"Good enough"

[Anonymous]

I know that "good enough" can mean different things to different people, and I've never been the sort to settle for "good enough." But when it comes to FICO scores, what number is "good enough" to get the best deals, be almost certain to be approved for any request, etc?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I know that "good enough" can mean different things to different people, and I've never been the sort to settle for "good enough." But when it comes to FICO scores, what number is "good enough" to get the best deals, be almost certain to be approved for any request, etc?

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Conventional wisdom is that 760 is good enough for anything.

But in reality (a) no one knows, and (b) your score isn't the only thing the lender looks at. I recently got turned down by a credit union for something when the score they'd pulled was 827. 

[Anonymous]

827 and declined? That certainly seems out of the ordinary. Thank you very much for the information.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:
827 and declined? That certainly seems out of the ordinary. Thank you very much for the information.

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I have a lot of inquiries and new accounts, and credit unions are more likely to turn me down than grant me something because of that.

This one was especially noteworthy only because they pulled my very highest score, my TU FICO 9, which was 827 at the time.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I know that "good enough" can mean different things to different people, and I've never been the sort to settle for "good enough." But when it comes to FICO scores, what number is "good enough" to get the best deals, be almost certain to be approved for any request, etc?

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Bear in mind that income, along with credit already extended and current levels of debt, are crucial considerations for a creditor in deciding whether to approve you for more credit or further loans.  A person can have a score in the 830s and have no income, 500k in loans, and 500k in revolving credit.  That's why these other three things are considered in addition to one's score.

If there were some magic FICO score that enable a person to be almost certain to be approved for any request, then a jobless homeless person with an 830 could be almost certain to be approved for a 50 million dollar loan if he asked for it.

A different and better way of asking your question would be this: Is there a score beyond which all further score increase gives you no improvement to your chances of being approved for a request?  Supposing that to be 780 (say) -- that would mean an 840 gives no advantage over a 780 in getting approved, or size of loan or size of credit extended.

PS.  As SouthJ points out, individual lenders or CC issuers can have their own additional internal guidelines or policies.  For example, I could have an 840 FICO score, almost no debt, and have made 500k annually for the last few years -- and yet Chase has its own rules that could make it 100% certain to be turned down for a new credit card (see their 5/24 Rule).

[Anonymous]

A different and better way of asking your question would be this: Is there a score beyond which all further score increase gives you no improvement to your chances of being approved for a request? Supposing that to be 780 (say) -- that would mean an 840 gives no advantage over a 780 in getting approved, or size of loan or size of credit extended. --------------------------------------- This is really more along the lines of what I was driving at. Obviously, various factors would come into play on many decisions.

[Gunnar419]

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@Anonymous wrote:
827 and declined? That certainly seems out of the ordinary. Thank you very much for the information.

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I've been declined with scores in the 810-820 range. Low or unverifiable income was the reason for several lenders gave during a massive credit shotgunning by an auto dealer, and that was a good reason. Then again, sometimes lenders "reasons" aren't reasons at all. One of the denials I got was because my debt to income ratio was too high. At the time, my total debt was a couple hundred dollars, with a monthly payment of $27. I did get my car loan, though.

[Revelate]

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
I know that "good enough" can mean different things to different people, and I've never been the sort to settle for "good enough." But when it comes to FICO scores, what number is "good enough" to get the best deals, be almost certain to be approved for any request, etc?

---

Conventional wisdom is that 760 is good enough for anything.

But in reality (a) no one knows, and (b) your score isn't the only thing the lender looks at. I recently got turned down by a credit union for something when the score they'd pulled was 827. 

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Yeah but they didn't turn you down because of your FICO score .

Nobody has a tier above 760 in the mortage market (and that's for PMI, standard mortgages are 740 tops as good enough); me I'll be just fine when I break 740 on my mid score which should be as soon as my tax lien drops off EX and I'll be fine unless I do something dumb (again).

Auto loans have less demanding requirements than mortgages when it comes to scoring.

Credit cards with few exceptions have pretty laughable underwriting standards.... that's all about making straight profit so big spender = big winner there nearly regardless of score.

Personal loans are a sticking point: from some lenders they are nearly impossible to get, but those pretty much stopped dowing personal loans altogether (which gave rise to P2P lending so I guess that worked out well for us as consumers) and some underwriting tiers might be north of 760 there but to SJ's point nobody really knows as once you get outside of the mortgage world where everything is published in full technicolor, personal loans are of the lets make a deal variety and all bets are off for any sort of standardization there.

End of the day underwriting an anything is about a bunch of things, nobody qualifies anyone for anything just on score alone anymore.... too much data is too easily (and cheaply) available.

[Subexistence]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@SouthJamaica wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
I know that "good enough" can mean different things to different people, and I've never been the sort to settle for "good enough." But when it comes to FICO scores, what number is "good enough" to get the best deals, be almost certain to be approved for any request, etc?

---

Conventional wisdom is that 760 is good enough for anything.

But in reality (a) no one knows, and (b) your score isn't the only thing the lender looks at. I recently got turned down by a credit union for something when the score they'd pulled was 827. 

---

Yeah but they didn't turn you down because of your FICO score .

Nobody has a tier above 760 in the mortage market (and that's for PMI, standard mortgages are 740 tops as good enough); me I'll be just fine when I break 740 on my mid score which should be as soon as my tax lien drops off EX and I'll be fine unless I do something dumb (again).

Auto loans have less demanding requirements than mortgages when it comes to scoring.

Credit cards with few exceptions have pretty laughable underwriting standards.... that's all about making straight profit so big spender = big winner there nearly regardless of score.

Personal loans are a sticking point: from some lenders they are nearly impossible to get, but those pretty much stopped dowing personal loans altogether (which gave rise to P2P lending so I guess that worked out well for us as consumers) and some underwriting tiers might be north of 760 there but to SJ's point nobody really knows as once you get outside of the mortgage world where everything is published in full technicolor, personal loans are of the lets make a deal variety and all bets are off for any sort of standardization there.

End of the day underwriting an anything is about a bunch of things, nobody qualifies anyone for anything just on score alone anymore.... too much data is too easily (and cheaply) available.

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Do mortgage score tend to be higher or lower than fico 08 scores for clean files?

[Anonymous]

It depends in part on how high one's FICO 8 is and which bureau we are talking about.  If a person's EQ FICO 8 = 820, then his EQ mortgage score is 100% certain to be lower, since the very highest score achievable in the EQ mortgage model is 818.