Mortgage Scores

[Anonymous]

Are mortgage scores generally lower than your FICO 8 scores?

[Anonymous]

This guy just posted the opposite in his comment: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Understanding-FICO-Scoring/Huge-actual-drops-simulator-shows-unreaso...

[Anonymous]

For some people it's higher, some it's lower, mine were exactly the same on TU.

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Are mortgage scores generally lower than your FICO 8 scores?

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Maybe, when I last looked at data around it, was roughly 2/3 higher on FICO 8, 1/3 higher on the mortgage scores.  Really if you are chasing a mortgage, spend the $60 to know concretely where you're at or just walk into the lender prepared to be surprised.

I happen to have been in a wierd spot where I was higher on mortgage scores, got higher on FICO 8 (installment utilization) and then when the mortgage reported went back to mortgage scores being higher.  Now FICO 8 is across the board higher but I've had a lot of changes to my file in the last few months plus two additional years of aging.

I suspect, and this is somewhat conjecture, that clean files will be higher on FICO 8, dirty ones though, YMMV.  They just weight things differently, but real world scoring ranges FICO 8 has a higher max score and is more forgiving for short history, and both of those together should trend higher than mortgage scores for likely everyone in the clean scorecards.  

[Anonymous]

As Revelate rightly says just now: It depends...

One thing he mentions in particular is people who have clean and very strong profiles.  Those people will necessarily score higher on FICO 8, because it has a higher range.

It is actually impossible to score higher than an 818 on the EQ mortgage model -- for example.  So a person with a "perfect" profile will necessarily have a lower EQ mortgage score than he does a FICO 8.

[Anonymous]

Another way FICO 8 can be higher is if a person has one or perhaps even several collections < $100.  Those collections are penalized in a harsh way by the mortgage models.  But in FICO 8 they are completely ignored, even if they are unpaid.  Right there that would a sure fire way to see a big difference in the scores.

People who have a few smallish collections may be not too uncommon.

[Anonymous]

My mortgage scores are higher than my FICO 08 scores. I do have collections on all three of my reports, but each report has a different amount of collections. The collections on my Transunion and Equifax reports are all at $0 balance. I have some paid collections on Experian and the others are unpaid. 

You can see my scores in my signature. 

[Anonymous]

Hi Rookie!  Just for clarity, when I refer to a collection < $100, I mean the original amount of the collection.  Thus a collection originally for $122 would be not be ignored by FICO 8, even if it were later paid off entirely.

But if the original amount of the collection was in the range of $1 - $99, then FICO 8 ignores it, even if it is never paid off.

The mortgage models consider all collections, including ones of small amounts, and including ones that are paid off.

FICO 9 ignores all paid collections.  Unsure what FICO 9 does about small unpaid collections (< $100).

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Are mortgage scores generally lower than your FICO 8 scores?

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In my case they're always much lower.

I always have recent inquiries & new accounts, & I have a hunch that the mortgage scores punish that more.

[Anonymous]

Hi SouthJ.  Is it your belief that the mortgage models are harshest upon new credit, with FICO 8 less so, and then FICO 9 less so still?

That's what seems to be the case for me.

If so, it seems to me that the traditional percentage breakdown (often shown as a pie-chart) given to the FICO score is not consistent across the models.  It just seems to me that "new credit" has become a smaller part of the model over time.  Like maybe 15%, 10%, 5% say -- rather than a consistent 10%.

From what I have seen, the harshest models of all on new credit are the models used by the insurance industry.  During my worst period of applying for credit cards, my FICO 8 was in the lower 800s, mortgage in the 770s/780s, and my insurance scores were actually BELOW average, like 48th percentile.