HOW DO MORTGAGE LENDERS DETERMINE THE QUALIFYING SCORE?
This was developed for Creditors AND lenders to better understand the risks of approving someone’s loan application. The Borrower is then assigned a 3-digit code ranging from 300 to 850. The credit score assigned to a consumer is being calculated based from:
· 35% Payment History · 30% Credit Utilization · 25% Credit History · 10% Credit Mix · 10% New Credit
Understanding how the credit score is being computed not only by mortgage lenders but also by the other creditors would help us understand if we are eligible for a loan or for applying for a new account. The credit score is categorized by FICO into 5 parts. 300-579 being Very Poor, 580-669 being Fair, 670-739 being Good, 740-799 being Very Good, and last but not the least, 800-850 being Exceptional. With this credit rating, you can determine how you are doing in terms of the 5 factors mentioned above. Having late payments more than 30 days in one or more accounts would severely impact your credit rating. The majority of the creditors would always look at your credit scores before handing out approval. They base it on the FICO scores more than the scores being assigned by Vantage. With Vantage, they base their credit score computation on these 5 factors:
· 40% Payment History · 21% Depth of Credit · 20% Credit Utilization · 11% Balances · 5% Recent Credit · 3% Available Credit
The vantage score range is divided up into 5 parts. 300-499 being Very Poor, 500-600 being Poor, 601-660 being Fair, 661-780 being Good, and 781-850 being Excellent. But the difference between the two credit score models and why the other one is more preferred than the other is that FICO scores review not only the general data but also their reviews are very detailed specific in comparison with the Vantage Scores. With this being said, most lenders do prefer to base their review using the FICO score model.
HOW DOES MORTGAGE LENDERS DETERMINE THE QUALIFYING SCORE?
An interview by CNBC Select with Mr. Darrin Q. English, a senior community development loan officer at Quontic Bank, stated that the mortgage lenders will pull all three scores but will only use one of them when making a decision. They will use the median score if the scores differ from each other as a basis for the qualifying score regardless if it is higher or lower. And if you are applying for a mortgage loan with your partner, the bank will pull all three credit scores from each of you and will use the median score from both of your scores and then will use the lowest as the qualifying score.
According to FICO, the lower your scores are, the higher your interest rates are. Listed below is how much interest rate for a 30-year fixed they use depending on your score range:
(As of April 26, 2021)