Here are the two existing comments ever authored by me concerning brokering loans. They look like friendly advice, much like this:
http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/forums/viewthread/763/
"Hi,
I can answer your question. Your loan approval expiration is, more than anything, contingent upon your credit report. Credit reports have a "shelf life" (normally 90 days). After that, a new snapshot must be taken, because debts (and even scores) can change constantly.
You will need a pre-approval to be taken seriously on an offer. If your file expires, your credit report would need to be repulled and your file be reunderwritten.
As for credit scores: a mortgage inquiry "costs" you 3 points. You can "piggyback" multiple inquiries onto the original report if you keep all inquiries within a short period. Here is some verbiage on this from MyFico.com:
"Looking for a mortgage or an auto loan may cause multiple lenders to request your credit report, even though youre only looking for one loan. To compensate for this, the score ignores all mortgage and auto inquiries made in the 30 days prior to scoring. So if you find a loan within 30 days, the inquiries won't affect your score while you're rate shopping. In addition, the score looks on your credit report for auto or mortgage inquiries older than 30 days. If it finds some, it counts all those inquiries that fall in a typical shopping period as just one inquiry when determining your score."
I am an honest mortgage broker with access to really great rates and fantastic service. Please email me if I can help you now or in the future!
Hi,
I can answer this as well.
You can very easily get your own credit report and score, however, a broker or lender cannot give you a formal pre-approval without pulling their own report.
Additionally, the score you get could be different than what the lenders will get. Lenders use a "RMCR" "Residential Mortgage Credit Report" which is a "Tri-Merge" of all three bureau reports (Trans Union, Equifax and Experian). The lenders will use the "middle" of the three scores (not the highest or lowest). Often, an RMCR score will vary from the scores you can pull on yourself. Strange, but true!
Also, lenders use more credit data than just scores. They also look at number, type and age of accounts, and other credit factors.
I'm sorry, that's probably not what you want to hear, but it's how it works.
Best of luck to you! Let me know if I can help, now or in the future."
This is so damning!
Edit: there were apparently two other minor comments, much like these, i.e., ANSWERING someone's questions!