Which score should I buy?

[jani83]

Hubby & I are looking to get approved for a VA loan, but I know my credit has been less than stellar in the past.  While I've been trying to rebuild it, I know it's slow going, and I'm not sure what my credit score is now.  If I were to buy a credit score from myfico.com, which would be the best to purchase to give me an idea of where I would stand with mortgage lenders?

[Elcid89]

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@jani83 wrote:

Hubby & I are looking to get approved for a VA loan, but I know my credit has been less than stellar in the past.  While I've been trying to rebuild it, I know it's slow going, and I'm not sure what my credit score is now.  If I were to buy a credit score from myfico.com, which would be the best to purchase to give me an idea of where I would stand with mortgage lenders?

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Mortgage lenders pull all three FICO scores and qualify based on the middle of the three.

For example, let's say that you pull all three FICO scores from myFICO. You find that you have 670, 660 and 650. 660 is the middle score of that group, so they will qualify you (and determine your rate) based on that middle score.

Realistically, if you intend to apply for a mortgage loan, you need to pay for and pull all three scores, Trans Union, Equifax and Experian.

[HoldingOntoHope]

Well the EQ score you pull from here will be the same score that the lenders use. The TU score is a slightly older version and the EX score is a slightly newer version so you may see some variance in what the lenders pull. If you have a monitoring service and you know that all three reports have the same account data then you could pull EQ to get an idea.

If you have negative information or some accounts only reporting to only one or two bureaus then you can assume that the scores will be different and you may want to pull all three to get a better idea of where your middle score will be.