The Score That Keeps Mortgages Moving

This article by Julie May originally appeared as sponsored content on MBA NewsLink on October 16, 2026.

The mortgage ecosystem has a common language that runs through the system — the FICO® Score — from prequalification and preapproval, product matching and pricing, underwriting, mortgage-backed securities pooling, rating, whole loan sales, loss reserving, and mortgage servicing rights valuation. The same score used to originate a loan is the score investors rely on for the life of the loan. That continuity is what makes FICO Scores the mortgage industry’s connective tissue: a standard that lets lenders, investors, and servicers speak in the same terms about risk, regardless of geography or era.

Starting January 1, 2027, FHA-approved lenders will be able to underwrite with modernized credit scores — including FICO® Score 10T, the best performing model in the industry — as the agency moves to scores built utilizing the additions of trended credit and rental payment data. Roughly 80% of FHA purchase mortgages go to first-time homebuyers, a population weighing an affordability environment shaped by rates that have stayed higher for longer, at exactly the moment when getting risk assessment right carries the most weight for their access and their terms. Studies have proven that FICO Score 10T is the best performing modern credit score for first-time homebuyers. 

FICO supports credit score modernization, because new data and more advanced modeling that raise the bar on precision are good for the entire ecosystem — lenders, investors, and the borrowers whose approvals and pricing depend on an accurate read of risk.

Precision, not competition for its own sake, expands access

What actually expands access to homeownership is a score’s ability to identify risk correctly — not simply the number of scores available. A model that produces more scores without more accuracy doesn’t create real access; it just transfers the risk, often onto the borrowers and investors least equipped to absorb it. Mortgage risk researchers have clearly shown that the two modern credit scoring methodologies, FICO® Score 10T and VantageScore 4.0, while occupying the same 300-850 numerical range, carry meaningfully different risk at the same numerical score point — a gap that is consistent in years of low delinquency but widens when conditions deteriorate. That pattern isn’t new; the industry has seen it before, in the years leading up to the last housing crisis, when standards loosened under the banner of expanding access.

FICO’s approach has always been scoring more, better — not scoring more by relaxing the criteria that make a score reliable. Expanding access through reduced accuracy isn’t a tradeoff FICO makes, and it’s not one the data supports: independent analysis confirms FICO® Score 10T achieves its predictive edge without relying on relaxed scoring criteria which is not robust over time, or mortgage-specific variables that penalize first-time buyers for not already owning a home. Fairer and more predictive, at the same time — no tradeoff needed. 

Multiple datasets, time periods, and measures — the same answer

Global actuarial firm Milliman has confirmed this twice, independently, using different datasets: first, across nearly 20 million mortgage tradelines spanning 2011 to 2023, covering every major loan type — GSE, FHA, VA, and non-agency; then again using newly public GSE loan-level data spanning 2013 to 2025, specific to conforming mortgage loans — data any lender, analyst, or investor can now download and verify directly. The result was identical both times: FICO® Score 10T outperformed on every predictive measure tested. The advantage is largest precisely where it matters most — first-time homebuyers in FHA lending, where FICO Score 10T’s predictive lift exceeds 10% — and in the highest-default years in the dataset, where the gap between scores widens rather than narrows. A score that gets more precise exactly when conditions get harder is one the mortgage market can trust for the long run.

What this means heading into 2027

FICO® Score 10T’s arrival for FHA underwriting opens a real opportunity: more first-time buyers approved for homeownership, with lenders and the FHA both positioned to reach them with confidence. Precision matters here most: this segment carries more default risk, and FICO Score 10T’s demonstrated predictive performance is what lets lenders extend more opportunities to borrowers responsibly, confidently, and sustainably.