Keep An Eye On Your Credit Inquiries
Remember: Checking your own credit scores is an example of a soft inquiry. And soft inquiries donât impact your credit scores.
Hard inquiries, on the other hand, happen when a lender checks your credit report after you apply for credit. And since hard inquiries do affect your scores, youâll want to control how many âhardâ hits your credit takes.
Monitoring your credit can help you keep an eye on where you stand.
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When Does Checking My Credit Score Lower It
Hard inquiries, also called hard pulls, are the kind that can cost you points. They happen when someone pulls your credit for the purpose of deciding whether to extend credit to you. These hard inquiries should not happen without your knowledge or consent.
You can review your hard inquiries on NerdWallets free credit report summary, which updates weekly. You can also check your free credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com to see who has looked at it in the past two years. Consumers currently have access to those reports weekly.
A hard inquiry might cost you up to five points according to FICO, the creator of the most widely used scoring formulas. With VantageScore, an increasingly popular credit scoring model, a hard inquiry is likely to cost even more.
In contrast, a soft inquiry or soft pull occurs when you or a creditor looking to preapprove you for a loan or credit card checks your score. A soft inquiry has no effect on your credit score.
So, if you apply for several credit cards close together, you might see a significant drop in your credit scores.
A hard inquiry stays on your credit report for two years, but any effect on your credit score fades sooner than that.
Financial Information In Your Credit Report
Your credit report may contain:
- non-sufficient funds payments, or bad cheques
- chequing and savings accounts closed for cause due to money owing or fraud committed
- bankruptcy or a court decision against you that relates to credit
- debts sent to collection agencies
- inquiries from lenders and others who have requested your credit report in the past three years
- registered items, such as a car lien, that allows the lender to seize it if you don’t pay
- remarks including consumer statements, fraud alerts and identity verification alerts
Your credit report contains factual information about your credit cards and loans, such as:
- when you opened your account
- how much you owe
- if your debt has been transferred to a collection agency
- if you go over your credit limit
- personal information that is available in public records, such as a bankruptcy
Your credit report can also include chequing and savings accounts that are closed for cause. These include accounts closed due to money owing or fraud committed by the account holder.
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Do I Need To Get My Credit Score
It is very important to know what is in your credit report. But a credit score is a number that matches your credit history. If you know your history is good, your score will be good. You can get your credit report for free.
It costs money to find out your credit score. Sometimes a company might say the score is free. But if you look closely, you might find that you signed up for a service that checks your credit for you. Those services charge you every month.
Before you pay any money, ask yourself if you need to see your credit score. It might be interesting. But is it worth paying money for?
Where Do I Get My Free Credit Report
You can get your free credit report from Annual Credit Report. That is the only free place to get your report. You can get it online: AnnualCreditReport.com, or by phone: 1-877-322-8228.
You get one free report from each credit reporting company every year. That means you get three reports each year.
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Applying For A Lot Of Credit Cards
TrueOpening up a lot of credit cards in a short period of time can have a negative impact. That could have a downward effect on your score because it suggests youre in credit trouble, Ellman says.
Freezing your credit reports is a way to curb the urge to take on more debtand, after a data breach, to foil scammers from opening credit lines with your stolen personal information. Its free to freeze your credit report.
Go to each of the three credit-reporting agencies and click the link mentioning a credit or security freeze. Consumer Reports recommends doing such a freeze rather than a credit lock. Thats because a freezes promise to guard your credit accounts is guaranteed by law, notes Christina Tetreault, a staff attorney on the financial services team at Consumer Reports. A credit lock is simply an agreement between you and the credit reporting agency.
Having a contractual agreement is not as strong as having protections under law, Tetreault says.
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Conditions That Might Cause Your Application To Be Declined
When assessing your ability to pay back debt, Goldman Sachs1 looks at multiple conditions before making a decision on your Apple Card application.
If any of the following conditions apply, Goldman Sachs might not be able to approve your Apple Card application.
If you’re behind on debt obligations4 or have previously been behind
- You are currently past due or have recently been past due on a debt obligation.
