When you fill out a loan application, most lenders request a hard credit inquiry which ignites a barrage of unsolicited (spam) calls. Here at Allied, we strategically request a soft credit pull for several reasons – most importantly, to negate these annoying calls.
Over the last few years, mortgage consumers have been hassled by the exponential growth in these “trigger leads” which are automated notifications provided to mortgage call centers that alert them of a specific consumer’s actions toward acquiring a new mortgage. The culprit is the action of pulling a hard credit report. The result can be 50-100 solicitation calls from other mortgage lenders.
The solution of a soft credit pull prevents the culprit from taking control.
A soft report contains all the same data and credit scoring information as its hard counterpart. The only difference is that the credit bureaus do not warrant the report and thus make it ineligible for final underwriting approval or loan sale. Once a formal submission to underwriting has occurred, the report must be upgraded to a hard credit.
We review a soft credit report to get a good idea of your financial situation and how likely you are to be approved for a loan, at what rate and loan terms. A soft credit pull accomplishes everything necessary to achieve a full mortgage pre-approval, or it helps us identify any potential problems to resolve before a hard credit pull. We can run simulators that allow us to give you advice on how to improve specific score scenarios.
Why don’t all lenders use a soft pull credit? The answer is money. Call center lenders are paying the major credit bureaus and credit reporting companies for leads upon hard credit inquiries. It has evolved into an additional revenue stream for the bureaus, and they incentivize the call centers with lower-cost hard credit reports. Also, going with soft credit and then progressing to hard credit may cost an extra $20-40 on mortgage credit report fees. (At this time, we do not charge a fee for a soft credit pull.) Given the ridiculous onslaught of calls received 48-72 hours after a hard inquiry, you will agree this is money and effort well spent so we can all focus on the important stuff.
A bonus to the soft inquiry strategy is that we advise you to immediately set yourself up on the “Do Not Call” registry (donotcall.gov or call 888-382-1222) once we receive your application. By the time we pull their hard credit, you should be able to avoid pesky phone solicitations altogether.
Buying a home and securing a loan can be stressors without the added bother of telemarketing calls. Every Loan Officer at Allied makes sure you are in an optimal position for an approved loan and protected from unnecessary hassles. If you have any credit score questions, please reach out to anyone on our team.