Here is a quick overview on how your credit report effects your mortgage application. A tri-merge credit report is a combination of three major credit bureaus, showing a payment history and FICO score from each bureau, and is obtained by your lender. The lender will take the middle score for the rating of the loan approval and rate pricing.

The credit report is valid for only 120 days and a lender my run another report close to the closing date just to make sure that the score has not changed. Each time you use a different lender for the loan, they will run a credit report. However if you use a mortgage broker or banker, they will run the report just once and will give the report over to the lenders. This is a great advantage due to the fact that each time you run a credit report it affects your FICO score. It is for this same reason you should not make any big purchases like by a new car until you have closed escrow to ensure that your report is ran to a minimum.

Do not let anyone run your credit report until you are sure you are going to work with them.