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General Speaking FHA vs Conventional

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Alex311
Valued Member

General Speaking FHA vs Conventional

At what FICO score is it better to go for conventional loan vs fha, generally speaking?

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3 REPLIES 3
JoeRockhead
Senior Contributor

Re: General Speaking FHA vs Conventional

It's hard to say without more info. Really depends on your particular financial profile, scores and overall credit rating at the time of application. Generally, FHA loans can be had with higher debt to income ratios and are cheaper in reagards to lower down payments, but may come with much higher mortgage insurance premiums with scores in the high 500s to low 600s. If you have good to excellent credit, (above 680) Conventional loans will most often offer lower mortgage rates and PMI and are much cheaper in the long run. 

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MauiMan85297
Established Contributor

Re: General Speaking FHA vs Conventional

Without knowing more information..... generally speaking it would be at 680 at a minimum but ideally 700+.  If you're not putting down 20% then on your conventional loan your mortgage insurance is based off DTI and your score unlike the FHA MI.



Message 3 of 4
VAMortgageGuy
Regular Contributor

Re: General Speaking FHA vs Conventional


@Alex311 wrote:

At what FICO score is it better to go for conventional loan vs fha, generally speaking?


It really depends on down payment, credit score, loan type (HomeReady/HomePossible VS normal conventional) and property type.

The following  upcoming changes to conventional LLPAs will probably have an even bigger impact.

https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Upcoming-mortgage-fee-changes-May-1/td-p/6636392

 

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