A few
years ago, credit scoring had little to do with mortgage lending
. When reviewing the credit worthiness of a borrower, an underwriter
would make a subjective decision based on past payment history.
Then
things changed.
Lenders
studied the relationship between credit scores and mortgage delinquencies.
There was a definite relationship. Almost half of those borrowers
with FICO scores below 550 became ninety days delinquent at least
once during their mortgage. On the other hand, only two out of every
10,000 borrowers with FICO scores above eight hundred became delinquent.
So lenders
began to take a closer look at FICO scores and this is what they
found out. The chart below shows the likelihood of a ninety day
delinquency for specific FICO scores. see FICO
FICO
Score odds of a delinquent account: