Shopping for a mortgage barely touches your credit score. Scoring models group mortgage credit checks made within a short window and count them as one inquiry, so having three lenders pull your credit in the same week costs about the same as having one lender pull it.
The shopping window, by the numbers
A hard inquiry is the record a lender leaves on your report when it pulls your credit for a loan application. The CFPB and FICO describe how mortgage inquiries are scored:
- Many pulls count as one. The CFPB states that within a 45-day window, multiple credit checks from mortgage lenders are recorded on your report as a single inquiry.
- 14 days on older scores. FICO says newer versions of its score use a 45-day window and older versions use 14 days. Mortgage lenders mostly pull the older Classic FICO versions, so keeping your shopping inside 14 days covers you on every model.
- The last 30 days are ignored. FICO scores ignore mortgage, auto and student loan inquiries less than 30 days old, so a score pulled while you're shopping isn't lowered by that shopping.
- Less than five points. For most people, one more hard inquiry costs less than five points on a FICO score.
- Twelve months of effect. Inquiries stay on the report for up to 24 months, and FICO counts them for 12.
Soft inquiries are a different category. Checking your own credit, and the soft pull many lenders use for a quick pre-qualification, have no effect on your score.
A worked example: what comparing quotes is worth
A buyer with a 624 middle score is buying a $300,000 home with FHA at 3.5% down. The total loan, including FHA's 1.75% upfront mortgage insurance premium, is $294,566.25. Two lenders quote the same rate, but one charges 1% of the loan in discount points, an upfront fee paid at closing, and the other charges 0.5%.
| Lender A | Lender B | |
|---|---|---|
| Discount points | 1.0% | 0.5% |
| Cost at closing | $2,945.66 | $1,472.83 |
Comparing the two saves $1,472.83. With both pulls inside 14 days, the cost of that comparison is one inquiry, worth less than five points for most people.
Timing matters most for a buyer sitting just above a line, such as 581 for FHA's 3.5% down or 622 for Conventional's 620 floor. Shop once, inside one window. If you shop, stop, and start again two months later, the old inquiry has passed the 30-day buffer and the new one won't group with it, so the score can slip a few points at the moment you need it.
How a broker changes the math
AAA Capital Funding is a mortgage broker. We pull your credit once, on the tri-merge report that combines Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and price the loan with several wholesale lenders off that one report. You see competing quotes without a stack of new inquiries, and the same report carries through to closing.
FHA, Conventional, VA and USDA treat inquiries alike
Every program starts from the same tri-merge report, and the scoring rules above apply to all of them. What underwriters check is whether an inquiry led to new debt. USDA's handbook, for example, has lenders investigate credit inquiries from the 90 days before the credit report, and most lenders on every program ask for a short note confirming that recent inquiries didn't open a new account. A line saying the inquiries were mortgage shopping usually covers it.
What to avoid while you shop
- New credit of any kind. A car loan, furniture financing or a new card counts as a separate inquiry and can add a payment to your debt-to-income ratio.
- Higher card balances. A jump in balances lowers a score far more than an inquiry does.
- Late payments. Lenders recheck credit before closing, so keep every account on time until the keys are yours.
See what your income buys in the affordability calculator before you start. One call to AAA Capital Funding at 888-601-8344 and one credit pull gets your loan priced across multiple wholesale lenders.