You may have noticed the big media splash recently when Fair Isaac Corp., developer of the FICO credit score, announced the debut of a new score version that no longer would penalize consumers who have medical debt-collection issues in their credit files.
The announcement hit the front pages of newspapers and was highlighted on national TV network news. Steve Brown, president of the National Assn. of Realtors, was so enthusiastic about the new score’s potential that he predicted it would “make a real difference in the lives of millions of Americans who have been shut out of the housing market or forced to pay higher mortgage interest rates because of flawed credit scores.”
Wow. Break out the champagne, right? Maybe not so fast. What nobody mentioned about the score, dubbed FICO Score 9, is that most home buyers aren’t likely to see any direct benefit from it any time soon, very possibly not for years.
