Mortgage pros...a little clarification

[daddiggingout]

I have been cleaning up my credit reports since the 4th of this month and due to my TU and EQ not registering changes in score or alerts, I have been depending on CK and Credit Sesame for a gauge of how things are progressing.  In the past three weeks I have managed to get all but one derog off my TU report and when it failed to update I paid for a new score to see a 544.  Equifax has dropped a couple derogs but has only gone up 24 points.

So while talking with a new mortgage lender today, he asked when I would be ready to do a credit pull.  When I told him that my CK is at 679 and CS is at 637, he explained that he finds CK to be within two or three points of his hard credit pulls, and that I am golden.  So My Fico scores are 544 and 524 and yet my new lender is not at all worried that I will clear the necessary 620 for a loan.    

I had called the my Fico customer service and was advised that the score watch does indeed lag, sometimes to the tune of four weeks!  How many of you professionals are finding CK and CS to be very close to your official credit pulls?

[ShanetheMortgageMan]

CreditKarma is usually quite a bit higher than the scores we pull.  If your myFICO scores are 544 & 524, I'm not sure your actual lender scores will be that low but my best guess is that they'd be in the ballpark, since myFICO actually gives you FICO scores (although they are a more recent version than what lenders use) whereas CreditKarma gives you Vantage scores.

[c4sp14nx]

Throughout my own credit rebuilding jouney, I've kept track of my CK and CS scores and how they compared to actual scores pulled my my mortgage lender. You can find that here: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/FAKOs-versus-FICOs-a-handy-chart/m-p/3249052

CK uses your TransUnion report, and I've found its relation to my "real" score to vary wildly. It has variably been within a few points, or as disparate as 66! Generally, though, my CK score has been *lower* than the TU score pulled by my lender.

CS uses your Experian report, and, like CK, the relation to your "real" score may vary wildly. In this case, it's been as close as 3 pts. and as far away as 56.

My scores from MyFICO were dead-on until they changed the scoring model they used; since then, my scores here show *higher* than what my lender pulls. 

YMMV, of course!

[TimeToRecover]

credit karma is FAKO it is not a real score.  BUT I only use the fako for a generic am i going up or down.  Ironially all of my FAKO's are about 20 below my mortgage pullls and 40 below my cc fico score.