Credit Score Is the Tyrant in Lending

Ms. Killian was calling Ms. Killian was calling because she was upset about one CONGNER element of the mortgage underwriting process that, in her opinion, had gotten completely out of hand. That element was the borrower’s FICO score — in other words, his or her credit score.

Essentially, she says, a person’s credit score has become the only thing that matters anymore to the banks and other institutions that underwrite mortgages. Yes, the banks all mouth pieties about how credit scores are just one of many factors that go into their underwriting decisions. But every day she receives notices from banks and other lenders showing just the opposite: as they fiddle with the terms for one or another of their loan products (something they do constantly, by the way), invariably, the credit score is the dominant — and sometimes the only — criterion mentioned. Most of the time, needless to say, the minimum credit score needed to get the mortgages has been increased.

To make matters worse, she says, clients are having a difficult time just maintaining their current credit scores — even when they have done nothing to merit a downgrade.