Mortgage Loans

[sdlt21]

Hello people,

I am doing my reasearch on getting financing for my first home. I spoke to a lender referred to me by CalPers and she wants to do a pre-approval on me to see what kind of programs I qualify for. According to her, a pre-approval is a hard inquiry on my credit report, but it will not affect my score. She said if my score is affected by two points she would be surprised. However, I asked another lender about pre-approval and he said that the hard inquiry would have a negative affect on your score.

I understand that if you buy a house within 90 days of getting pre-approved, it doesn't matter anyway. But I don't think I'm that far. Realistically, I'm more in the 3-6 monthe range, but I would still like to know where I stand. Anyway, probably more info than needed, but any insight would be apprciated. Thanks.

BTW, according to the CalPers lender, with good scores, the inquiry would have no effect. Is this true? Thanks again

[Tuscani]

"pre-approval is a hard inquiry on my credit report, but it will not affect my score. "

False, a hard inquiry will affect your score (unless of course you already have several inqs).

[MidnightVoice]

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sdlt21 wrote:

Hello people,

I am doing my reasearch on getting financing for my first home. I spoke to a lender referred to me by CalPers and she wants to do a pre-approval on me to see what kind of programs I qualify for. According to her, a pre-approval is a hard inquiry on my credit report, but it will not affect my score. She said if my score is affected by two points she would be surprised. However, I asked another lender about pre-approval and he said that the hard inquiry would have a negative affect on your score.

I understand that if you buy a house within 90 days of getting pre-approved, it doesn't matter anyway. But I don't think I'm that far. Realistically, I'm more in the 3-6 monthe range, but I would still like to know where I stand. Anyway, probably more info than needed, but any insight would be apprciated. Thanks.

BTW, according to the CalPers lender, with good scores, the inquiry would have no effect. Is this true? Thanks again

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You could get your reports and scores, and have a decent broker (one who understands Credit Scoring) give you a hypothetical.

Pulling your own score is NOT an inquiry

[Cooneyca]

It will most definitely have an impact on your credit score.  If they only run one report, it may be only one or two points, however, often they are sending the inquiry out to all their lenders and each will run a report (at least that's what happened in my case).  Whether or not the impact is significant or will have a negative affect on your ability to get a mortgage or knock you into a higher interest rate bracket depends on where your score sits now. 

I was fed the same line about not having any effect 5 weeks ago when I was told by a salesman that they needed to run my report to pre-qualify.  Six different inquiries popped up on my report.  30 days later, my score dropped 12 points - and that's with me paying down my total util from 12% to <5%.

I wouldn't allow them to run any reports unless you are very close to making a decision or are certain that the company wishing to run the inquiries is the one you are going to be doing business with (which in my situation ended up not being the case).

Carol

[netpanther]

Pull your own scores.