Does connecting accounts run a hard check?

Short answer: no. Connecting your accounts to verify your Buying Power does not run a hard credit check, does not affect your credit score, and doesn’t commit you to anything. Here’s exactly what happens — and what never does.

What connecting actually does

Verification needs two kinds of information, and both are gathered the gentle way:

• Your accounts — linked through a secure, bank-grade connection (the same rails used across the industry). You sign in on your bank’s own page; we receive read-only balance and deposit data to confirm income and savings. Your banking password is never seen or stored by House.ai.
• Your credit — checked with a soft inquiry, the same kind used for pre-qualified card offers. Soft inquiries are invisible to other lenders and have zero effect on your score.

What we don’t do

• No hard credit pull — ever — without your explicit, separate consent.
• No storing bank credentials; connections are tokenized and encrypted.
• No moving money, changing settings, or touching anything — access is read-only.
• No selling your data, and no using more than the verification needs.

The one time a hard check happens

Only at the final step — when you ask a lender for a verified pre-approval. That’s a hard inquiry, it’s clearly labeled before you confirm, and it typically costs a few points temporarily. Even then you’re protected while shopping: all mortgage inquiries within about a 45-day window count as one.

You stay in control

Every connected account is visible in your settings, and you can disconnect any of them — or revoke access entirely — whenever you like. Your estimate keeps working either way; it just falls back to the numbers you entered by hand.