Mortgage Shopping/Inquiries

[ball_mich]

I've read that if you shop your mortgage to various lenders and they place a hard inquiry on your credit report, that if the inquiries come within a short period of time that they "count" as one inquiry as far as the impact on my FICO score. Is that correct?

If correct, is this for ALL inquiries? Meaning, if I sneak in an application for a credit card during the same week as my mortgage shopping/inquiries, will they all be lumped together as one inquiry? Or will they be able to differentiate the credit card application inquiry and count it as a separate inquiry?

It just seems to me, that unless they can differientiate inquiries for different type of debt (and maybe they can), it would be more beneficial for me to lump all of my credit applications together so that it minimizes the impact on my FICO score.

Thoughts?

[Lian]

FICO does what they "de-duping," which is the count of multiple inquires during a moving window that are either mortgage or auto as one inquiry. The moving window varies with the version of FICO, and ranges from 14 to 30 days.

All inquiries appear on the CR, but are not all scored.

It only applies to shopping for mortgage and auto. It does not apply to other types of inquiries.
Yes, there are different inquiry codes reflecting the permissible purpose and type of inquiry.

No, you cant sneak an app for a credit card in the window.

It is important that the inquiree properly record the inquiry code so that FICO can dedupe them.

[ball_mich]

Okay, well it sounds like the inquries are coded as to type of credit requested. That's disappointing. I thought I had figured out a way to apply for some credit without having my score penalized for it. Oh well.