MBA Study: Single Credit Score Shows Little Pricing Impact

In a HousingWire article published July 10, the Mortgage Bankers Association shared a new study on what would happen if lenders used a single credit score for mortgage underwriting instead of the current multiscore method. HousingWire is a subscription source, so you may hit a paywall. The short version is that moving to one score would have little effect on loan pricing or on guarantee fee revenue for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can read the coverage here.

• The MBA looked at nearly 105,000 mortgage applications from the first half of 2025, using ICE loan application data.
• It compared today's decisioning score, the middle of three scores, the lower of two, or the only score on file, against a single score picked at random from one bureau.
• The random single score landed in the same Fannie Mae pricing bucket about two thirds of the time, and about 90 percent of the time it fell within one bucket in either direction.
• Moves up and moves down happened at roughly equal rates, so the MBA expects little net change in pricing revenue.

At Informative Research, we see this as helpful context for a debate a lot of our clients are already following. The number of credit files a lender pulls, whether that is one bureau or all three from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, shapes both cost and workflow. A study like this adds real numbers to the single file conversation, though it does not settle it. The final call on single file credit still rests with the GSEs and their regulator, and IR will keep tracking it for clients.

For IR clients, the takeaway is to keep watching the single file credit discussion, because the MBA now has data suggesting the pricing risk of the change may be smaller than some expected.

Disclaimer: The views and commentary expressed in this blog are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. Informative Research (IR) makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of the content at the time of publication, but we do not guarantee its completeness or timeliness. Readers should consult their own legal or business advisors before making decisions based on this information. References to third-party companies, products, or services are not endorsements.