FICO Score Pulled From Mortgage Cos. vs. MYFICO

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I'm about to have a mortgage broker pull my fico scores and am really nervous because I have been reading different stories about how the scores Mortgage brokers/lenders pull are different from what we are pulling here with myfico.  Is this true?  If so, how bad, or good, of a difference is it?  I really hope I'm not in for a horrible surprise being that I have gained so much knowledge and applied so much work to raise my fico scores since joining myfico in July.

Anyone who knows, please comment.

Thanks!

[haulingthescoreup]

Most mortgage brokers do use Classic FICO's, which are what you get here. (Some lenders call them Beacon scores.) The car loan and credit card industries use tweaked forms of FICO's that give higher weight to their fields.

If you already know who your broker will be, why don't you give him or her a call, and ask? I bet brokers would probably be thrilled to have applicants who are already knowledgeable about credit, and have been working on it, and won't burst into tears in the office when they find out the horrible truth!

Good luck on the mortgage!

[Anonymous]

Thanks hauling!  I have been talking to a mortgage broker for the past six months when I had her initally pull my scores when they were very poor.  At the time I was also pulling my scores from truecredit, not knowing the difference between FAKO and FICO....and of course the scores she pulled were much lower than my truecredit scores.  Moving on, she gave me some bench marks to shoot for in order to obtain a mortgage and so I canceled my subscription with truecredit and found myfico.   

A couple of months ago when I indicated to her that I was pulling my own scores to see how much better they have become since we initially met, she asked me where I was getting my scores.  I didn't think to ask her where she got hers because I just assumed that we were on the same page with the scores being used.  After telling her that I get them from both myfico and equifax, she seemed to be content and not so speculative.  I can ask her tomorrow which scores she pulls.

[haulingthescoreup]

I think I remember you posting about this earlier. Nice work--it sounds like you two are on the same page now. BTW, I think I've read that some people print out their FICO scores, or at least that first screen, to take with them on preliminary runs.

Mortgage brokers probably have to take a half-day course now for their continuing education credits on how to handle applicants who thought that their FAKO's were the real thing. Ouch!