How long do inquiries stay on CR?

Anonymous · ‎10-03-2016

Hello Everyone.

I have a total of 4 inquires on my EQ CR:

- 2 made this 02/2016

- 1 made in 12/2014

- 1 made in 06/2015

I thought I read that INQ drop off the CR after 1 year. If so, is there another reason why these remain on my CR?

Thank you.

Anonymous · ‎10-03-2016

Inquires stay on your credit report for two years.

Various credit scoring models may choose to ignore inquiries after a certain length of time. The FICO family of models all ignore inquiries older than one year. Vantage Score counts inquiries for the full two years.

Anyone who does a manual review of your credit report will be able to consider all inquiries, including those older than one year, dpending on his institution's policies. Mortgage underwriters are an example.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

CGID is correct. While that 2014 inquiry will remain for another 2 months, it's no longer impacting your FICO scores. Same thing with that one from June 2015. I think lenders like to be able to see them back 2 years since it just gives them more history but scoring wise FICO only cares about recent inquiries; even though they are supposed to impact your score for a full year many have reported the adverse scoring of them subsides in a matter of months, especially if you don't have many inquiries to begin with and don't add many more.

Unless there are a ton of inquiries I don't think the ones from 1-2 years while still visible really matter. Now if 18 months ago you went on a massive 15 card spree or something and a potential lender notices this, even though that spree under FICO scoring has zero impact at all, in the event of a manual review that could still raise an eyebrow and show the lender that you could be potentially more risky than your score suggests [with respect to inquiries].

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

I see. Thank you both for explaining it in detail. I was wondering because my TU report has that as a negative stating "..you've recently been looking for credit". Considering I've seen posts with 50+ recent inquiries, I was surprise that such a low count of inquiries would trigger as a negative. I wonder what is the lowest count of inquiries can a person have for it to be considered a negative? Since there are only two on my CR in the last year, I guess the count is 0 -1.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

LOTR I agree with the other two responses on how many inqs is too many.. FIco tends to go by "high achievers" meaning people that tend to apply for a new account once every 2 years. So they are going for maximum points in that area, if you have 1 new account every two years. That's how I interpreted it. Before last year on my TU I only had one inq. The moment I started my rebuild, I took a huge point lost the first new app I applied for. Then after that I rarily lost points, I was already too low on the totem pole lol. But now that my scores hit 700, if I apply now for each inq, I take a small hit for about a month or two if any hit at all.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

I have a rather silly question. I am trying to scrape together a 680 midpoint on the mortgage FICOs early next month. I have an inquiry that will be a year old on 11/3. Does it on 11/4 stop impacting my score? Or not till December? :/

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
I have a rather silly question. I am trying to scrape together a 680 midpoint on the mortgage FICOs early next month. I have an inquiry that will be a year old on 11/3. Does it on 11/4 stop impacting my score? Or not till December? :/

1 year max. Depending on your profile, far sooner than that. I scooped up 2 inquiries per bureau back in June and their impact was gone in 2 months and in 3 months to now my scores have gone up higher than they were before the inquiries. Unless you have a very thin file I personally believe that a single inquiry will stop impacting your FICO scores in a matter of months from what I've seen.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
I see. Thank you both for explaining it in detail. I was wondering because my TU report has that as a negative stating "..you've recently been looking for credit". Considering I've seen posts with 50+ recent inquiries, I was surprise that such a low count of inquiries would trigger as a negative. I wonder what is the lowest count of inquiries can a person have for it to be considered a negative? Since there are only two on my CR in the last year, I guess the count is 0 -1.

I wouldn't worry about this. These oddball alerts are just there to give you ideas of items that can be impacting your credit. My guess is that if you have a single inquiry within the last X amount of months (say X is 6 months) that this "negative" may be provided as it can impact your score, but as I stated earlier it may not actually be impacting your score any longer. It's just a generalization, and unfortunately generalizations don't work with credit profiles.

