Each of the three major credit bureaus is going to give you a credit score.  This credit score is calculated differently by each of the bureaus. 

A company called Fair Isaacs invented the FICO credit scoring system. Each credit bureau has their own credit score; Equifax calls their score Scorepower, for instance. Each bureau also sells the VantageScore credit score, a competitor to FICO. Regardless of the system used, the credit score takes into account how much credit you have, how much you use it, how fast you repay your bills, if you have any legal or tax judgments recorded against you and so on.  Even though all three bureaus use VantageScore, credit scores will not be the same for all three. This is because they each track different information.

Not all scoring systems are the same so if you go to get your credit score from Fair Isaacs at FairIsaacs.com, the score will be higher than when you get a score from the credit bureaus.  A mortgage lender will look at all three credit bureau scores and select the middle of the three as the best measure of your current credit.

For more detailed information, come to our FREE NO OBLIGATION FIRST TIME HOMEBUYER class or wait for future blogs.  “Simple answers to home ownership questions”.