How long does it take for your credit score to stabilize after buying a house?

[humes]

Hi,

I have a question. I bought a house in June 2010 and at the time my credit score was around 720. I bought a new construction home and the builder financed it and then sold the mortgage to a big bank. I've been making payments to that bank since September of 2010 but I noticed on my credit report that there is activity showing the big bank as a "new account" as recently as November 2010. There are multiple entries for the builder financing as a new account and then the big bank as a new account, the most recent was in November. I also noticed that my score went down like 3 months in a row and went down to 688 before ticking back up to 695 in January and that's where it has been ever since. I noticed in the credit summary of the analysis of my credit report, it says I have numerous "hard" inquirries on my credit report and that is hurting my credit score. As far as I can tell, all of that is related to buying the house and them selling the mortage and checking my credit. I didn't apply for any new loans or credit cards in that time period.

How long does it generally take for your score to stabilize after buying a house? This was the first time I had checked my score this year and I was a little surprised. 

[llecs]

IME, the new credit ding has been temporary with most of the points returning within 6 months from the "opened date" and the rest by a year, all else being equal (e.g. no new accounts since, same utilization, AAoA bounces back if lowered, nothing falls off, etc.).

Inquiries only impact your FICO score at the 12 month mark, so those should be falling off your FICO report starting very soon. Also, FICO ignores duplicate mortgage and auto inquiries if your report was pulled in a given time frame (14-45 daysdepending on the FICO version and CRA). So, you should only be hit for one inquiry per your score and you should not have any inquiries if your lender sold your loan.

[Anonymous]

DH lost 10 pts with our last new mortgage, gained 9 back in 6 months.

I had no FICO point hit with the new mortgage.

We have had our mortgages sold to new lenders on occasion, but our CRA's still reported only one loan.  Just the name of the loan holder changed.  Original loan amount and open date have stayed the same.

Was there something different about the way yours was handled?

[humes]

@beamMEup

I don't have the slightest idea. That is what is confusing to me. I have my credit monitored and I have seen these multiple new accounts and I just didn't understand why. There are no new negative items on my credit report(last one was about 5 years ago and that was actually from 2002 but I think someone re-bought an old debt and placed it back on my credit report but I was advised to just let it be and let it fall off in time) The only new activity in the past few months is related to the mortgage. I froze all of my credit accounts after I got the mortgage.  I'm assuming the time period in that credit analysis for the hard inquiries was for the past 12 months, if it were 24 months I could probably see, but in the last 12 month, I haven't opened any new accounts or applied for anything other than this mortgage and stuff related to moving in. Do insurance companies and utility companies do hard inquiries? Maybe that's it, I don't know. 

Also, this is only 1 report, I haven't checked the other 2 yet. and my cc utilization has gone up so that may explain some as well I guess.

[Anonymous]

Given that I'm not understanding what is happening on your reports, I'll stick my neck out and suggest that if you see duplicate entries for a single account, you can dispute with the CRA.  We've had a few and they've been resolved quickly.  It also might be helpful to post your mortgage reporting questions on the mortgage board - there may be some folks there who are familiar with the type of reporting you are experiencing (?)

And you might get some helpful feedback on Rebuilding Your Credit forum re: taking care of that baddie - aging off may be best, but you may have options to work with folks.  (You may have already posted there?) 

And yes, utilization will definitely impact your score - it's a significant factor.