My husband and I re-financed two pieces of property at the same time. During this re-financing process, they ran 3 credit checks on each property, totaling 6 hard inquires for the two properties!! We were in the high 700's and find that our credit has dropped more than 30 points because of all these inquiries. What to do?? Thanks.
Hi Elaine. The best advice is unfortunately just to ride it out. Hard inquiries stay on your report for two years before falling off. Hopefully, you got the refinancing you were hoping for and aren't planning on applying for any loans in the immediate future; that said, it sounds like you're still in the mid-700's which is still good-to-great. If you're in need of an immediate credit boost, you could consider becoming an authorized user on a friend's excellent credit account. You'll probably want to avoid opening your own new card, since that will just add another hard inquiry to your report. Basically, if you keep up your payments on everything, you'll be OK in the long run. I might also recommend making multiple payments on your credit card accounts each month to bump up your payments history. If you've got some old card you haven't touched in a while, make a purchase a month on them and pay it in full each month. You'd be surprised how great an effect simply making on-time payments can have on your score.
I thought FICO looks at numerous inquires for the same type of loan within a short timeframe and codes as one when it comes to scoring. If a 30 point hit IS coded for one, then yikes.
I also thought that same thing mindcrime... i believe it i saw that about car loan shopping and mortgages/ re-finance. but yea 30 point drop is a bit steep regardless.
