FICO Mortgage Score Simulation

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if FICO offers a simulation for mortgage scores? I have mortgage lates just over 12 months which is dragging down FICO 5.4.2. Middle score is 667 - 13 pts below the holy grail of 680. Utilization on one revolver is approx 20%. The other 2 revolvers are approx 10%. Given the lates are what they are, I think my only play is to pay down the balances on the revolvers to up the FICO mortgage scores - correct?

[Anonymous]

Certainly the best move is to pay all cards to zero (including the charge card that you have) except for exactly one card reporting a small positive balance.  The remaining card should be...

a true credit card (not a charge card)

a card in your name (not an AU card)

a card with a credit limit of < 34.9k

It's quite possible that this will give the points you need.  Cerainly you should try it.

I don't know of a simulator out there for mortgage scores, but if there were it would be less reliable than getting advice from people in this forum.  Simulators are generally worthless.

[Anonymous]

I agree with CGID regarding your utilization pay down opportunity and that taking it may very well get you the points that you're looking for.

You said you have mortgage lates. I'd imagine that the mortgage models more heavily weigh mortgage accounts over others the same way an auto model looks for auto loan history (present/absent + favorable/unfavorable) and considers it strongly. That being said, it would of course be in the best interest of all your FICO scores, especially your mortgage scores if you were able to clean up that mortgage account. I'm not sure the severity or frequency of the negative information present from 12 months ago or so? Attacking that negative account and possibly getting it clean could make a huge difference to your scores and the potential interest rate you could be approved for on your next loan.

[Anonymous]

Thanks CreditGuyInDixie.

Thanks Brutal. I would agree that the mortgage scores are factoring those in more heavily, given the difference in the FICO 8 vs 5.4.2. Three mortgage lates were right around the time of (just ahead of) my spouse job loss in 2017 - Mar, May, Jun. No lates on any other accounts since, mortgage or otherwise. No collections, or public records.

The mortgage lates were legit, in that they were accurately recorded, unfortunately. Is there a way to clean them up under those circumstances?

[Anonymous]

Great advice by BBS.  If our OP has the time he should aggressively explore derog removal.

PS.  The mortgage models are actually just the "classic" flavor of a FICO model that was released a long time ago.  The TU and EQ mortgage scores use FICO 04 Classic and the EX score uses FICO 98 Classic.  Those models were not designed especially for home loans.

FICO did design a model especially for the mortgage market.  It was released in 2010 and it was a flavor of FICO 8 (much like FICO 8 Auto is a flavor of FICO 8 designed for car loans).  But Fannie and Freddie refused to switch over to it, and since they have a monopoly on the mortgage industry banks in effect were prohibited from using it.

[Anonymous]

Wow, thanks CGID. Def learned something new just now. Re: mortgage models.

You mentioned derog removal. I will explore related topics in the forum before burdening you all with “how to” questions. Sounds like definitely worth my while. Going for a new mortgage loan soon. Do these approaches work?

[Anonymous]

BBS is the god of derog removal.  He can point you toward what you need to do.  Look into something called Goodwill Letters.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, CGID, and yes - BBS gave me some good advice in this area before. I'm going back to review it once again.

[Anonymous]

soupy5 the first thing I would do is contact your mortgage lender and verbally speak to them about a GW adjustment.  You can often gauge quite a bit from a brief conversation.  I would suggest going to the rebuilding section and doing a search for GW adjustments relative to your specific lender.  If you see one or more people reporting favorable results in getting GW adjustments from them, that's great news.  If all you see are people saying they were told "no" when requesting a GW adjustment, you can plan on it being a tougher process.  Some lenders are notoriously "difficult" to get adjustments from, where others are super easy.  I had multiple late payments on my loan through Nationstar Mortgage and received a GW adjustment to several of them on my first try.  With 2 more Rounds (tries) of letters to them after the first adjustment I was able to completely rid the account of all negative information.

How long have you had the mortgage and was was the severity (30 days, 60 days, etc) of the late payment(s) that you had last year?  If you've had the mortgage a while at this point (say, 5+ years) and your payment history outside of the hiccup last year has been otherwise stellar, your likelihood of achieving an adjustment increases.  You also mentioned your plans for another mortgage in the relative near future.  Do you have a lender picked out already for that?  Regardless of whether or not you do, I'd use that as bait for your current lender.  Let them know you'd like to obtain a second mortgage [from them] but know with the negative marks present on your first mortgage that acquiring the second one would be very difficult.  This gives them a financial incentive (more profit to be made from you) to make a GW adjustment to your first account if they see an opportunity to open a second account with you.

[Anonymous]

BBS, my current lender is indeed Nationstar. I have had the house since 2002, and NS was the 3 mortgage lender/holder (original company, whose name I now forget, then Springleaf, then NS). Nowhere near responsible back in those days, nor focused on building and mainatining good credit as I am trying to be now. NS took over, I'd say, somewhere 5-7 years ago, or so. I had been spotty with 30-day lates, unfortunately, up until Nov 2015, when I made a clear turn, brought the account current, and stayed current until Mar 2017. Then, as I mentioned, the difficulty last year.

I haven't formally applied for a new mortgage yet, but did get a local prequal which revealed I still had some work to do. That was January this year. Since that time, FICO 8's went from mid-600's, to EQ/TU/EX 722/731/716; and FICO mortgage went from EQ/TU/EX 582/623/625 to 657/667/691. Spouse's FICO 8, 5, 4, and 2 scores are all higher than these. It's my middle mortgage score that's holding us back.

I do like the idea of the carrot with the new mortgage. I requested from NS back in March a payoff amount, and that seemed to set off the bells w NS, as they've been e-mailing quite extensively about new mortgages and/or refinancing. Perhaps that is something I can leverage?