We can’t stress this enough, but you have to be really informed about the mortgage process, in order not to ruin your credit scores. When you start your mortgage rate shopping, a typical dialogue with your loan officer will often look like this:

You: I like to find out your rate

You: I like to find out the best rate for my mortgage
LO: Well that depends on what your profile looks like…. how is your credit?
You: My credit is good I think I have a ???
LO: Well I have to do a credit pull to know exactly what your score is, otherwise I can’t quote you

The response from you here has to be “Give me your best-case scenario with zero points.” The Loan officer will tell you their rate without having to pull your credit.

It is important that you do not allow anyone to pull your credit; it is unnecessary. Early on in the conversation, loan officers do this; they would have pulled higher scores, therefore, getting an upper hand by being able to offer a better rate. Of course, not all LO’s do this, but you, as a borrower, will have no recourse and finding that out the hard way may be costly.

Tell them your credit score (which I am sure you know) and demand their rate. PERIOD. To do this effectively, you need a mortgage comparison shopping tool like Parlend’s Mortgage Rate Calculator that offers free mortgage shopping tools that will help you in finding a fair rate and cost in real time, while keeping you anonymous.

Check out our free mortgage shopping tools at https://www.parlend.com

This question was initially answered in Quora by our co-founder and mortgage ninja Kevin. View in Quora