One thing you might consider is running your own scores - get reports from all three CRAs the day you start shopping for your loans. Provide copies of the reports to the lenders, and instruct them to NOT pull your reports, but use the reports you provide as the basis for their estimates. Just tell them that you don't want hard pulls on your credit in case the deal on the house you're looking for doesn't go through. (I just had 2 deals on a house fall through at the last minute - and then had to wait a month before we found the next home we wanted...).
When lenders pull your reports their pulls (within a 30 day period) are combined, so they all only hit your score once, but it sounds like you've had a few pulls already this year, and more will just make matters worse. If you pull your own score it doesn't ding your scores.
Multiple hard pulls can drop the score by quite a few points. I'm not sure how much the car loan may have impacted your scores, but I only had 2 hard pulls last year, and when one dropped off, my score went up by 4 points. The impact is greater the more pulls show up.
Other should have more (and probably better) insight, but the only way I know of impacting the score quickly is paying down utilization on your revolving accounts - if anything is over 10% (and especially over 30%) you'll get a good boost by ensuring it gets under 10%. And if you have any bad marks (like a late payment), getting those removed can have a big impact depending on how old they are.
As Robert said, FICO scores aren't the only thing the lenders look at. Mine aren't all that great at right around 700, but the rates I've been quoted all are below what all the sites say I "should" expect with my scores. In fact, my lenders indicated that my score changing from 682 to 700 really didn't change the applicable rates. But I'm going in with 27% down, 14 months reserves, and a low DTI.
Good luck!
Message Edited by WAFICOwatcher on
01-31-2008 03:26 PMMessage Edited by WAFICOwatcher on
01-31-2008 03:31 PM