Disputes & Inquiries and Credit Score Impact

[Klbb]

My husband and I are working toward securing a mortgage.  We have disputed a few items on our credit reports over the past 6 months.  I have noticed three things:

1st When one of the bureaus indicates an account is under dispute, the credit score drops, anywhere from 10-20 points.  At the end of the dispute period, if no change is made besides the dispute being complete, the score never rebounds.  So I can dispute an item and it will drop my score initially 20 points, then when the dispute is marked as completed, I still suffer the 20 point drop.  Why is this?

2nd When my husband has a dispute on his credit (his credit score was about 15 points lower than mine ititially) the score takes a major hit.  His score is in the upper 600's.  When I have a dispute on my credit, there is a smaller hit.  My socre is in the low 700's.  Why is this?  

The scenario for inquiries seems to be the same.  Does not impact my credit at all.  We are shopping for a mortgage and have had our credit run 3 times in the last 3 days.  My husband's FICO scores have dropped 15-18 points across the board.  That is literally the only change.  We have not added new accounts and we are very contientious of our utilization (generally around 3% or less - if we increase, even $5, the score drops).  

All of this FICO scoring is causing me to go crazy.  I just want a mortgage with a decent interest rate.

I would greatly appreciate any insight.

[Revelate]

Disputes can exclude the disputed information, so unless your reports are utterly identical (virtually impossible) and you're disputing the exact same thing, it's basically always going to have a different impact.  That said when they don't always fully resolve automagically... disputes are weird animals and I view them as a last resort personally if one's score really matters in a short time frame.

If the inquiries were flagged as mortgage (they almost always are, mortgage space is very well characterized) there's a 30 day grace period on all inquiries as a result of mortgage shopping and your husband's drop isn't a result of this.  That said, inquiries are a trigger for other score updates and if you have disputes or similar working through the system, that is the more likely culprit.

[Klbb]

Thank you for your response. I’m not disagreeing with you, but it seems very odd that the only thing we have going on besides making our monthly payments on our credit cards are a couple of mortgage inquiries that there would be such a large drop.

I do know the disputes can cause the account to be eliminated from the credit mix, however, once resolved, it should be added back which would also impact the score. This is all so confusing.