<prompt> Human: Hey all! Last year I was searching for a house with my wife, and at one point I applied to be pre-approved for a mortgage because I was told it would simplify our search. After doing a bit of research and crunching some numbers, we decided that we should put off purchasing a house for now, so we never actually used the pre-approved mortgage application. However, since the pre-approval process included a hard inquiry on my credit profile, I still have this inquiry listed on my report. Is there anything I canshould do to get this removed from my credit profile? I wish I had known that this would stay with me for two years, because Im now interested in applying for a new credit card but I dont want to add more hard inquiries to my report.Any tips or advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!Edit: it looks like the takeaway here is that I cant get it removed since I did legitimately apply for it, so Ill consider this resolved. Thanks for all the quick feedback!Assistant: No, you cannot get it removed. It was a legitimate inquiry that you authorized.However its not affecting you much or at all. A single hard pull will BARELY affect your score, and only for 1 year. It will be listed on your report for 2 years but after the 1st year doesnt affect your score.Dont worry about it.Human: Okay, thats reassuring. Im really not too worried about it anyway since I have a strong score as it is, but its just frustrating that Im putting off applying for a new credit card because of the inquiry. Currently I have four hard pulls in the past two years two credit cards, a car, and this one, but two will be removed by December so Ill just wait until then to apply for a new card.  <response>: If you want the new CC, just apply for it. Go look at rchurning if you want to see people who actually have a lot of hard pulls. 