anyone know how long applications for credit stay on your report? unsure, but: 2 years? my credit is perfect, never late on any of my 2 credit/2 retail cards, but something tells me that number of inquiries on ones report carries more weight than consumers are led to believe. is anyone aware of a 'greed quotient' of some sort? some unwritten algorithm for determining if one has asked for too much in too narrow a period of time? have decided to lay off applications for at least the next year. whatever enlightenment any can give will improve my FICO accordingly. =] leareth (@ efnet) supergravity.net
They stay on your report for two years. Inquiries counts for 10% of your FICO score under most models, so that means it's worth about 85 points to your score if you have 0 apps in the last two years. Anything more than two in two years starts costing you points. I think the best guess around here is that they cost about 4 fico points apiece. The good news is that after you hit twenty, you have used up all your fico points in this category so you can apply at will without affecting your score anymore. Of course your score will suck by then.
This is so irritating to me and a lot of creditnetters. You can 'shop' for anything else and not be penalized but you can't shop for credit.
This Inquiries thing is total Bull S**t. Picture this you go to 3 car dealers pricing cars when you get to the fourth one he says you have been shopping around to much so we can't sell your a car.
Does the shotgunning of applications hurt your score beyond the 6 months? 6 months from what has been passed around as gospel, is what most creditor look at when deciding to offer you credit. I have been guilty of about 8-12 inquiries apiece on each report. I have managed to open up 9 accounts in the past 3 months. My logic was that I would get as much available credit, keep my utilization low, and wait the 6 months to apply for my mortgage. My scores are in the high 6's to low 7's. I'm not looking for 850 just a healthy 720 or so.