- Your checking account was closed by a bank .
- You have two or more non-medical debt obligations that are recently past due.
If you have negative public records
- A tax lien was placed on your assets .
- A judgement was passed against you .
- You have had a recent bankruptcy.
- Your property has been recently repossessed.
If you’re heavily in debt or your income is insufficient to make debt payments
- You don’t have sufficient disposable income after you pay existing debt obligations.
- Your debt obligations represent a high percentage of your monthly income .
- You have fully utilized all of your credit card lines in the last three months and have recently opened a significant amount of new credit accounts.
If you frequently apply for credit cards or loans
- You have a high number of recent applications for credit.
If your credit score is low
Goldman Sachs uses TransUnion and other credit bureaus to evaluate your Apple Card application. If your credit score is low ,4 Goldman Sachs might not be able to approve your Apple Card application.
What If Im Denied Credit Or Insurance Or Dont Get The Terms I Want
Under federal law, a creditors scoring system may not use certain characteristics for example, race, sex, marital status, national origin, or religion as factors when figuring out whether to give you credit. The law lets creditors use age, but any credit scoring system that includes age must give equal treatment to applicants who are older.
You have the right to:
Know whether your application was accepted or rejected within 30 days of filing a complete application.
Know why the creditor rejected your application. The creditor must
- tell you the specific reason for the rejection or
- that you are entitled to learn the reason if you ask within 60 days.
Learn the specific reason the lender offered you less favorable terms than you applied for, but only if you reject these terms. For example, if the lender offers you a smaller loan or a higher interest rate, and you dont accept the offer, you have the right to know why those terms were offered. Read to learn more.
If a business denies your application for credit or insurance because of information in your credit report, federal law says the business has to
- give you a notice that includes, among other things, the name, address, and phone number of the credit bureau that supplied the information.
- include your credit score in the notice if your credit score was a factor in the decision to deny you credit or to offer you terms less favorable than most other customers get.
If you get one of these notices:
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Whats A Hard Credit Inquiry
Also known as a hard check, a hard inquiry happens when a lender checks your credit report after you apply for credit.
âWhen you apply for credit, you authorize those lenders to ask or âinquireâ for a copy of your credit report from a credit bureau,â credit-scoring company FICO® explains.
Examples of Hard Credit Inquiries
FICO says that you could trigger a hard inquiry by:
- Applying for a credit card.
- Applying for a loan.
- Applying for a mortgage or to rent an apartment.
- Opening accounts like phone, cable or internet.
Requesting a credit limit increase may also trigger a hard inquiry, but that can depend on the lender’s policies and your specific circumstances.
The Difference Between Your Credit Score And Credit Report
There are three credit bureaus that produce : Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. When you open a credit card or loan, the lender will report activity to at least one credit bureau, which will then add it to your credit report. Your credit reports show both current and past credit accounts, as well as legal judgments like liens and bankruptcies.
A credit score is a three-digit number that ranges from 300 to 850. The score is determined by an algorithm that takes all the items on your credit report into account. The higher the score, the more responsible you appear as a borrower.
There are two main companies that produce credit scores: FICO and VantageScore. FICO is responsible for 90% of all credit scores used by lenders, but VantageScore is more common with free credit scoring websites. Both companies use similar scoring models to determine your scores, so there should only be a slight discrepancy between a FICO score and a VantageScore.
There are dozens of credit score iterations, and which one is used depends on the type of lender looking at it. For example, the credit score an auto lender sees may be slightly different than the one a mortgage lender sees.
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So Does Checking Your Credit Score Hurt Your Credit
It depends!
To recap, the most important takeaway here is that checking your credit does not hurt your credit score. There is a difference between hard and soft inquiries hard inquiries happen when you apply for a new line of credit, and a soft inquiry is when you check your own credit. Soft inquiries dont affect your credit score, but hard inquiries can lower your score from just a few points to sometimes many more.
