Hard Searches - How long affect?

Mr.Croesus

I've been foolish and did several searches for loan deals direct with lenders all at once. I also opened several accounts to make use of the offers, but have very little actual debt. 

I'm now trying to secure a reasonable personal loan and being turned down because of this activity it seems. There are various answers as to how long the search appears on the report.

With the 'hard searches' there was a suggestion that in 6 months the affects of this will be less, as by then anything 'new' would have been reported. Is that correct, or is it the 2 years I've read elsewhere? It's confusing...

Nasqueron

6 months or so if they were just searches, though having a lot is potentially worth leaving longer. If you took out the debt, it's more of an issue 

Mr.Croesus

There were 8 in total, so I think that's a lot. Several were for the loan I have that I was looking at refinancing and tried via an app not realising they'd be multi search. There are several new credit cards, but with no debt and that will be paid off in 6 months as it is. Just didn't realise what an impact it would all have till it was too late...

cymruchris

The longer you leave them before applying again the less impact they'll have. For that many - probably a year would be preferable before trying to get anything big again - and then I'd be using eligibility checkers first before completing a full application.

Mr.Croesus

Thankyou. Lesson learned with the eligibility checkers. Half of them are on a ruddy app interface I was just essentially calculating the rates/amounts with. I'll use a sofe search checker once in 6 months, and plan for a year. In the mean time, I'll not do anything else but timely repayments...