If you’ve been frustrated that the credit-scoring system has prevented you from getting a home mortgage, 2016 could be a watershed year. Important changes are in the works.
In mid-December, the federal agency that oversees giant mortgage investors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ordered both companies to wrap up their plans for adopting “alternate or updated credit scores” this year and move ahead with putting them into action “as appropriate.”
At roughly the same time, legislation called the Credit Score Competition Act was introduced with bipartisan support in the House. Its goal, sponsors said, is to expand access to mortgage money for large numbers of creditworthy loan applicants — especially first-time buyers and minorities — who currently are shut out of consideration by the two companies’ credit-scoring practices.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the largest mortgage purchasers in the nation,” said Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), co-sponsor of the bill with Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), “but they rely on credit-score models that don’t necessarily take into account something as simple as whether borrowers have paid their rent on time. Homeownership is an integral part of the American Dream that shouldn’t be out of reach for low-income, rural and minority borrowers who lack access to traditional forms of credit.”
Royce said the bill would eliminate “the credit-score monopoly at Fannie and Freddie,” ending “an unfair practice that stifles competition and innovation in credit scoring.”
Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rely on credit-scoring tools from FICO, which is the dominant supplier of credit analytics for the mortgage industry and is best known for its three-digit FICO scores running from 300 (terrible credit) to 850 (outstanding credit, low risk of default).
The scoring models used by Fannie’s and Freddie’s automated underwriting systems have been in place for years without major updates, critics complain, and the models do not incorporate more-recent, consumer-friendly improvements designed by FICO itself and by competitor VantageScore. FICO Score 9, introduced in the summer of 2014 but never adopted by Fannie or Freddie, provides fairer treatment for millions of consumers — both those whose scores are depressed by medical bill collection accounts and those who have credit files with scant information because they make little or no use of the traditional banking system. Mortgage applicants whose only major negatives are medical collections stand to see their FICO scores improve by a median of 25 points, according to the company.
VantageScore, a joint venture started by the national credit bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — to compete with FICO, has introduced its “3.0” model, which, it claims, can provide scores on as many as 35 million “previously unscoreable consumers.” The new scoring system is widely used by banks and credit-card companies but is frozen out at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The VantageScore model incorporates a consumer’s history of rent, utilities and telecommunications payments when such information gets reported to one or more of the national credit bureaus. Studies have shown that inclusion of alternative credit data such as rents can significantly improve consumers’ scoring outcomes.
One study by Experian found that in a sample of 20,000 tenants living in government-subsidized apartments, 100 percent of previously “unscoreable” tenants became scoreable once their rent-payment histories were used. Furthermore, the results showed that 97 percent had scores considered “prime” (average, 688) or “non-prime” (average, 649). Being rated in either of these categories could help qualify renters to obtain mortgages, provided their income, employment and debt ratios meet Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac underwriting requirements. But that won’t happen until both companies update their scoring models.
What’s the prospect for that? Fannie Mae officials say scoring-system changes involve significant costs, not only for the company itself but also for the lenders that sell them mortgages. But when Fannie’s and Freddie’s regulator — and maybe Congress — tell them to get moving on it, the odds increase that something good will happen, sooner rather than later.
Ken Harney's email address is kenharney@earthlink.net.
