Question regarding approval hunting

[Tischer712]

I have read when you apply for multiple car loans in a short time it will only count as one inquiry. So if I was to approval shop around, when I am done trying to find one will it show as say 10 inquires or 1 single one on my credit report

[IOBA]

My understanding is that each inquiry will show individually (for all to see) but the impact on the FICO score will be that of ONE inquiry.

[aussiesareforever]

I agree with IOBA!

[andyaycw]

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@IOBA wrote:

My understanding is that each inquiry will show individually (for all to see) but the impact on the FICO score will be that of ONE inquiry.

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+1

The individual inquiries will show, but for FICO scoring purposes, they will count as only one. As for the timeframe, I believe it is a 14-day window in which they all count as a single inquiry.

When I bought my first car last year, the car dealership pulled my credit once, and then (presumably after they sold the loan to Chase), Chase pulled my credit again. Both inquiries showed up on my credit reports.

I had good credit and a 25% down-payment, so I'm betting the dealership didn't have much trouble finding a bank to sell the loan to, and thus I didn't wind up with five or ten multiple inquiries from different banks. If they did try selling it to multiple banks though, I'm sure those would have showed up as individual inquiries on my report as well.

[Tischer712]

SO you would advise probably not going approval hunting 4 months before applying for a mortage is a bad idea?

[andyaycw]

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@Tischer712 wrote:

SO you would advise probably going approval hunting 4 months before applying for a mortage is a bad idea?

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I'm probably going to have to defer to the experts on this, and you might want to see what other people have to say about this, but you'd want to be concerned with 1) how the credit inquiries and the new auto loan reporting will impact your FICO, and 2) how the new auto loan will affect your DTI

If we were talking about a current FICO that was over 800 and you knew your DTI is currently very low and the new auto loan would not impact very much, then I'd probably say you'd be fine to apply now. Looking at your signature, however, I'm leaning more towards maybe waiting until after you get the mortgage to apply for the car loan. You'd want that FICO to be as high as possible to get the best pricing that you can.

[IOBA]

Definitely AVOID anything that would affect credit, to include car shopping, at least 6 months before mortgage shopping/house hunting.   It's best not to do anything for a year before house hunting.

Can you wait until AFTER you buy a house before buying a car?

[MarineVietVet]

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@Tischer712 wrote:

I have read when you apply for multiple car loans in a short time it will only count as one inquiry. So if I was to approval shop around, when I am done trying to find one will it show as say 10 inquires or 1 single one on my credit report

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FICO scoring has a "de-duplication window" and it looks at your history for the last 12 months, and when it sees two or more hard inqs for the same type of mortgage or auto loan it will ignore all but one of them as far as scoring is concerned. If the lender is using an older FICO scoring model the window is 14 days, if they are using the newest model it can be up to 45 days. Also keep in mind that even though the multiple inqs count as one in FICO scoring, all of the inqs will continue to show on your reports (that is, reports pulled from sites other than myfico) for up to 2 years.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 3/11 pulled by lender- 835, EQ - 2/11-816, TU - 2/11-782

"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".

[Tischer712]

I can wait, biggest problem is I have 2 new credit cards that hit my report for a score bump. But I know all inquiries hurt. Besides that I am trying to get an old debt removed. Thanks guys!

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I might go for car shoping few months down the line and I have a doubt that I would like to clearify. how a approval hunting/rate shopping done? I mean I am planning to go for a new mid-size sedan not above $30,000 (including taxes and fees), putting a down payment of atleast 20% (more if possible), so when I go to dealership for test drive should I run for credit or short list the car and than run the credit only on those delearships that sell that particular brand/model?