Inquiry clarification help please

[davidsawsparks]

If I have 4 inquiries on my CR and 2 fall off due to age but I add 1 or 2 back on from applying for new credit cards etc... do they just cancel each other out and my score stay the same?

Or...

Will the new inquiry have more negative impact to my score since I'm replacing 2 old inquiries with 2 brand new ones?

According to the score estimators on various sites, it doesn't change my score if I replace 2 for 2 because it's purely an amount comparison. I just don't want to trust the estimator only to find out that it was wrong and have my score drop because it doesn't take into consideration age of inquiry. Is there such a thing? Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks in advance!

[CreditBob]

Inquiries only affect the fico score for the first 12 months even though they report for 2 years. When you apply for new credit & add an inquiry it will affect your score. By how much depends on what other factors such as credit mixes, length of history, balances, etc., that are reporting to the credit bureaus. When you open an account is is considered new until it has reported for one year. If you have opened two or more (multiple) accounts it affects it more. This also includes an account that is not well established which takes four years after it was opened.

The reason that I am mentioning these other things is because an account is usually followed by an inquiry unless it is a utility company.

[davidsawsparks]

Thanks for the answer. I am in the middle of building a home. It won't be done for another 6 months. In the mean time, my util is about 16%. I have only 3.5k in debt out of 21,200 max credit limit. My AAoA is 4 years. No late payments.

I want to apply for PenFed credit union account so I can save money on my liberty mutual insurance. PenFed requires a hard pull even though I'm not applying for credit. Even though I have 2 inquiries dropping off, I'm worried the new inquiry will drop my score(because it's new) rather than keeping it the same even though mathematically I'm still 1 inquiry less. I don't want to do anything that would drop my score because the PMI buyout amount for my house is dependent on my credit score when we close. Thoughts?