Score PLUNGED 32 Points after Mortgage Inquiries

[Anonymous]

On July 25, my Experian score was 725. I shopped  three lenders for pre-approvals later that week which I did get.

Today, I got a notification from my Experian credit monitoring service that my credit score had changed. When I logged in, my score is now 693. I thought mortgage inquiries around the same time only counted as one inquiry, nothing else has changed in terms of my credit report except these new inquiries.   Is it realistic that this would cause such a drastic drop, or do Experian's scores not mean anything?

Thanks for any insight you can provide,...

[Lel]

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@Anonymous wrote:

On July 25, my Experian score was 725. I shopped  three lenders for pre-approvals later that week which I did get.

Today, I got a notification from my Experian credit monitoring service that my credit score had changed. When I logged in, my score is now 693. I thought mortgage inquiries around the same time only counted as one inquiry, nothing else has changed in terms of my credit report except these new inquiries.   Is it realistic that this would cause such a drastic drop, or do Experian's scores not mean anything?

Thanks for any insight you can provide,...

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The Experian score that you have is not a true FICO score. FICO scores will count all mortgage inquiries that are pulled within a certain time frame (14 or 45 days, depending on which version is used) as a single inquiry. Furthermore, mortgage inquiries in the last 30 days are not used in the calculation of your FICO scores, so there won't be a "first hit" effect when you get your score pulled by a second lender.
The non-FICO credit score formulas may not de-duplicate these multiple inquiries, and may not suppress recent inquiries from their score, thus resulting in the drop in those scores.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that explanation. I checked the other two on here and they have not changed!

[Anonymous]

Great answer...that's good to know!

[Anonymous]

Hi,

When you say 14 or 45 days depending on which version, what do you mean. Are there different FICO versions that mortgage companies use? If so, which is more common. I expect my to complete any pre-approval shopping in the next 30 days, but 14 days might be harder.

Thanks

[Lel]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

When you say 14 or 45 days depending on which version, what do you mean. Are there different FICO versions that mortgage companies use? If so, which is more common. I expect my to complete any pre-approval shopping in the next 30 days, but 14 days might be harder.

Thanks

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Hello, and welcome to the FICO Forums.

This is a source of great confusion for most people.  The older versions of FICO, which include the TransUnion 98 model and the Experian v2 model, allow for a 14 day window for mortgage inquiries.  The newer versions of FICO, which include TU 04 and Equifax's Beacon 5.0, use the 45 day window.

As far as I am aware, all lenders use Equifax's Beacon 5.0 (or perhaps even a newer version) so this would have a 45 day window.

Many, but not all, lenders are using TU 04.  There are still some which use TU 98.  So depending on the lender, you could be looking at a 14 or 45 window.

Experian's v2 is still by far the most widely used version of EX, so you'll only have a 14 day window.

You can try asking the lenders which version of TU they use, because this will give you some insight as to whether your TU score might be affected if you spend more than 14 days shopping for mortgages.  Unfortunately, at least one of your scores - Experian - could be negatively affected by an extended period of rate shopping.  The only way to avoid any uncertainty would be to do everything within those first two weeks.