I am so lost on this FICO that FICO, no this FAKO...god...my head hurts..

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm new to posting here but have read just about every post on this site...literally..
I then, over the last 6months, have read and or watched a million and one postings, articles, videos etc. on the whole FICO thing. 

Once I was tottally convinced that myFICO "is the one the lenders see, what you see at myFICO is what the loan officer at a bank will see.",
then I come across, "well, myFICO is not, but is somewhat close, to what the lender will see."

I can't take it anymore......my head is going to pop

I am trying to figure out is "myFICO" going to be very close, somewhat close, way off or whatever, to the FICO pulled by CHASE Bank loan officers for a mortgage?

I go from elation to mass confusion to elation to depression....

Any help would greatly be appreciated..

Thanks

Jerry

[Lel]

Hi, and welcome to the Forum.

Here's a brief synopsis of the scores that you get here, and their use by mortgage lenders:

Equifax: the version available here is the Beacon 5.0 score.  This is the Equifax FICO score that is used by the vast majority of mortgage lenders.  If you pull your EQ score from myFICO.com on the same day as your mortgage lender, then the scores will almost certainly be identical.  There are some lenders that have moved on to a newer version of EQ (Beacon 9), but for now there are relatively few which do so.

Transunion: the version available here is the TU 98 version.  Most mortgage lenders are using the TU 04 version.  The score from myFICO.com thus might differ from the score pulled by your lender.  There's no way to predict what your TU 04 score might be based on your TU 98 score.

Experian: EX FICO scores are no longer available to the general public (except in rare specific situations).  Any EX score that is obtained directly by consumers - even on the Experian website - is not a FICO score, and can vary significantly from the actual Experian FICO score.

Some day, perhaps, TU 04 will be available here, but this has to be negotiated between TU and Fair Isaac.  When this might happen is anyone's guess.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply,

I guess the only way to be sure you will qualify would be to obtain the highest scores which will allow for a minor to moderate "+" or "-" before even attempting to sit down with a loan officer.

Once again thanks,,,

Jerry

[Anonymous]

Anyone have any suggestion as to what score I should wait for before applying, realistically of course.
Currenty I get my ficos from here and I have a membership with the freecreditscore.com place.  I know this is considered a "Plus Score" or something like that but hey gotta base it off something other then TrueCredit.  With TrueCredit I have a movie stars fico...ha..ha..

I am realistic about the whole score needing to build by the normal passage of time that is why I am not going to see the banker until some time in mid Feb 2011.

Thanks for helping.

Jerry

[Lel]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the reply,

I guess the only way to be sure you will qualify would be to obtain the highest scores which will allow for a minor to moderate "+" or "-" before even attempting to sit down with a loan officer.

Once again thanks,,,

Jerry

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It's also important to review each of your credit reports very carefully to make sure there are no errors on any of the reports that might result in a score that is substantially lower than the rest.  Credit report errors are unfortunately quite common, and they can be difficult to fix.  You'll want to address any problems well in advance of your mortgage application, because outstanding disputes on your credit report can impede the approval process.

[RobertEG]

I think what confuses a lot a people is that when they hear the term "it is a real FICO score," they interpret that to mean there is such a thing as a single FICO score.

Fair Isaac is in busness to tailor their product to each customer, which are the creditors and lendors.

Fair Isaac negotiates separately with each client, such as each of the CRAs, mortgage lendors, auto lendors, etc., who may wish to emphasize the various risk factors differenctly to meet the needs of individual clients  Perhapse the biggest example is the different between consumer vended scores through the CRAs, and industry-specific scores, such as mortgage or auto lendors.  When you are told that it is a "FICO score,"   what that means is that the scoring algorithm used was produced and licensed by Fair Isaac Corp.  Their are dozen of different FICO scoring algoritms.  There are even multiple sub-algoriths licensed under a specific version of the main FICO algorithm that score differently based on your consumer-specific situation.  Those are what most on here call "scoring buckets."  Before your score is even calculated, your CR data is run throuch a logic algorithm to determine which sub-algorithm, or "bucket," y0ur scoring will be based on.

One thing is uniform in most credit scoring, and that is the data used to calculate the score.  That data is, for the most part, only available on a massive, nationwide scale from the CRAs,  FICO does not, for example, directly compute your score. They dont retain current CRA data on their own.  What they do is to license the scoring agortithms to, for example, the CRAs, and then the CRAs compute your score.  As part of the licensing contracts between Fair Isaac and the CRAs, The CRAs can usualy determine who to sell their licensed scores to.  EX made a desision last year to discontinue licensing of the scores it generates back to Fair Isaac for sale to consuners at their myFICO consumer site. 

If you frist talk to the credtor, they can tell you the version of FICO scoring they will be using.  But since the workings of all of the FICO algorithms are proprietary trade secrets, this wont help you much before the fact unless y0u have current data on the algorithm they will be using.  For example, if a mortgage lendor tells you they will be using the same scores that you get from myFICO, and then use the miidle score.  But if they are using a separate mortgage-based scoring, which are not sold to consumers.  So you cant even pulll that before applying. 

[wayne6372]

There are more score s than fico. theres a beacon, a fico , a plus score, vantage and a new one to me empera that was use for a friends mortage through Wells fargo.

[RobertEG]

Correct.  That is why it is best to first talk to your prospective lendor.  If you happen to be applying with a credtior or lendor who uses some type of non-FICO score in their decision-making,then by all means that is the score you would want to know.

But most lendors use FICO scores.  If you dont know, it is a pretty safe bet to rely on a FICO-generated score.

[BungalowMo]

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@wayne6372 wrote:

There are more score s than fico. theres a beacon, a fico , a plus score, vantage and a new one to me empera that was use for a friends mortage through Wells fargo.

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Beacon is the EQ FICO that you get here & it is also 99% the EQ score that mortgage lenders use. 

Emperica is the TU FICO that mortgage lenders use (but a different scoring algorythm than our TU FICO's here)

"plus" and "Vantage" are FAKO's used by TU & EX on their own websites