Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

[Anonymous]

We're meeting with a local bank tomorrow to discuss a mortgage. I more than meet the baseline requirements for credit score, but my husband was on the fence the last time we checked his score (real score, not fako). That was about three weeks ago. We've done some work on his credit report, but we don't know if anything has had time to change significantly. We settled two accounts, are having two derogs deleted, but I'm pretty sure it hasn't had time to rescore.

Does pre-qualifying require a hard credit pull? If so, should we wait to pre-qualify? Should we go ahead and buy his score to check it? Agh!

[cdtotten]

Yes, pre-qualifying requires a hard pull. Effectively they pull your credit and determine what amount the automated underwriting system will accept with the information you provide and the scores they have. Without your credit scores, they can't prequalify you for anything - especially if it is a conventional loan. If it's FHA, they will need to know if your middle score is above 620.

I would pull a new report and see what's updated before you go.

[nathan]

Without your scores, they can't tell if it is worth doing business with you. Some lenders may accept your own score to gestimate if you will qualify, but they will pull for preapprovals regardless.

[Anonymous]

Ok, so we pulled his scores again. His middle score (from myFICO) was 611, which is enough to qualify for this program. As long as the scores the lender pulls are the same (or better), then we should be ok for pre-qualification. What are the chances that the scores would be tremendously different?

[Anonymous]

My experience has been that they will hit all 3 with a hard pull!  Could you ask him if he would wait to pull and review a pull that you did yourself?  You won't take the hit and he can tell you what needs to be fixed before you apply

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

You can only get 2 scores from myFICO.com.  TU score will most likely be different with a mortgage lender as the TU scoring model here is using the previous version, the Equifax score should be spot on though.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we pulled TU and equifax from myfico, and experian directly from their website. Experian was highest at 646, equifax was 611, and Tu was miserably low at 589. Will it be even lower when a lender pulls it? Thanks for the response!

[cdtotten]

Couple things. The score you pulled from the Experian website is a not a FICO score, so there is no correlation between that score and what the lender will pull. Your EQF will match your lender's pull exactly if there have been no changes to your report. Your TU score will not match the lenders. The MyFICO TU score is TU-98 and the lender will pull TU-04. Not all, but most people find there TU-04 score to be lower than there TU-98 score.

[Anonymous]

I started out the process by talking to my Loan Officer about my financial situation (debts, income) and asked them about the negatives on my report and gave them my credit scores verbally.  They gave me an idea about what they thought - in a general way - and when I felt comfortable that we may be approved with a decent rate, and that we could afford it, we went ahead and applied.  It did require a hard pull, but that hasn't seemed to hurt me.

[DallasLoanGuy]

A good loan officer 'might' be able to manually pre-qualify(not pre-approve) you with your credit reports.

A good loan officer can tell you with a good deal of certainty whether you will qualify, but they might shrug and say: "Too close to call without a full file and credit pull"