Vantage Score 4.0

A borrower came to me with a 671 credit score. By the time they went under contract, their score was 797 — and they didn't pay off a single debt.

Here's what happened. They had a few small collections sitting on their credit report — the kind of stuff that tanks a traditional credit score. Under the old model, we would've had to go through credit repair, pay off those debts, wait for rescores — weeks of delays and hundreds of dollars out of pocket.

But I had access to something new.

VantageScore 4.0. It's a newer credit scoring model that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now accept on conventional and VA loans. And it reads your credit history differently.

Instead of punishing you for old collections, it looks at the trend — are your balances going up or going down? Are you managing your current obligations responsibly? That's what it weighs.

For this borrower, that shift meant everything. Their VantageScore came back at 797 — over 120 points higher than their FICO. That better score dropped their interest rate by a full half point. On a 30-year mortgage, that's real money, every single month, for the life of the loan.

Not every lender has access to VantageScore 4.0 yet. I do. If you've been told your credit isn't strong enough, or if you've been putting off buying because you thought you needed to clean up your credit first — reach out. The score that held you back might not be the one that matters anymore.