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Its all a bunch of bullshux.. One creditor says a 620(fico score) is good or fair, and another says its below average or bad! And then you have your vantage score.. If you're not paying attention to the letter grade versus the score, You may go out and apply for credit or a loan with the confidence of knowing "I got this" just to be denied and embarrased! This system is wayyyy too loose and confusing! The vantage score model consist of all three credit reporting bureaus, And fico only consist of two! **bleep** is that?? And who goes by what? My scores on vantage all add up to a "C", with TU being closer to a "B"! My fico score with TU is good, but not excellent! And the other score with one of the big "E"s is a low 620! But some will say a 620 is a decent score, just not for the best interest rates.. There should be ONE standard that everyone has to go by when considering credit. Im not looking for a 40 or $50,000 car loan, nor a 4 or $500,000 mortgage loan.. I just want to know exactly where I stand with my credit.. to me thats priceless! Sorry y'all... I know my comments are'nt helpful.. Im just blowing off steam!
Unfortunately "one standard" is not part of a free market economy. Mind you, I agree that there should absolutely be transparency in the system and I certainly should have the same access to the same scores a lender uses without suffering a hard inquiry for it. But, that's not how the game is played, so if one is to be successful, one needs to learn the rules of the game.
I'm in the midst of gearing up for a mortgage app. The Big 3 are what I am concerned about. EQ from MyFCIO is spot on, same report/score the lender uses. TU from MyFICO is an older version, and, of course, EX scores from anywhere are for entertainment purposes only. My lender has never said anything about using a VanatgeScore, so IMO, those are also "entertainment" scores. I watch my reports like a hawk (use USAA credit monitoring) and keep my finger on the EQ pulse with ScoreWatch from here. I'm trying to keep EQ my low score so hopefully no surprises when I finally go to apply.
As far as the actual scores, it's important to look at the dates on any posts or articles you read. "Back in the day", "subprime" could have been in the low 600s, but from my recent research anywhere from 660-680-700 is the "Prime Line", depending on the lender. Sure, a 620 mid-score might get you a mortgage, but that's still not considered "prime" in terms of credit consumption.
Most of all, remember that scores are fluid and the best any of us can do is pay our bills on time, keep utilization low, clean up best we can, and let time work her magic.
Mortgage is absolutely specific: and unless you are applying for jumbo loans, the entirety of them in terms of which to use are dictated by the GSE's.
Fair Issan '04 (it's various names, Beacon 5.0 from EQ, EX Transrisk v2 I think, not sure on TU's specific name) from TU, EQ, EX.
This is mandated because everyone currently packages up their loans and dumps them on Fannie and Freddie; there is absolutely no room to use any alternate scores as the GSE's will reject the loan.
Re: Vantage scores, from reading this forum over the last few months, Alliant CU may be using Vantage for their offerings, but that's the only one I've seen posted that actually had a Vantage score used for the approval terms / denial rationale. Every other lender has been either straight FICO (or some industry option thereof), or their own custom score (vis a vis Walmart).
Chase also uses Vantage score for some of their CC products, although they do not use it consistantly or exclusively. That's the only other lender that I'm aware of that uses it.
@pizzadude wrote:
Chase also uses Vantage score for some of their CC products, although they do not use it consistantly or exclusively. That's the only other lender that I'm aware of that uses it.
Curious, do you know which ones? It probably doesn't matter in my case but I've noticed that relative score wise (how I rate to the rest of humanity statistically) my VS is markedly above any of my FICO's even from TU which is my worst report from a stupid parketing ticket collection... and for some reason it's pushing near average credit, where my FICO scores are absolutely suck. I wouldn't take the wager expecting I'd get a VS pull, but it'd be interesting to know regardless for when I do try for a Chase product: which is nearly guarunteed just how many years from now is the question.
I honestly wouldn't expect it from any national lender and I'm pretty surprised by Chase's openly testing it though I suppose any open market is a good thing.
Revelate is right about why there is such stickiness for FICO 04 scoring models. The packaging of mortgage debt requires everyone to use consistent credit scoring model. Going to be a long time before another model takes over even if it is another scoring model from FICO.