inquiries 90 day window

[Anonymous]

So I made a HUGE mistake since I was shopping for best interest rates for a credit card in November since my current ones were so high. About 4 inquiries came on my credit report, but the good thing is I did not open credit at all. All my debt information is staying the same, in fact I paid down all of my credit card balances to $0.

Now i am closing on the 23rd of March, and when I check they say they will do a soft pul in my credit and I must provide an explanation of the inquiries made in the past 90 days of the credit report. So my question is do the inquiries that I made in November doest not matter, since I have not opened any credit and it falls out of the 90 day window?

Also what do lenders see in the soft inquiry they do before 20 days and closing

[jhb]

I purchased a new vehicle in November (inquires), opened a new credit account with, Dell, in December (inquiry), and now about to close on a new construction home in 3 weeks. The lender, LoanDepot, had one condition through the whole process, and that was to explain those inquires. Simple process, took literally about 90 seconds, and everything was good to go.

I don't see you having an issue in your situation. In my experience, if you have a strong portfolio, inquires do little damage. 

[thornback]

Hi and welcome to the forums! 

I'm a bit confused by your post. 

Are you saying you acquired 4 hard inquiries from rate shopping credit cards? Because this would require actually applying for the card...

Or did you do pre-qualifications for cards and acquire 4 soft inquiries from that? 

[Anonymous]

So in my situation the lenders are getting ready to do an another credit pull since am getting ready for closing.

Now in November I applied for 5 credit cards, which resulted in 5 hard inquries. From them only one account opened, but by that time I understood my big MISTAKE, so never ever used that card I opened 3 months ago. All my credit card balances as of now is $0 since i paid it all.

Now in my loan commitment letter, it says new inquries within 90 days of the credit reort must be explained. now my question is since those 5 inquries happened in November, and they are pulling the report sometime this Wednesday in March, those 5 inquries will not fall in the 90 day window. So am I bascially safe over there? Will the lenders care about those hard inquries that happened over 90 days ago?

[thornback]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So in my situation the lenders are getting ready to do an another credit pull since am getting ready for closing.

Now in November I applied for 5 credit cards, which resulted in 5 hard inquries. From them only one account opened, but by that time I understood my big MISTAKE, so never ever used that card I opened 3 months ago. All my credit card balances as of now is $0 since i paid it all.

Now in my loan commitment letter, it says new inquries within 90 days of the credit reort must be explained. now my question is since those 5 inquries happened in November, and they are pulling the report sometime this Wednesday in March, those 5 inquries will not fall in the 90 day window. So am I bascially safe over there? Will the lenders care about those hard inquries that happened over 90 days ago?

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Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that up. 

The lender will still see the inquiries because they are a record on your reports, but they will likely not question them since they occurred prior to that 90 day window. 

Also - just an FYI- there is actually a no revolving credit usage scoring penalty for having all all revolvers report a $0 balance-  this penalty can result in a loss from 8- 20 points, depending on profile.  It is recommended to allow one card report a small balance ($5 -$10) to avoid the penalty. 

Good luck with your home purchase!

[Anonymous]

Sounds good I'll just order like a $10 masks from amazon lol with one of my credit cards.

Also do you know what credit pull do lenders pull prior to 10 days of closing? They do a soft pull right which they only see account infromation? They don't see credit scores right? 

[Anonymous]

Wait a minute. If you applied for that account and they pulled your credit and they opened that account, if it was reported to your credit report, then that’s a new account.

Whether it’s opened or closed now. Just because you closed it doesn’t change the fact that you opened it, If it was reported. Doesn’t change the Scoring consequences, either.

Hopefully it was not reported then?

[Anonymous]

So the only account I opened was in November after that I did not open any account.

They will pull the credit on March 3. So they will look at inquries between December 3 to March 3 which are 90 days. So the new account inquiry does not fall in the 90 day window, nor the other inquries.

The new account is still there but have not used that and not planning to use that.

[thornback]

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@Anonymous wrote: 

Also do you know what credit pull do lenders pull prior to 10 days of closing? They do a soft pull right which they only see account infromation? They don't see credit scores right? 

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Most mortgage lenders will pull all 3 reports and look at mortgage scores: Equifax FICO 5, Transunion FICO 4, and Experian FICO 2. 

They will generally use the middle mortgage score (MMS) for approval -  meaning they throw out the highest and the lowest and use the one in the middle.

And I'm pretty sure they'll still look at scores even 10 days from closing to ensure the score still qualifies for the mortgage terms offered. 

[Anonymous]

Long as they don’t care about the new account you’re good! And I’m sure they saw that the first time they pulled, so if they didn’t say anything you should be good! Congratulations and looking forward to success!