A hard inquiry also called a hard pull or hard credit check is a type of inquiry that is included in your credit report when you apply for a loan or line of credit. The hard inquiry will be reported on your credit file and can negatively affect your score, especially if you have multiple hard inquiries within a short period of time.
For example, you might be applying for scholarships or maybe even a job or you’re obtaining financing for a major purchase, such as a car or home. In order to get the best possible outcome from these applications, it is important that you have a good credit score. If you have a bad credit score, it will be difficult for you to find lenders who are willing to take the risk of extending credit to you. Read on to learn how to remove hard inquiries from your credit reports in order to get a good credit score!
1) How Does A Hard Inquiry Affect Your Credit Score?
A hard inquiry will stay on your credit report for a period of two years. This means that a single hard inquiry can have a negative impact on your score for up to two full years. A hard inquiry affects your score by up to 5 points. That means that it can affect your FICO score by dropping it from a good score to a fair or from a fair score too poor. FICO scores create different types of consumer credit scores. They range from 300 to 850, so a good range is a score from 670-739, very good ranges from 740-799, and exceptional ranges from 800-850. Everything below the score of 670 is not considered good. For example, if your FICO score is 680, three hard inquiries can affect it by up to 15 points and drop the number down to 665. That means you will have difficulty finding lenders who are willing to extend credit to you with a lower FICO score.
In order to fix your credit score, you should remove hard inquiries from your credit reports. If you have multiple credit cards, it is especially important to remove the inquiries on all of them since they can also affect each other.
2) How to Remove Hard Inquiries from Your Credit Report?
As mentioned before, removing hard inquiries from your credit report is important because it will help you to better qualify for loans and lower the risk of lenders extending credit to you. This can help you get a higher credit score, which will allow you to take out bigger loans at less expensive rates.
In order to remove hard inquiries, you can hire one of the credit repair companies that specialize in removing inquiries from your credit report. You can check out their reviews online to see if they are reputable and experienced at removing inquiries. Before you hire them, make sure that you compare their rates with other companies in order to get the best deal possible. Besides hiring someone, you can also remove hard inquiries by yourself. In order to do that, reading a helpful guide to removing credit inquiries will help you to get started. A guide contains all the information necessary to remove inquiries on your own, including which tools to use and the most effective method of removing hard credit inquiries.
3) How Long Will Hard Inquiries Stay On My Credit Report?
As mentioned before, your FICO score will be affected by hard inquiries for the duration of two years from the date that they were reported. If you have multiple hard pulls or credit checks within a short period, it is important to remove them as quickly as possible to minimize their impact on your credit score.
When you remove hard inquiries from your credit report, you will get a higher credit score soon. However, that doesn’t mean that the hard inquiries will automatically drop off your credit reports within a few days. It can take up to 45 days for them to disappear from your reports. This depends on the credit bureaus, so make sure to check with them in order to get an accurate answer.
4) How Many Credit Inquiries Can I Remove?
How many hard inquiries can you remove from your credit reports also depends on the credit bureaus. For example, some bureaus allow you to remove up to 6 credit inquiries per year, some allow removing up to 5 inquiries per 6 month period, and some don’t allow removing inquiries at all. Make sure to check their policies before you start the hard inquiry removal process in order to ensure that you won’t be violating their terms and policies.
The smartest thing to do is remove hard inquiries immediately after your loan has been approved. This way, your FICO score will not be affected by any of the inquiries. If you are not sure what is the best time to remove them, it is always better to check with a credit expert before applying for any loans or credit cards.
5) How Are Hard Inquiries Different From Soft Ones?
There are two types of credit inquiries, hard and soft. Soft inquiries are the ones that do not affect your credit score, while hard inquiries can lower it. Even though you probably have received a number of soft inquiries over the past 6 months, only up to 2 of them will be reported on your credit reports and they will not harm your credit score at all.
In order to better understand the difference between hard and soft inquiries, it’s best to use the following example. If you have applied for a credit card and were declined, this type of inquiry can be considered as a hard inquiry since it affects your credit score, but only negatively. However, if you have received a number of promotional offers in the mail or emails without applying for any credit cards or loans, those are considered soft inquiries.
Removing hard inquiries from your credit report is an essential step to take in order to get the highest possible FICO score. We hope that this article gave you some helpful tips and tricks that will help you avoid lower scores by removing some hard inquiries on your account.
