Philadelphia , PA · Member since 2010 · 80 posts · 1 vote
Hi again BP members, thanks in advance for your help.
Starting next month I will be shopping for home loans at a few different banks and I was wondering would this be a good time to apply for a credit card also. Are the points on your credit score affected any more or less drastically for having a credit card inquiry vs. a home loan inquiry??
I would wait. It will not drastically change your credit score but if the lender sees that you have applied for new credit they will want to know why. I have always had to write a letter for underwriting for any inquires within three months and if a new account was opened I would have to send in the most recent statement if the account was not yet on my credit report.
Just to make the loan process simpler I would wait until after being preappoved.
Just to make the loan process simpler I would wait until after being preappoved.
I would suggest waiting until you actually close on the purchase; lenders have a way of pulling credit reports at the last minute before closing, and you don't want to be disqualified then because you opened a credit card.
Just to make the loan process simpler I would wait until after being preappoved.
I would suggest waiting until you actually close on the purchase; lenders have a way of pulling credit reports at the last minute before closing, and you don't want to be disqualified then because you opened a credit card.
They say inquiries from home loan applications won't affect your score negatively as long as they are made within the same time frame. That's what kinda made me curious and brought me to my question.
They say inquiries from home loan applications won't affect your score negatively as long as they are made within the same time frame. That's what kinda made me curious and brought me to my question.
They kind of assume you will only have one home and thus only one home loan. But credit cards - you can have a pile of those, and run them all up to the max limit. So that sort of inquiry is distinct from the ones for a home loan that happen within a few days apart.