Soooo..what exactly does a FICO score above 800 get you..?

[halcyon]

I'm in the middle of a home refinance, and I just received my FICO score..which is 811. Forgive my naivety, but can interest rates be negotiated based on your credit score? Now.... I'm assuming that they can, but I just want to pose the question to the group to, more or less, gauge just how often it happens. I'm more than willing to flex while stating my FICO score, just to add a little emphasis to the beastly power of the 811.

 

[freebird5825]

You got me curious...here is a short answer...

How to Determine the Affect FICO Scores Have on Mortgage Interest Rates | eHow.com

 

[Texas Proud]

The question is how big a loan do you want...


But if it is a simple small loan... then the answer is 'NO'.. you can not negotiate your rate... they price them based on your rate anyhow... and the person who you talk to does not have the ability to lower it just because you have an 811...

 

[aaronc879]

When I got my mortgage a few years ago, I got the same rate with a 800 score as someone else got with a 650 score. The difference is that a higher score will make you more likely to get a loan in the first place and may get you a bigger loan but not a better rate. At least that's my experience.

 

[W2R]

You can negotiate a lower mortgage rate by haggling. This is like dickering in a bazaar, so bring all your skills at that sort of thing. I did when I bought my present house, anyway, and got a much lower rate than originally offered. That was in 2002 so maybe times have changed.

I probably wouldn't have qualified for a loan at all without the high FICO, but it didn't seem to affect the initial rate offered.

 

[Dimsumkid]

When I got my mortgage a few years ago, I got the same rate with a 800 score as someone else got with a 650 score. The difference is that a higher score will make you more likely to get a loan in the first place and may get you a bigger loan but not a better rate. At least that's my experience.

When we refinanced in 2009 with a local savings & loan we automatically got the best int. rate, we were told a score under 750 would've added an addl 0.25 to the rate.

 

[halcyon]

The loan amount is small... only 70K. We are refinancing to a 15-year mortgage from a 30-year that we have 18 years left on. The closing costs are nice and tidy at $299. Our interest rate, as it stands, will drop to 4.25 from 5.25. It's not bad, I just wondered if we could do better.

Thanks for the replies..

 

[Texas Proud]

The loan amount is small... only 70K. We are refinancing to a 15-year mortgage from a 30-year that we have 18 years left on. The closing costs are nice and tidy at $299. Our interest rate, as it stands, will drop to 4.25 from 5.25. It's not bad, I just wondered if we could do better.

Thanks for the replies..

Only if you find a different lender that will charge a lower rate... not because of your credit score..

 

[Nords]

I'm in the middle of a home refinance...

You already applied and presumably locked the rate you applied for. They'd possibly be willing to negotiate but they'd probably charge you a fee for changing the interest rate.

When we did our online refi app with PenFed, the final screen popped up a lower (unadvertised) rate. I don't know if the website accessed our credit scores as soon as we typed our SSNs into the app and then reloaded the final page in the 10 minutes it took us to get through the rest of the app, or if they were just offering a much much lower rate for more points.