13Dec2006
Dan Green
Author
Dan Green
Filed Under
Credit Scoring For Mortgages

The Latest, Not Greatest , or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving FICO

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Vantagescore_logoThe much-hyped VantageScore credit scoring system seems to be getting a lot of press lately, so thank you to Holden Lewis at Bankrate.com for keeping it real.

According to the VantageScore Web site, it is the "new standard in credit risk scoring". 

"Why did we create VantageScore?  Simply put, the industry expressed a need for a new approach to credit scoring across the three major credit reporting companies...VantageScore is a cutting-edge scoring model that consumers tell us is easy to understand and use." (emphasis added)

That's fine and all, but here is the other side of that hype as it pertains to mortgage lending (from the BankRate.com piece):

"People in the mortgage industry say there's no chance that home lenders will adopt VantageScore. They will stick with the FICO score because it has proven to be accurate."

For the mortgage industry to adopt VantageScore, it would literally eliminate hundreds of millions of data sets that predict the likelihood of mortgage default with near-certainty.  As I was quoted in the article: "How is the industry going to turn its back on that?"

In the case of VantageScore, cutting-edge does not mean better, it just means newer.

Dan Green
Author
Dan Green

About the Author

Dan Green (NMLS #227607) is an active loan officer with Waterstone Mortgage. Email Dan ator call 513-443-2020.

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