Credit Reporting Companies Seek To Fight Back Against Strategic Defaults With Lower Scores!!

Credit reporting agencies are taking serious notice of strategic defaults. The main credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union, have seen a sharp and significant increase in default rates among prime borrowers. The main credit scoring companies, Fair Isaac creator of FICO and VantageScore Solutions creator of the Vantage Score are seeking to account for the change in consumers payment behavior during this current economic crises.


Below is an excerpt from an article published by The Real Deal as it relates to this new attitude by credit reporting company's:


"[i]n late October, both Fair Isaac, the developer of the FICO score that dominates the mortgage field, and VantageScore Solutions, a joint venture by the three national credit bureaus and marketer of the competing VantageScore, outlined modifications they are making to handle the vast credit disruptions caused by the housing bust, the recession, high unemployment and behavioral changes by consumers. Not only are borrowers who previously were rated outstanding credit risks far more likely to default today...but many homeowners are defying long-standing credit industry assumptions by going delinquent on their first mortgage payments while simultaneously continuing to pay their credit card balances and second mortgages on time. Strategic defaults -- walkaways -- by high-score borrowers also have been an unexpected and shocking development."


"To adjust its statistical models to these new realities...VantageScore 2.0...expected to be rolled out nationwide to lenders in January, focuses in on the subtle warning signs of credit stress that might have been missed earlier -- and penalizes or rewards consumers with higher or lower risk scores than they would have received before. New FICO 8 Mortgage Score is based on similarly exhaustive research into consumer credit behavior changes...[w]hen used by a lender to rate the risk of new applicants or existing mortgage customers. The Mortgage Score is likely to be anywhere from 15 percent to 25 percent more accurate in detecting signs of future default compared with the standard FICO model."


So what does this all mean?