Is there a negative to getting pre-approved to early

[Michael Nathanson]

Hi BP community, I am new to the forums but have been lurking for a while and listening to the podcasts as well.  I am new to investing in real estate on my own and in addition just moved to the Albuquerque area for a good job.  When I moved here I quickly rented a place with a 6 month lease (month to month after) as I knew I was interested in investing and wanted to be able to leave before some of the longer leases other places required.  So now that I've been here about 3 weeks I've been doing a lot of digging in the local market and think I'm getting an understanding of the prices in the local market (I'm not from here) and was thinking about getting pre-approved for a mortgage sooner rather than later.  My concern with this is that I am in no hurry to purchase a place since I'm in a lease and would prefer to work a little while and build up a larger down payment (just started "real job") and want to just keep an eye on the market with the option of making an offer if something really interesting came to my attention.  From what I've gathered, pre-approval lasts about 3 months before I would have to redo the process so that would get me through about April if I do it now when ideally I would be looking for June or July for a purchase.  Is there any negative to having to do the pre-approval again after 3 months other than another hard inquiry on my credit? (I have 2 from credit cards in the past year so the second time would be the 4th inquiry in a year)  My credit score is excellent (well above 740) and I have no debt other than my monthly expenses paid off at the end of each month on credit cards.  As far as what I'm looking for, in a perfect world I would find a cash flowing 2-4plex that I could house hack to start my investing career while working full time.  

What experiences have people here had with conventional and FHA loans being pre-approved multiple times before finding the right investment?