Better Scores Get More Americans into Homes (sponsored by FICO)

For every stakeholder in the U.S. mortgage market, the goal is the same: more Americans in homes, building equity, and entering the market with mortgages they can afford and sustain.

FICO® Scores were built for exactly that purpose — the trusted standard in today’s $13 trillion U.S. mortgage market because accurate, predictive credit scoring is what gets qualified borrowers approved and keeps them in the homes they worked to buy.

Credit score modernization that expands access without sacrificing trust

FICO® Score 10T is the next generation of that standard — a modernized model that incorporates trended credit data and rental payment history to better reflect how today’s borrowers manage their finances, while preserving the predictive precision and stability that lenders and the secondary market have relied on for decades.

The performance advantage is independently verified. Independent analysis by actuarial firm Milliman of the recently released expanded GSE historical loan dataset found FICO® Score 10T outperforms competing models on every standard predictive measure, with the advantage most pronounced for first-time homebuyers, where FICO Score 10T delivers more than 10% greater predictive lift. (For a full breakdown of the GSE data and what it shows, see our July 2026 MBA Newslink article.)

For consumers, that accuracy means more approvals and better rates — getting approved at the terms they deserve, not terms inflated due to a less precise risk assessment. For lenders, it means a more accurate picture of risk at the point of underwriting. For investors in the secondary market, it means scores they can rely on — scores that reflect real creditworthiness and support a healthy, liquid mortgage market.

That predictive accuracy compounds across an entire origination book. FICO® Score 10T can expand mortgage approval rates by up to 5% without adding incremental risk.

A more predictive score is the most powerful tool available for responsibly expanding homeownership. FICO® Score 10T is that score.

An untested claim about who’s mortgage-ready — and what the data shows

A recently released white paper from a competing scoring provider claims that by assigning a credit score to 33 million additional Americans, it would generate nearly 5 million mortgage-ready borrowers and $1 trillion in mortgage origination opportunity. The data does not support those claims.

Of nearly two million GSE mortgage originations between September 2024 and September 2025, just 1,388 did not have a Classic FICO® Score. That is 0.07% of the market, nowhere near the millions the white paper describes.

A closer look at who’s in the 33 million

The white paper describes three groups within its 33 million claim. The underlying research reveals why these consumers are not likely to be mortgage-seeking — and why a different scoring model doesn’t change that.

• New to credit consumers (2M): just starting to build credit (first cards, first loans). Importantly, from seeking their first access to credit, they will be eligible to be scored by FICO within six months of opening these accounts. 
• Credit retired consumers (24M): voluntarily stepped away from credit. The application rate for this population for any credit product is under 4%. This group is generally not seeking credit — their absence from the credit market, including the mortgage market, is a choice, not a barrier.
• No tradeline consumers (7M): only negative information on file (collections, public records) with no positive payment history to offset it. No consumer in this segment scores above 570 under any approved mortgage credit scoring model.

According to the competing provider’s own data, not a single consumer across any of the three groups above scores 700 or higher, and not one clears the Classic FICO® Score equivalent of 680.

Across all three groups, the barrier isn’t the absence of a score. It’s the absence of sufficient data signal to assess credit readiness — and for the majority, the absence of any active intent to enter the mortgage market. A different scoring model doesn’t change either of these.

Lower scoring standards raise costs for the borrowers this market is working hardest to serve

Minimum scoring criteria are not arbitrary restrictions. They exist because a score with insufficient data behind it isn’t reliably predictive — and a score you can’t rely on doesn’t serve the borrower, the lender, or the investor.

For borrowers, a less predictive score doesn’t just affect who gets approved — it affects the terms they’re offered. Borrowers who are more creditworthy than their score suggests would pay more than they should.

For lenders, loans approved on the basis of an inaccurate assessment carry more risk than anticipated. And that uncertainty doesn’t stay with the lender. When loans reach the secondary market carrying scores investors can’t fully trust, credit becomes harder to get and more expensive for the very borrowers the expansion was meant to help.

Lowering the scoring bar does not raise the homeownership rate. It raises the cost of credit for borrowers, the risk of loss for lenders, and the uncertainty for investors.

Accuracy determines not just who gets approved — but what they pay

FICO® Score 10T and the competing model have access to the same credit bureau sources and the same trended credit data. The performance difference is how that data is used, and it shows up most directly in pricing outcomes for first-time homebuyers.

FICO analyzed 4.7 million first-time homebuyer loans in the GSE historical dataset and found that 33% of first-time homebuyers shift to a worse pricing tier under the competing model — higher rates, higher monthly payments. With the minus 20-point score LLPA adjustment applied in the GSE proof-of-concept pilot, nearly two thirds (63%) of first-time homebuyers would be placed in a worse pricing tier.

For first-time homebuyers, that difference isn’t abstract. It’s the difference between getting into a home and being priced out of one.

Getting more Americans into homes is the goal. Scoring them better is how we get there.

For every borrower, the most accurate credit score is also the most valuable one — not just for getting approved, but for getting approved at the terms they deserve. FICO® Score 10T is the most predictive score for mortgage lending, outperforming competitive alternatives across mortgage types, time periods, and every predictive measure tested. That predictive accuracy translates directly to more approvals, better rates for consumers, and loans that borrowers can sustain.

A score that more accurately reflects creditworthiness opens more doors — and keeps more borrowers in the homes they worked to get into.

For lenders ready to expand approvals confidently — starting now

For institutions looking to evaluate FICO® Score 10T against their own loan portfolio, three programs make that accessible today:

The FICO® Score 10T Free Access Program provides FICO® Score 10T at no cost alongside Classic FICO® Score, enabling side-by-side testing on live originations without adding to credit data spend.

The FICO® Archive Score Program offers mortgage lenders up to two million free archive FICO® Scores on depersonalized historical consumer credit data for retrospective portfolio testing.

The FICO® Mortgage Direct License Program offers a path to production deployment for lenders ready to move FICO® Score 10T into their origination process. To learn more, visit the FICO® Score 10T Migration Resource Center or contact FICO’s Mortgage and Capital Markets team at mortgageinfo@fico.com.

(Sponsored content includes material submitted independently of the Mortgage Bankers Association and MBA NewsLink and does not connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. For more information about sponsored content opportunities, contact Bill Farmakis at bill@jlfarmakis.com or 203/834-8832.)