Mulitple Inquiries for Mortgage Shopping

[Anonymous]

Hi there folks, I could use some guidance.

My boyfriend and I are shopping for a mortgage, and we had a broker pull our reports yesterday.  He's going to do a rapid rescore because the darned payment to my third credit card to pay down doesn not yet show on TU (a full week after payment reported to bureas) and its afffecting my TU score in a big way.

Anyway, my question goes to multiple inquiries for the same purpose in a short timeframe.   We want to get solid estimates from 2, maybe 3 brokers/lenders.   Since the first one pulled the reports yesterday, I think we have 30 days for our scores to take the slight hit.   Should we use what we know our scores to be after he does the rapid rescore to get quotes elsewhere, too?   I realize that if we have multiple brokers/lenders pull the reports close in time, its supposed to count only as one inquiry?  I've worked hard to repair my score, so i'm sensitive to every single point.

Could someone lend advice?  Thanks so much.

[Anonymous]

From FICO themselves:

Does the formula treat all credit inquiries the same?

No. Research has indicated that FICO Scores are more predictive when they treat loans that commonly involve rate-shopping, such as mortgage, auto and student loans, in a different way. For these types of loans, FICO Scores ignore inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So, if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your scores while you're rate shopping. In addition, FICO Scores look on your credit report for rate-shopping inquiries older than 30 days. If your FICO Scores find some, your scores will consider inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry. For FICO Scores calculated from older versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 14 day span. For FICO Scores calculated from the newest versions of the scoring formula, this shopping period is any 45 day span. Each lender chooses which version of the FICO scoring formula it wants the credit reporting agency to use to calculate your FICO Scores.

It seems like you only get 14 days with the older mortgage scores. It is advised to get 2 or 3 comparisons and use them against one another to get the best deal possible.