For example, when I look at my reports on Credit Check Total, each bureau gives me 2 reasons as to things that are negatively impacting my score. All 3B say "serious delinquency" which makes sense as I have a 90 day and a 120 day late payment. My second reason from each bureau is different though:

TU: Short credit history

EQ: Recent missed payment

EX: Few current accounts

Mind you, ALL three bureaus are looking at essentially identical information when providing me with those reasons. Short credit history? Well, my AAoA is 7 years which I wouldn't consider long but certainly not short. I can assure you however that a 7 year AAoA is not negatively impacting my score. Ironically, while TU lists this as a negative impacting my score, EQ on the other hand states "long credit history" as one of my positives impacting my score; Both bureaus have the same AAoA for me. Recent missed payment? It was about 2 years ago. I guess that can be considered recent, but if EQ considers it recent wouldn't TU and EX as well? I imagine it would impact my scores relatively the same across the 3B. Few current accounts? I have 22 current accounts on my reports, and all of them are in good standing. I find it hard to believe that my number of current acounts is adversely impacting my EX score.

As you can see, the language can be misleading and often these things don't "hurt" your score the way you are lead to believe they are.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I see. Thank you both for explaining it in detail. I was wondering because my TU report has that as a negative stating "..you've recently been looking for credit". Considering I've seen posts with 50+ recent inquiries, I was surprise that such a low count of inquiries would trigger as a negative. I wonder what is the lowest count of inquiries can a person have for it to be considered a negative? Since there are only two on my CR in the last year, I guess the count is 0 -1.
I wouldn't worry about this. These oddball alerts are just there to give you ideas of items that can be impacting your credit. My guess is that if you have a single inquiry within the last X amount of months (say X is 6 months) that this "negative" may be provided as it can impact your score, but as I stated earlier it may not actually be impacting your score any longer. It's just a generalization, and unfortunately generalizations don't work with credit profiles.

For example, when I look at my reports on Credit Check Total, each bureau gives me 2 reasons as to things that are negatively impacting my score. All 3B say "serious delinquency" which makes sense as I have a 90 day and a 120 day late payment. My second reason from each bureau is different though:

TU: Short credit history
EQ: Recent missed payment
EX: Few current accounts

Mind you, ALL three bureaus are looking at essentially identical information when providing me with those reasons. Short credit history? Well, my AAoA is 7 years which I wouldn't consider long but certainly not short. I can assure you however that a 7 year AAoA is not negatively impacting my score. Ironically, while TU lists this as a negative impacting my score, EQ on the other hand states "long credit history" as one of my positives impacting my score; Both bureaus have the same AAoA for me. Recent missed payment? It was about 2 years ago. I guess that can be considered recent, but if EQ considers it recent wouldn't TU and EX as well? I imagine it would impact my scores relatively the same across the 3B. Few current accounts? I have 22 current accounts on my reports, and all of them are in good standing. I find it hard to believe that my number of current acounts is adversely impacting my EX score.

As you can see, the language can be misleading and often these things don't "hurt" your score the way you are lead to believe they are.

You sure hit the nail on the head with these statements! When I read my CRs, I scratch my head because none of it make sense when I look at my data. It can make you feel like, if you're not perfect...you suck! LOL.

I probably wouldn't be so focused on every single little detail if every single little detail didn't seem to matter. My scores are not the strongest right now. In light of my short term goal of buying a house in a year, it feels like I can't afford to make even a single mistake - probably not such in the real world.

Once I get my scores up and get the mortgage, I think I will be able to enjoy the process of improving my scores and these little details won't feel so crucial.

Anonymous · ‎10-04-2016

@Anonymous wrote:
I have a rather silly question. I am trying to scrape together a 680 midpoint on the mortgage FICOs early next month. I have an inquiry that will be a year old on 11/3. Does it on 11/4 stop impacting my score? Or not till December? :/

I can't be 100% on how the actual Mortgage Fico score shifts. It's never in line with your overall Fico. As a real estate agent, I would have a mortage lender pull your actual scores, preferably the lender you are looking to take out your mortgage with. The reason I say that is because there's a threshold, and not quite what the Fico 30 year mortgage slider thingy suggests. Plus rates are at a low point right now at least until the Fed decides on any increases. Most lenders will pull you to tell you what to clean up and what can cause you to fall out in underwriting before you go all the way through the process and put in a contract on a house.