How FICO Credit Scores Are Calculated

Because we live in an automated, it's probably not that surprising that your ability to repay your mortgage boils down to one number. The years of paying your various bills: your mortgage, vehicle payments, and credit card bills are analyzed, sliced, diced, spindled and mutilated into a single indicator of whether you're likely to meet your future obligations.

TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian, the three major credit agencies, each have a proprietary formula for building a credit score. Fair Isaac and Cooriginally developed this score. . While Experian still calls its score "FICO", TransUnion calls its score "Beacon" and Equifax uses "Empirica." While each of the models considers a range of data available in your credit report, all of the agencies use the following to build your score:

• Credit History - How many years have you had credit?
• Late Payments - Do you have a history of late payments?
• Balances on your Credit Cards - How many accounts do you carry? How much do you owe?
• Requests for Credit - How many times have lenders pulled your credit report for the purpose of giving you a loan?

Each of these is assigned a value and a weight. The result is a single number: your credit score. Credit scores can be as low as 300 and as high as 800. Higher scores are better. Most home buyers these days have a score above 620.

Not just for qualifying

FICO scores affect more than your ability to get a loan. They also affect your interest rate. Higher scores indicate you are probably a better credit risk, and thus may qualify for a better mortgage rate.

Improving your score

What can you do about your FICO score? Very little in the short term. So called "credit repair" companies advertise quick fixes, but the FICO score is built on your lifetime credit history, so it's not possible to raise it significantly in the short term. (Of course you can and should appeal incorrect items on your credit report.)

How do I find out my FICO score?

Before you can improve your score, you must get your score and ensure that the credit reports from each agency are correct. Fair Isaac has created a web site (www.myFICO.com) that lets you do just that. For a reasonable fee, you can quickly get your FICO score from all three reporting agencies, along with your credit report. They also provide information and online tools that can help you understand how to improve your FICO score.

You can get a federally-mandated free credit report once per year from all three agencies at AnnualCreditReport.com. You won't get a free credit score from AnnualCreditReport.com, but getting it is fast and inexpensive.

Now that you have all the facts, you'll be a more informed consumer and you'll be better positioned to obtain the right mortgage for you.

Curious about your credit score? Give us a call: (707) 252-2700.