How a weekend in Vegas might cost you your house...
This is cautionary tale for all prospective homebuyers out 
there. If you are in the market for a home you have likely already spoken with a lender to get pre-qualified (always the first step). During that initial conversation he/she likely lectured you about the importance of not doing anything that might lower your credit score or damage your debt to income ratio.
He/she probably told you not to buy a car, furniture, jewelry, heck buying ANYTHING on credit. Another thing your lender probably told you to avoid if possible is quitting your job, changing jobs, getting fired or getting demoted. Finally he/she certainly also advised you to keep any credit cards or lines of credit OPEN, perhaps pay them down but DO NOT CLOSE THEM.
So this leads me to my point…
Several months ago I client of mine who was qualified and under contract to purchase a beautiful home with a pool 
went on a mini vacation. He and some of his buddies traveled to Vegas for the weekend. Sunday morning he realized he had misplaced his credit card. Being the responsible young man he is he immediately contacted the credit card company and cancelled the card. Luckily no activity had been recorded and they immediately issued a new card with exactly the same limit. No problemo, right?
Wrong. A few days later we found out that this little exchange had dropped his credit. Why did his score drop, you are probably asking? Because when he called to close the account and open the new one he was issued a brand new account number and, according to the credit bureaus this is a bad thing.
Luckily for my client we still had enough time to work everything out and he was still able to purchase the home but not without a bunch of blood, sweat and tears by the client and the lender.
This was a new one for the lender and myself and there’s really not a whole lot he could have done differently in that situation other than not lose his card. So the moral of the story is, when you are in the process of buying a home follow the direction of your lender, your agent and by all means…
DON’T LOSE YOUR CREDIT CARDS!!
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