So, you’re ready to buy your first home. You check your credit on your own, review your scores, and everything seems fine. While you don’t have much credit history, you have a few credit cards and a paid-off car loan. Confident, you tell your lender you’re set to go. But when the lender pulls your credit, there are no scores. What happened?
Your credit file is too “thin” to generate mortgage scores. While you may have a paid-off car loan that was always paid on time, it’s now closed, and that positive history no longer counts. As for your credit cards, you’ve had them for less than six months. To generate mortgage FICO scores, you need at least one open account that has been active with a balance in the last six to eight months. Even if you’ve had other credit cards in the past, if they’re closed and you don’t have any open accounts with a longer history, you won’t be able to generate mortgage credit scores.
Why did you have scores when you checked your own report? Those scores are likely personal or educational scores, such as FICO 08 or 09. If you accessed your report through a site like Credit Karma, you’re seeing Vantage Scores, not FICO scores. Vantage Scores can be generated with just one month of account history, while FICO 08 and 09 use different algorithms compared to mortgage FICO models, making them more lenient in score generation.
As the industry shifts toward FICO 10T and Vantage 04, this issue will become less significant. Vantage scores require less time to generate and both models will incorporate alternative credit sources, such as utilities and rent, to help establish scores. Currently, Experian and TransUnion offer programs that allow you to report alternative credit, but these do not impact mortgage scores. The transition to the new models for conventional loans is expected to occur in Q4 2025 or later.
What can you do now if you want to buy a home but lack enough credit to generate mortgage scores? Opening your own credit card is a good start, though it will take time to build scores on a new account. To speed up the process, consider asking a family member or friend to add you as an authorized user on one of their existing cards. Ideally, this card should have a long history, a low balance, and no missed payments. Once it reports to the credit bureaus, you’ll benefit from the card’s history and should see scores generated quickly. You don’t need to have the card in your possession, and the person who added you can remove you once you’ve purchased your home. After that, you can focus on building your own credit.
Discovering you have no mortgage scores after checking your credit can be frustrating, but there are steps you can take to improve your situation while you work on establishing your credit profile.