A third of denials were not about bad credit
About a third of mortgage denials on conventional loans for a primary residence in 2025 came down to one cause: not enough credit history. Not bad credit. Thin credit.
Put a dollar figure on what that costs. On a $640,000 loan, half a point of interest rate is about $208 a month. Call it $75,000 over the loan. Same house. Same buyer. Same down payment. Different credit file.
Those figures are an illustration, not a rate quote. Your actual rate depends on credit, equity, property, and lender, and not every borrower qualifies. The size of the gap is the point. And the rules that decide which side of it you land on just changed.
One scoreboard became two
For decades, a mortgage headed to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac had exactly 1 score behind it. Classic FICO. One model, one set of rules, no alternatives.
That is over. Fannie and Freddie now permit lenders to use VantageScore 4.0 on every mortgage they buy. VantageScore is owned jointly by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and launched in 2006 as a competitor to FICO, which has been running since 1989.
This began in April as a pilot with roughly 50 lenders and is now open across the board. FICO's newer 10T model is expected to be approved in the coming months, and starting January 1 the FHA will insure loans underwritten with both.
The reframe most people miss: you do not have a credit score. You have several. Which one gets used just became a strategy question.
The invisible payment
Classic FICO does not look at rent. VantageScore 4.0 does, and utilities too.
Classic FICO does not look at rent. VantageScore 4.0 does, and utilities too. That single difference is what turns a thin file into a scoreable one.
Those denials were not people who missed payments. Those were people with nothing to score.
There are roughly 46.8 million renter households in this country, each making the largest single payment in their budget, on schedule, for years, and receiving zero credit for it.
The largest payment in the budget. Counting for nothing.
For a renter weighing the move, the question underneath all of this is what renting actually costs against owning over the same years. I offer that comparison at RSRLinks.com/RVO, with both columns side by side.
The catch, and the $10 fix
Only about 13% of consumers have their rent reported to the credit bureaus, up from 11% the prior year. So the new model will go looking for your rent history and may find an empty shelf.
That is fixable, and it is cheap. Some property managers already feed the data to the bureaus. If yours does not, rent reporting services will do it for roughly $10 a month, and some large managers will turn it on free if you ask.
Ten dollars a month to convert your biggest expense into credit history. There are not many trades that lopsided.
Trended data, and the 24 month runway
The second change is quieter and arguably larger.
Trended data looks at your credit behavior over the last 24 months. Not just today's balance. The balance, the minimum due, and what you actually paid, every month, for 2 years.
It separates 2 borrowers who look identical on the old score. The transactor pays the card off monthly. The revolver carries it forward. Same number on classic FICO. Very different risk to a lender.
Trended data has been in your credit report for years, just never in the mortgage score. Now it is. And it looks back 24 months, which means the file that gets you quoted in 2028 is being written this month.
Paying on time was the old rule. How you pay is the new one.
Two more things worth knowing
Lenders must currently pull all 3 credit reports, a tri merge, and use the middle score. The FHFA is considering dropping that to 2 and studying whether 1 could work. Credit experts are pushing back, and the objection is sound: the 3 reports are not identical, and a lender pulling fewer can miss something.
Checking these scores yourself is not simple either. FICO sells a subscription at $29.95 or $39.95 a month. VantageScore 4.0 is free with a Synchrony Bank account. Zillow's rental application program includes access for $35. Or ask a mortgage professional to pull both and tell you which one positions you better.
The move
The rate is an output. The credit file is the input, and you control far more of the input than you think.
This week, find out whether your rent is being reported. Call the property manager and ask directly. If the answer is no, sign up for a rent reporting service. For a renter planning to buy, nothing else returns as much for $10 a month.
To see where your score sits before a lender does, go to RSRLinks.com/FICO.
To build the budget that keeps those 24 months of trended data working for you instead of against you, go to RSRLinks.com/DDD. That is the Debt Done Date tool: your Blended Household Interest Rate plus a plan to pay all household debt off by a date certain.
Strategy Beats Rate. Always.