John's credit report also lists two or three other mortgage inquiries that were made earlier that month. The Fair, Isaac risk scoring software ignores those previous mortgage inquiries when calculating John's credit score because they all fell into the 30-day buffer period. Now let's say that John also purchased a car three months before he began shopping for a mortgage loan. His car shopping resulted in three inquiries from different banks and credit unions over several days. Since they occurred in the same 14-day period, those three inquiries are counted as just one inquiry by the Fair, Isaac risk scoring software.
Loan officers decide.
Computers and credit scoring are tools they may use to help make the decision. They may use computers to crunch numbers, automatically obtain credit bureau reports, and generate customer communications. If a lender uses credit scoring, the computer will either calculate the applicant's score with its own internal scoring model, or automatically obtain a score from the credit bureau. Lenders vary in how they interpret this data and how they weigh it against other important information such as income, time at employer, the net value of liquid assets, and value of collateral, if any. Scoring has helped lenders process credit applications and make loan decisions faster.