquiries and more likely to deny credit applications if you have a lot of hard inquiries. Also, terms like APRs and CLs might be sub-optimal if you have a lot of inquiries.
To answer your question, 2 inquiries is not a lot. Even 1 inquiry hurts your score, but lenders are unlikely to deny you just based on inquiries. Now if you have 2 inquiries on your EX credit report from yesterday and you add a third one today, you might scare some lenders (especially if you have a thin credit file or not so good credit scores). If your 2 inquiries are a few months old, you should not have too much trouble due to the inquiries even if you have a relatively thin credit file.