Checking your credit is an important first step to maintaining good credit health. Checking your credit score regularly can be a good indication if something is off in your credit report. Before you apply for a loan for an expensive item, such as a car or a house, its smart for you to be aware of what potential lenders will see when processing your application. Knowing where you stand gives you the chance to shape up your credit, if necessary, before submitting your application.
How Do I Get Credit
Do you want to build your credit history? You will need to pay bills that are included in a credit report.
- Sometimes, utility companies put information into a credit report. Do you have utility bills in your name? That can help build credit.
- Many credit cards put information into credit reports.
- Sometimes, you can get a store credit card that can help build credit.
- A secured credit card also can help you build your credit.
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Consider Your Reasons For Refinancing
Ask yourself what your goals are for refinancing your mortgage.
Really sit down and think about why you want to refinance your mortgage and what you hope to accomplish, Opperman says. If youre just looking to lower your interest rate, youre probably making the right move, as long as the new loan isnt too expensive upfront.
Under the right circumstances, the long-term gains of refinancing would outweigh any short-term blemishes to your credit.
Do Business Credit Cards Affect Your Personal Credit Score
Business credit cards are widely available for your small business, side hustle, or new business idea. But they could affect your credit score, so make sure you understand how they work.
| Topic: Finance
Business credit cards work the same way as a personal credit cards and are offered by most card issuers and banks. If you’ve compared credit cards in the past, you may have noticed they often come with better perks than a personal card, such as better rewards rates, higher limits and useful organizational tools such as spending reports and the option to add memos, PO numbers or line items to purchases.
Nearly anyone who can qualify for a credit card may be able to get a business credit card as long as you’re in some phase of running a business. It may mean you’re just starting to develop an idea for a company, sell crafts, work as a rideshare driver, or your startup has finally taken off.
It’s important to understand that most business credit cards will require a personal credit check and a personal guarantee. If your company is unable to pay its credit card bill, you’re still on the hook for the charges. However, depending on the type of business credit card you were approved for, it may affect your personal credit score.
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Soft Credit Check Vs Hard Credit Check: Whats The Difference
When a lender carries out a credit check on you, it can do one of two checks: a hard credit check, or a soft credit check.
Hard credit checks leave a record on your credit file, which is important: if a lender sees a very high number of hard credit checks on your file, over a short space of time, they might see it as a sign of financial distress, making them unwilling to lend to you.
Understanding How To Check Your Credit
When it comes to monitoring your credit, its important that you fully understand how to check your credit. To help with this, weve broken down some of the most common misunderstandings about how to check your credit, including what goes into your credit score, the difference between hard and soft inquiries, and more.
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What Does A Credit Score Mean
Your credit score is a numerical representation of your credit report that represents your creditworthiness. Scores can also be referred to as credit ratings, and sometimes as a FICO® Credit Score, created by Fair Isaac Corporation, and typically range from 300 to 850.
FICO® Scores are comprised of five components that have associated weights:
- Payment history: 35%
- Length of credit history: 15%
- How many types of credit in use: 10%
- Account inquiries: 10%
Lenders use your credit score to evaluate your credit risk generally, the higher your credit score, the lower your risk may be to the lender. To learn more, view how your credit score is calculated.
Did you know? Wells Fargo offers eligible customers free access to their FICO® Credit Score plus tools, tips, and much more. Learn how to access your FICO Credit Score.
Does Checking Your Credit Hurt Your Credit Score
The first step in any credit-related goal is to get your credit score. Are you thinking of checking your credit, but worried it may hurt your credit score? If so, youre not alone. The idea that checking your credit negatively affects your credit score is a common belief but rest assured, its false. Read on to find out more about checking your credit and the impact it has on your credit score.
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Multiple Credit Inquiries Effect On Score
It should now be clear that when multiple hard inquiries from a property rental application appear on your credit report, any impacts to your score are likely to be small.
It should also be comforting to know that your credit score is never influenced by a declined application.
Hopefully, some of your worries around how apartment hunting may be hurting your score have now been put to rest. Good luck with your search!
See related: How hard and soft inquiries affect your credit score, How to rent property when you have bad credit
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