Credit inquiries can negatively impact your credit on average about 3 – 5 points, however, the higher your score, the less impact inquiries have on your score.

The credit bureaus understand that when you are in the process of obtaining a home loan you may have your credit pulled by several different entities in a short period of time in an effort to obtain the best loan terms, which is why they allow a grace period (of approximately 45 days) during which only one credit inquiry will be reported on your credit report.  Meaning you can have your credit pulled 5 times in a 32 day period and it only count as 1 inquiry against your credit score.

While this is the standard, please note that sometimes the credit bureaus report more than one inquiry within the grace period, so it’s important to closely monitor your credit report for multiple inquiries.