topic Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull? in Mortgage Loans

Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:18:17 GMT

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!

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

cdtotten — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:20:57 GMT

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.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

nathan — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:54:06 GMT

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.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:10:58 GMT

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?

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:39:19 GMT

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

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

ShanetheMortgageMan — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:32:34 GMT

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.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:50:54 GMT

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!

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

cdtotten — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:58:51 GMT

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.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:16:45 GMT

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.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

DallasLoanGuy — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:59:22 GMT

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"

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:32:19 GMT

Ok, we met with the lender yesterday. Our contact is the VP of mortgages at a regional bank. She pre-qualified us based on the info I gave and the printouts of the scores I pulled for my husband the day before. She did not pull our credit. Someone said that the experian score from the experian website is not a FICO score? Does that mean that when the lender pulls it, it will be significantly lower?

At any rate, we're meeting with our realtor today. We plan to be under contract by the end of this month, and close by the end of June. By then, hopefully the negative accounts we've been working on will have been deleted per our agreements. Does anyone know how to speed up that process? What about rapid rescores, how does that work?

Thank you all for your responses!

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Lel — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:27:58 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

Ok, we met with the lender yesterday. Our contact is the VP of mortgages at a regional bank. She pre-qualified us based on the info I gave and the printouts of the scores I pulled for my husband the day before. She did not pull our credit. Someone said that the experian score from the experian website is not a FICO score? Does that mean that when the lender pulls it, it will be significantly lower?

At any rate, we're meeting with our realtor today. We plan to be under contract by the end of this month, and close by the end of June. By then, hopefully the negative accounts we've been working on will have been deleted per our agreements. Does anyone know how to speed up that process? What about rapid rescores, how does that work?

Thank you all for your responses!

If I may ask, if your time frame to purchase is so short, why not just go ahead and get pre-approval? It would be a shame to go through whole house hunting process, only to find out that when your credit is formally pulled for the approval that it doesn't go through.

As has already been posted, the Experian score from the Experian website is most certainly NOT a FICO score. It will not be used by the lenders for mortgage approval. And it is impossible to predict whether actual EX FICO score will be higher, lower, or the same as the score obtained from their website.

Re: Does pre-qualifying require a hard pull?

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:25:17 GMT

We're holding off because my husband's score is borderline, and we have some deletions pending that should help his situation. We don't want to pull his credit and have the inquiry ding his score enough to not qualify.