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Mortgage pre-qualification

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CreditOCDinCali
Regular Contributor

Mortgage pre-qualification

I have a 657 credit score, but when I inquired about a mortgage with an online mortgage company, my score came back as 534! Why does it significantly differ and if I went to my credit union, would it make a difference? I was told credit unions and banks are more laxed. Is there any truth to this?
8 REPLIES 8
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification


@CreditOCDinCali wrote:
I have a 657 credit score, but when I inquired about a mortgage with an online mortgage company, my score came back as 534! Why does it significantly differ and if I went to my credit union, would it make a difference? I was told credit unions and banks are more laxed. Is there any truth to this?

Where are you getting the 657 from?

Message 2 of 9
CreditOCDinCali
Regular Contributor

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

From Experian. I subscribe to creditchecktotal. My score is updated daily. It's been lingering around 641-657. The day I inquired about the loan my score was at 657.
Message 3 of 9
Spider07
Regular Contributor

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

My guess is that is not a fico mortgage score you see daily.  And for mortgages, they pull all 3 CR and use the low middle score, and scores can be very different on the different agencies, Transunion, experian and Equifax.  On my report, Experian is almost always 20 points lower than transunion but on my wife's report, it just the opposite.  if you want to know your true mortgage scores, get the 3B report from myfico.  

Message 4 of 9
IGO
Established Member

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

It looks like maybe you have the cart before the horse here. First thing you should do is get a credit education then start looking into the finer details of mortgage hunting. Get rid of that "credit'checktotal". It is a cute little product that your lending institution invented to keep you interested in them but it IS NOT your FICO score. Go right here in the boards to a credit board and threads that seem most like credit repair and start hunting.

Second, and while you are getting that education is you will need to obtain your credit reports. These are not you FICO scores, they are the data that the 3 main credit reporting agencies collect from all over the place about your credit history. There will be 3 reports, they are from Equifax, Transunion and Experian. You can obtain a copy of your credit history free of charge from each of these businesses one time a year. Go to Annual Credit Report.com to obtain them. Once you obtain the 3 reports, challenge any content that p incorrect. In ordering the reports you will be given the instructions on how to do this. Then come here, myFICO and only here (not creditchecktotal) and order your only true FICO scores. You will receive a report that grades the corrected information from those 3 data collection businesses and myFICO will assign a numeric grade or points to each. After this, come here to the forums and get straight information. 

Again in short:

  • Get your 3 agency credit reports
  • Dispute any incorrect information that you find on them. Allow them 30 days to update their records then
  • Order your myFICO report here
  • Study all parts of the FICO report. They are very revelling and quit interesting to boot
  • Come here to ask any questions you can think of
  • Once you have a clear idea of how all this works and have done your part to raise your scores, buy your house. All this is actually a lot of fun to most people.
 
BK 2002
9/27/2017
FICO 8 / FICO Mortgage:
Equifax: 798 / 802
Transunion: 809 / 808
Experian: 801 / 821
Message 5 of 9
IGO
Established Member

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

BTW, the simple task of disputing incorrect information on my credit reports was the single easiest way for me to raise all 3 credit scores by 50 points the first time I did it. 

BK 2002
9/27/2017
FICO 8 / FICO Mortgage:
Equifax: 798 / 802
Transunion: 809 / 808
Experian: 801 / 821
Message 6 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

Is your credit card utilization real high? I'm guessing that is one of the things weighing down your mortgage scores.
If it is you want to start paying those down.
Message 7 of 9
kjade1030
New Member

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

My co can likely help you, we pull mortgage credit reports and send you a copy for free.  The above poster saying mid score is used is right, the other poster saying dispute accounts to raise credit is WRONG.  When you dispute, the account no longer affects your score, for better or worse.  All lenders these days require all disputes removed before they'll clear you to close because in theory you could have 4 great accounts, and 4 disputed bad ones, and have a 700 score.  Remove the disputes and you're at 580.  Disputing is not a good idea at all if you are trying to get a mortgage.  The issue is you only pulled one bureau...there can be huge differences in the 3 because they all have different scoring models.  Lenders also have access to great tools though.  We have one that we tell it how much money you have and it spits out a list of what to do to get the highest fico boost, it is absolutely insance that consumers don't have access to it, but they don't.  Let me know if you need help, I am happy to.

Message 8 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Mortgage pre-qualification

Posts like this can be dangerous. 

 

Disputing *known* inaccurate information on your reports will raise your scores if that information is negative.  I don't know why anyone would dispute positive information... and while it is true that items that are disputed *can* be temporarily removed from consideration when generating scores in some models, it's by no means guaranteed. I can't think of a single lender that would tell you to remove a dispute on an adverse item that you know for sure is wrong just so that there is no dispute shown on the file.  They may say that you really should not do anything that may cause your scores to fluxuate or change drastically, but usually this is advice not to open new lines of credit, etc. 

 

And yes, they will pull all three bureaus and yes there can be dramatic differences between them. That's why they pull all three. It has nothing to do with the scoring model.  Some creditors will only report to Equifax, and some will only report to Transunion and that fact alone may cause one report to show 14 TL and another just 8. 

 

Be wary of any company that says it has a magic tool that has all the answers.  Other than the exact formula used to calculate the scores, there is no hidden secret to getting the loan and credit you want.

Message 9 of 9
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