Repairing Inquiries

Inquiries do not usually have a major effect on credit scores. Although each inquiry, with a couple exceptions, impact your credit score, the effects are minimal. Most of the time it does not make sense to be overly concerned about inquiries. We will look at everything in your credit report but we advise focusing on major credit score factors first.

Inquiry Exceptions

Individual credit inquiries hurt your credit score except mortgage and auto loan inquiries. The FICO model encourages consumers to shop around for the best interest rates, so you are entitled to have as many mortgage and auto loan inquiries as you want within a 45 day period. The combined inquiries in this time will be treated as one inquiry against your credit score.

Action Not Needed

Your credit report may list many inquiries, but not all of these are harming your scores like you may think. After 6 months, the effect of inquiries on your credit score is so minimal that it is not usually worth thinking about. All inquiries will drop off your credit report after 2 years. Each inquiry has an impact on the credit score by 1 to 5 points; the less content a credit report has, the more your score will drop. In the grand scheme of things, inquiries are not usually the place to begin credit repair.