Will pulling my credit report affect my score?

April 8, 2009
Matt Isleib

 

This is an age old question. One of the top five questions that borrowers will ask me. There is an awful lot of misconception surrounding the question and I could see why, there are several answers to the same question.

 

Having your credit pulled does affect your credit score but it does not end there. The credit agencies refer to an inquiry of your credit report from a lender or consumer as a “hard inquiry”. What that means is if you apply for a car loan, a credit card, a mortgage, student loan, anything that would entail that entity to run your credit it lands on your report. Federal Law requires all inquiries to remain on your report a maximum of 24 months.

 

There is not a “number” that is established that will affect your score when you have it pulled. People often think that their score will go down by let’s say 5 points with each inquiry. Not true. What is true is that there is an allowable amount of time that would be considered normal to shop around for a car or mortgage. In that time frame several inquiries to your credit will not continually affect your score.

 

If you have good credit, pay your bills on time and have never had credit issues an inquiry into your report is not a bad thing for your FICO score. If you sometime pay your bills late, have had some credit issues or have limited credit and have an inquiry into your credit it will have more of an impact for that person than someone who has good credit.

 

There are some inquiries that have no impact at all.

·         Requesting a report to check for accuracy and content from one of the three credit bureaus

·         Employment inquiries

·         A lenders request to review an account you have with them

The important thing to remember is that you’re FICO score is derived from many factors, length of time of your credit history, your payment history, balances owed, and delinquencies if any. Those are the factors that weigh the heaviest on your FICO score and a few inquiries are not much of an impact. If your credit is somewhat shaky then several inquiries will affect your score to some degree.

 

You can click on any of the three credit bureaus and it will take you to their respective web sites.

Equifax

Experian

TransUnion