As loan officers, how many times are we allowed to check a persons credit report, without their Fico scores getting affected.

On most standard BA forms, like the one in Point, the borrower is authorizing you to check his credit for the purposes of obtaining him a loan. It really doesn't specifically say how many times you may or may not check. If it is really necessary to check more than once in order to obtain the loan then that shouldn't specifically be a problem. Since it costs your company money to pull reports and additional pulls could posssibly have an effect on the borrower's score, you should have a good reason or a sound strategy for pulling more than once.

As far as how the pulls effect scoring, that can be rather complicated. I have been told by more than one source that multiple pulls in any single 14 day window count only as one inquiry, for scoring purposes. As far as the exact scoring effect that an inquiry has on the borrower's score, that can vary depending on numerous factors in the borrowers crdit profile. I have heard many say that every inquiry can knock down a score 5 pts. or 10 pts. or something else. This is not true, the scoring is much more complicated than that.

some sources say 7 days others say 14, I'd rather be on the safe side. I almost never pull a credit more than once unless I am working on a clients credit (eg. rapid rescore) and I have their express permission.

Credit inquiries can effect a credit score up to 10% which means 85 points as the max score is 850. I have seen large drops in credit score with just a few inquiries on someone that is overloaded on credit cards. Those same inquiries wouldn't affect someone who has just a coupl of cards. The formula punishes you more if you look like you are shopping for credit vs shopping for better rates.

Thanks
Danny

With cars and mortgages, you have one month to shop. All car/mortgage inquiries within a months time are counted as 1 pull.

Inquiries for a mortgage or vehicle within 30-Days will count as 1 Hard Inquiry/Pull. After the 30-Days, there is a following 14-Day window called the Dedupe period. This is when your hard inquiry will effect the monthly caculation of your score.

What if someone received a copy of their credir report 6 weeks ago. Can I still use that one to price?

If you mean to get a rough idea of what the borrower may qualify for, sure.

But UW is either going to repull or insist that the report be pulled via an acceptable agency. Each lender has it's own ideas on this.

I have seen an 851 or 861, I can't remember, but I was under the impression that 900 was the highest.

On the topic of the inquiries effecting credit, I was always told that the scoring algorithm is not published and nobody really knows how the credit could be effected or what window there may be. Just my 2 cents.

I have seen that consecutive pulls from similiar organizations do not affect FICO scores for 14 days from the first pull. I never pull more than once though...

I don't agree with you on this one. I have heard that the window is going to be raised to 30 days, but is still at 14.

I won't push it past 7-10 days max. The 14 day rule is a fib.

All inquiries within a 14 day period are treated as one.

Hey!!! I didn't write this... this is straight from Fair Isaac Company(FICO)

http://www.myfico.com/Downloads/Files/myFICO_UYFS_Booklet.pdf

Hello,

Once a clients Mortgage Trimerge is pulled, thier is a 30 day window in which they can continue to have thier credit pull with out any more inquiries being placed on thier report. This is to allow the client to shop rates with other lenders and brokers. I however have seen a few instances where multiple inquiries do arise, but from talking to our Agency, they say that this is the correct formula to follow. I hope this helps..

Maybe if I put it this way, it would make a little more sense -- when you make a payment to a creditor, you have normally 30-Days to make that monthly payment. Once when your creditor receives your payment, they should report to the credit bureaus right away [we know that some creditors take longer]. Once when the bureaus receives your payment status, then they have a 14-Day window to recalculate your score. During this 14-Day window, or Dedupe period, hard inquiries of mortgage/car loans that took place in the prior 30-Day time [1 Month], is counted as 1 Pull.

A good associate of mine who used to work in the credit bureau passed me this info. I've been around a lot of credit reports and have passionately helped clients improve their score -- I've noticed that on-time payments often have a positive factor in the middle of the following month.