Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I know there is so much discrepancy with Credit Karma's scores and what your credit score actually is in terms of getting approved for a mortgage. What is the deal? How "off" is a credit karma's score?
On a related note, credit karma does use a "vantage score" correct? It differs from a fico score anyway in that it's lower, at least in my case. My fico scores (like from my credit cards) are all in the mid to upper 700s but my vantage is like 680 ish right now (expecting it to go up next month after a cc is paid off)
I don't want to go pulling my credit left and right to actually see the number since we are months off for applying for a mortgage. Just curious to see if we'll be ok to obtain a mortgage in the months to come.
There are different FICO scores for different purposes since they are calculated using different algorithms. The score pulled by an auto loan lender will be different than the score pulled by a mortgage lender for the same person; people don't actually have one FICO score, they have MANY. I believe you can buy all three credit bureau scores from FICO.com and they will include the weighted mortgage score but it's $60 or so. That might be worth it right before you apply for a mortgage but not now.
You will qualify for the best mortgage interest rates as long as your score is over 760 so just do everything you can until you apply to get your score as high as you can: keep credit card utilisation as low as possible (I pay my cards off before the statement closes to keep them below 10% utilisation, which is ideal), don't close any long standing accounts or open new ones (you want your length of credit history to be as long as possible), don't allow any hard pulls on your credit (another reason not to apply for new accounts) and pay everything on time.
Our Credit Karma score was actually pretty close to the score the mortgage lenders pulled last year when we bought our house. (Credit Karma showed our mid score at 820 and the lender score pulled was 813. The lender will throw out the highest and lowest FICO score of the three and just use the middle score.) We figured, given that we just needed a mid score over 760 and Credit Karma showed our scores all in the 810-820 ranges, that we would be fine (and we were) so we didn't bother to buy our scores.
2 of my Fico scores: 810 ex and 815 tu. My last inquiry falls off next month so I should have a tiny score jump then.
My Credit Karma score: 775
My Credit Sesame score: 772
I don't know about you but I consider 30 points quite the swing when comparing my Fico scores to the "For entertainment purposes only" scores, which is essentially what Vantage scores are.
On a related note, credit karma does use a "vantage score" correct? It differs from a fico score anyway in that it's lower, at least in my case. My fico scores (like from my credit cards) are all in the mid to upper 700s but my vantage is like 680 ish right now (expecting it to go up next month after a cc is paid off)
The only score that usually matters for mortgages is the FICO mortgage score, which as mentioned is different from other scores, including other FICO scores. You can order it from myfico.com.
Quote:
Originally Posted by k101108
I don't want to go pulling my credit left and right to actually see the number since we are months off for applying for a mortgage. Just curious to see if we'll be ok to obtain a mortgage in the months to come.
Pulling your own credit does not affect anything, you could check it every day and it wouldn't matter.
I read where people said it differed by 100 points! Its a little hard to believe though. Ive paid down a credit card significantly so I'm waiting for my score to go up from that. My score is mediocre because I have a lot of inquiries and I STUPIDLY closed my oldest account which I'm still mad at myself for. Half of those inquiries will remain when we apply for the mortgage though. Payments are 100% on time, utilization is relatively low. I figured its really just a waiting game. Hubby's is worse because he has a few late payments so that's really a waiting game as well.
You say I will get the best rates with a score over 760 but... you can still get approved with lower correct? Could I actually get approved now (based on credit solely)?
Discover Card, Citibank cards and Amex cards have your FICO score on your account on their web site. Just sign into your account and you can access it. Discover prints it on the monthly bill.
Discover Card, Citibank cards and Amex cards have your FICO score on your account on their web site. Just sign into your account and you can access it. Discover prints it on the monthly bill.
This is not the mortgage score however.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.