Effect of Inquiries - Rental Screening

[satio]

Is there any negative effect of inquiries to credit profile based on Tenant Screening for a rental property?

My son and daughter that share a rental home are dealing with a stupid property management company that uses a third party screener.

He is in the process of being added to the lease. It's a long *ss story that started back in April.

They still do not have a lease renewal completed....only due to the ineptness of the property management company.

He has (4) inquiries as a result thus far from their stupidity as they keep resubmitting him for screening even though he was approved from the first screening.

[babygirl1256]

Are they hard or soft inquiries? Hard inquiries are looked at the same (lenders typically frown on 6 or more inquiries). Did he authorize the property management company (PMC) to pull his credit 4 times or did the PMC do it on their own? If he didn't authorize it then he should ask them to remove it and request them to not access his credit again with an additional inquiry. He should find out who governs the PMC and escalate it if the 3 inquiries are not removed. The last resort would be to file a dispute with the CRA -and- hopefully it's not Equifax.

[Remedios]

Where is six HPs being frowned upon, seems like random number. 

While I now now have only a few, I was in double digits for years, including last year, and there was no frowning by anyone. 

It was never an issue. Just like everything else, lender can chose to ignore them or use them as an excuse, or simply spew negative reason codes coming directly from CRA where ",seeking credit" us a frequent one. 

[babygirl1256]

Remedios ~ What???? The six hard pull comment was told to me by a management person at Experian and I'm certain she knows how EX considers hard pulls.

You can also Google ~ How Many Inquiries Are Too Many? Here's the response . . . Six or more inquiries are considered too many and can seriously impact your credit score. If you have multiple inquiries on your credit report, some may be unauthorized and can be disputed. 

[satio]

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@babygirl1256 wrote:

Are they hard or soft inquiries? Hard inquiries are looked at the same (lenders typically frown on 6 or more inquiries). Did he authorize the property management company (PMC) to pull his credit 4 times or did the PMC do it on their own? If he didn't authorize it then he should ask them to remove it and request them to not access his credit again with an additional inquiry. He should find out who governs the PMC and escalate it if the 3 inquiries are not removed. The last resort would be to file a dispute with the CRA -and- hopefully it's not Equifax.

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They would certainly appear to be hard inquiries as they show up counted in his Experian profile. He has 7 total, 2 from Wells Fargo from 2019 when he applied for a CC (two the same day), 1 from Capital One when he applied there, and now (4) in total from May-June from tenant screening company.

Given that these are not inquiries seeking credit, I was unsure how they are looked upon by creditors thus the reason for the question.

I'm sure the original application he filled out back on May 2nd had some fine print that they would pull his credit as a function of the rental application..... he has rented from others before and has couple of inquiries on TU for the same reason from prior properties he has rented.

My pet peave is they have pulled it three more times, May 21 and now June 22 and June 23....

[GatorGuy]

Inquires can be explained to have minimal impact on his profile.

However the question to ask your son was did they tell him they needed to run his credit again after the first time and did he agree? If not, he can challenge to get all but the first removed.

[calyx]

@babygirl1256  - the 6 (or not) is going to depend on the lender.  Experian doesn't lend money.  While there /may/ be a negative impact to some scoring models, it's not necessarily true (so a blanket statement does seem odd).

I've carried double digit inquiries while applying for loans and cards and my main bank?  Doesn't care.  Some other banks?  Also don't care.  But there are conservative lenders (like USBank or Chase) who might care more.   And there are different scoring models which might care (I know my FICO2 seems to be uninterested in INQs).   So, 6 is frowned upon sometimes by some lenders in some instances, not always.   Your profile is far more than INQs.

[babygirl1256]

@calyx ~ Inquiries are an individual decision and I'll stick to what works for me which I've determined as a maximum of 4 inquiries (within the 24-month period) although there's less impact after 12 months. As of today, I have 1 on TU, 2 on EX and 2 on EQ . . . so I'm good. 

[FinStar]

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@babygirl1256 wrote:

@calyx ~ Inquiries are an individual decision and I'll stick to what works for me which I've determined as a maximum of 4 inquiries (within the 24-month period) although there's less impact after 12 months. As of today, I have 1 on TU, 2 on EX and 2 on EQ . . . so I'm good. 

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@babygirl1256 

Whoever you may have spoken at Experian, isn't the end-all-and-be-all when it comes to proprietary algorithms. Plenty of other supervisors or managers have also provided misleading information in the past, not only relevant to inquiries, but also other notable factors on individuals' credit reports.  Just search this particular forum or UFS for anecdotal experiences.  

Experian, like all other data reporting repositories, are not the lenders. The lenders are the ones that determine what's 'too many' of X.  So, a blanket statement like such regardless what Google or Experian stated, is simply a generalized statement.  You can definitely decide what works for you, but individuals and lenders alike can determine their own risk tolerance.

ETA - it would be great if you can point me/us to any white paper by Experian (or any of the other CRAs) their Vantage models and/or FICO where such a specific number of [6 or more] inquiries is the actual indicator that drives a variety of negative reason codes.

[Anonymous]

I think the inquiries will have minimal impact on his profile. I have 10 inquiries with most bureuas and haven't had an issue when applying for various credi products. If I am denied the inquiries may be listed under the reasons for denial, but they are not the sole reason for denial and usually you can recon if they are the reason.

That being said, the number of times they have pulled his credit is unacceptable in my opinion. If I were him I would demand that the rental company remove the additional inquiries, and if they refused I would dispute. I believe it is unreasonable to be pulled 4 times in a 2 month span by the same company when the first pull was sufficient. If they needed to ensure things were the same a month later then they could have done a soft pull.