Grace period on app'n for CC's for Mortgage

[Talima719]

Tomorrow I'll be signing contract with Realtor to get my house listed.  I am looking to buy a new home in the near future.  I haven't started working with the LO yet because I wanted to work on my FICO score.  I recently got a judgment removed from TransUnion and Experian  (That's another problem.  No alerts on the site yet).  And working to lower my credit utilization.

Question.  How many months in advance do I stop applying for credit cards?  My last card was a Amazon Chase card from last Summer.  I'm really tempted to go for a Amex because I keeping getting the pre-qualified offers in the mail and verified offers on their site.  More credit will help with the utilization percentage.  But my ultimate goal is to have a good credit profile for my future mortgage.

What to do?!

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

The general rule is not to apply for any credit cards at all if possible. I believe they stay on your report for 2 years and affect your actual score for at least 1 year. Then again, it also depends on the program type that you are going to apply- certain programs just have a minimum limit. For example, the program I applied into required only a 640 and didn't make a difference whether I was at 800 or 641, the interest rate was the same either way.