Home
Photos
Archives
Profiles
Essays
Luke Ford
Lending Tree

Refinancing In The Current Market

Ellen James Martin writes:

You'll also want to access your credit scores from the credit bureaus, which will provide lenders with a quantitative measure of your credit risk. Most lenders still use FICO scores, pioneered by the Fair Isaac Corp. Usually you need to pay a fee to obtain your credit scores. While you can buy these through the Fair Isaac Web site, www.myfico.com, you can also receive the scores from the three large credit bureaus. FICO scores range from 300 to 850. Comparison shop like crazy. One irony of the current mortgage market is that lenders are as eager as ever to make loans, though their guidelines are more stringent. "Because many borrowers are waiting on the sidelines, lenders are hungrier than usual," says Blaine Rickford, a mortgage broker since 1978.