Many people worry about how having your credit run affects their score. The good news is that we can start your pre-approval with a soft credit check, which has no impact on your score. We can run the automated underwriting system (AUS) for your pre-approval with a soft pull. When it’s time to submit your loan for formal underwriting approval, we will need to do a hard credit check.
Hard checks occur when you apply for a mortgage or auto loan. Credit card applications, student loans, personal loans, and apartment rental applications also trigger hard checks. In general, a hard credit check can lower your score slightly. Because of this, I work to limit the number of times your credit is pulled.
However, your credit can be checked multiple times for a single purpose (i.e., applying multiple times for a car loan) within a 30+ day window, and that only counts as one incidence.
Note: A “soft check” is when you check your own credit, when we run a preliminary pre-approval for you, or when a potential employer accesses your credit profile as part of a background check.