Credit Inquiries

Anonymous · ‎06-03-2012

I've been searching for a house since February at which time my credit score was 764. Now my credit score has gone down twice, both times because of credit inquiries. I must have a letter to accompany my offer, and it a credit inquiry is only good for 30 days.

Now my credit score is 750 which gets me a higher interest rate. How is this fair?

I thought credit inquiries for home loans were not supposed to affect your credit. Please help... there has to be a way to get this adjusted.

I pay my bills, I've even been paying down my credit card debt, and yet they are lowering my score because of these inquiries which is a catch 22. I want credit for a house, I apply for credit so they lower my score, which makes my home lone cost more. This makes NO SENSE!

Anonymous · ‎06-03-2012

I believe inquiries, within a certain time-frame, coded as mortgage related, get grouped together.

Also, it's entirely possible something (like utilization or an old positive account aging off) changed on your report. I generally lose about 5 points for an inquiry and they bounce back after a few months.

MarineVietVet · ‎06-03-2012

@Anonymous wrote:
I've been searching for a house since February at which time my credit score was 764. Now my credit score has gone down twice, both times because of credit inquiries. I must have a letter to accompany my offer, and it a credit inquiry is only good for 30 days.

Now my credit score is 750 which gets me a higher interest rate. How is this fair?

I thought credit inquiries for home loans were not supposed to affect your credit. Please help... there has to be a way to get this adjusted.

I pay my bills, I've even been paying down my credit card debt, and yet they are lowering my score because of these inquiries which is a catch 22. I want credit for a house, I apply for credit so they lower my score, which makes my home lone cost more. This makes NO SENSE!

Hello and welcome to myFICO.

FICO scoring has a "de-duplication window" and it looks at your history for the last 12 months, and when it sees two or more hard inqs for the same type of mortgage or auto loan it will ignore all but one of them as far as scoring is concerned. If the lender is using an older FICO scoring model the window is 14 days, if they are using the newest model it can be up to 45 days.

Also keep in mind that even though the multiple inqs count as one in FICO scoring, all of the inqs will continue to show on your reports (that is, reports pulled from sites other than myfico) for up to 2 years.

Anonymous · ‎06-03-2012

I hate to hear about stores like this one. The only thing you can do at this point is pay down your cards and wait it out. Just don''t do any more inquiries until you pertty sure that your going to buy! Also as stated ensure that your pulls if you have to get multiple are with in generally 30 days of eachother. Good Luck!

Anonymous · ‎06-04-2012

I would love to not do any inquiries until I am sure that I want to buy, but that's not how buying a house works. You can't submit an offer without an approval letter. That requires an inquiry that only is good for 30 days.

I've been searching for a has for several months and have put in numerous offers only to be told that the house had already been sold or that my offer has been rejected. The housing market is so messed up down here in South Florida.

So tired of this game!

Thanks for all your help!

Anonymous · ‎06-04-2012

MVV did a way better job of articulating the issue than me, LOL!

Anonymous · ‎06-04-2012

I would agree with everything said here, however...

Be aware that many lenders, in their panic to sell loans, are running credit checks as soon as you go to their web site and ask for the current loan rates. Once they have your SSN they do this, even as in my case there was a question in the information screen about how soon I was planning to buy and I had said 6 months out.. Last winter I was **considering** a refi and my identity monitor popped up and told me that one web site I visited pulled reports from all three companies. I wrote a very nasty letter to them telling them that I was looking for information only and not ready to proceed, and that they must go to the reporting companies and have the inquiries removed...and they complied.

Moral: it's not the reporting companies that are the villans necessarily. If someone pulls a report when you're not ready to deal, demand they remove it.

MarineVietVet · ‎06-04-2012

@Anonymous wrote:
MVV did a way better job of articulating the issue than me, LOL!

If the truth be known I ~~stole~~ borrowed that from another member.

marty56 · ‎06-05-2012

@Anonymous wrote:
I hate to hear about stores like this one

I agree but for different reasons. INQs aside, we should not be FICO score poor. It may be possible that your current score might still get you the best rates your lender offers. It would at my CU.

Even if it didn't, you could also refi later on if it makes sense to do so. Keep you eye on the nain goal - getting approved for the mortage,

1/25/2021: FICO 850 EQ 848 TU 847 EX