FHFA Moves Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to One Pricing Grid for FICO and VantageScore

FHFA Moves Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to One Pricing Grid for FICO and VantageScore

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is moving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac toward a single mortgage pricing grid for loans using either Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0, another major step toward introducing competition into a credit-scoring system long dominated by FICO.

FHFA Director Bill Pulte announced the change on Sept. 28, saying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would move to “one pricing grid,” with VantageScore joining the existing Classic FICO framework. The announcement follows FHFA’s expansion of VantageScore 4.0 earlier in September to all approved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders.

Primary context: Pulte’s September 28 announcement describes the move to one pricing grid. Pulte is the FHFA director, not a Fannie Mae executive.

For mortgage lenders and borrowers, the change could be significant because loan-level price adjustments, or LLPAs, affect the upfront cost of many conventional mortgages sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Lenders commonly incorporate those fees into a borrower’s mortgage pricing.

What changed

When VantageScore 4.0 became broadly available for eligible Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans, the initial pricing framework incorporated a 20-point adjustment when translating VantageScore results into the GSE pricing grid.

Under the single-grid framework announced by Pulte, that separate adjustment is being removed, according to HousingWire’s review of the pricing grid shared by the FHFA director. Classic FICO remains available, while VantageScore 4.0 can be used for eligible loans.

The practical effect is that lenders will no longer have to price VantageScore loans through a separate credit-score adjustment framework.

FHFA had already broadened access to VantageScore 4.0 on Sept. 9, allowing all approved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders to use the model for eligible loans without obtaining prior written approval. Lenders can continue using Classic FICO instead. FICO Score 10T is not yet eligible for GSE loan delivery.

FHFA has not yet published a detailed implementation timetable for the newly announced unified grid.

Why the pricing grid matters

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generally assess upfront fees based on characteristics that can include a borrower’s credit score, loan-to-value ratio and other risk factors.

Those adjustments can materially affect the economics of a mortgage.

Although LLPAs are technically charged to lenders, lenders can account for those costs through the rate or pricing offered to borrowers. A change in the credit-score bucket assigned to a loan therefore can influence both upfront costs and the rate available to the borrower.

Using one grid may also make it easier for lenders to compare the economics of Classic FICO and VantageScore 4.0 without an additional pricing conversion layered onto one model.

That does not mean every borrower will receive a better rate under VantageScore. The two models can produce different scores for the same borrower, and the result will depend on the individual credit profile and the loan program.

UWM says VantageScore is already changing borrower outcomes

United Wholesale Mortgage has been among the most aggressive large lenders in adopting VantageScore 4.0.

UWM said Sept. 15 that approximately 25% of borrowers using its platform were seeing a more advantageous credit result with VantageScore 4.0 compared with the traditional FICO model.

According to UWM, those differences can potentially improve mortgage pricing, reduce LLPAs or mortgage insurance costs, expand eligibility and, in some cases, allow a borrower who otherwise would not qualify to obtain a mortgage.

The lender said it expected the share of borrowers receiving a more favorable result to rise to as many as two in five by the end of September. The company did not disclose how many borrowers fell into each category of savings or eligibility improvement.

“The addition of VS4 has been one of the best things that has come from FHFA in many, many years,” UWM President and CEO Mat Ishbia said in the company’s announcement.

UWM said the additional scoring option does not change its underlying lending standards. Instead, VantageScore 4.0 provides another method of evaluating a borrower’s credit history.

Mortgage credit-score competition is accelerating

The latest FHFA action comes during a rapid expansion of VantageScore across the mortgage market.

TransUnion announced Sept. 29 that it will continue offering standalone VantageScore 4.0 mortgage origination scores for 99 cents through December 2028. The credit bureau said more than 1,100 mortgage lenders had adopted VantageScore 4.0 between January and September 2026, including nine of its 15 largest mortgage-lender customers.

The Federal Housing Administration is also moving toward newer credit models. FHA plans to begin accepting mortgages using VantageScore 4.0 starting Jan. 1, 2027, while FHFA has said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are continuing preparations for eventual use of FICO Score 10T.

The broader shift is creating competition in an area of mortgage origination that historically offered lenders relatively little choice.

FICO faces new competitive pressure

Financial markets reacted sharply to the FHFA announcement.

Shares of Fair Isaac Corp., the company behind FICO scores, fell more than 26% on Sept. 29 as investors assessed the potential impact of greater VantageScore adoption on FICO’s mortgage business.

Watch on desktop: Bloomberg Podcasts covers the FICO market reaction and credit-score competition within this 4-minute, 17-second Stock Movers report. It is market coverage, not mortgage pricing advice or a promise of borrower savings.

Video source: Bloomberg Podcasts Stock Movers report on YouTube (4 minutes, 17 seconds).

The reaction reflects a larger question for the mortgage industry: whether lenders will continue defaulting to Classic FICO when another GSE-accepted scoring model can be used within substantially the same pricing framework.

Classic FICO is not disappearing. It remains an accepted scoring method for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans and is still required in certain situations, including manually underwritten GSE loans.

But the unified pricing grid removes another barrier that could have discouraged lenders from choosing VantageScore.

What borrowers should know

Borrowers generally will not need to choose a scoring model themselves. Mortgage lenders decide which eligible model to use within applicable agency and underwriting requirements.

A borrower could receive a different qualifying score depending on which model is used because VantageScore 4.0 and Classic FICO evaluate credit information differently.

For some borrowers, that difference could affect eligibility or pricing. For others, it may make little or no difference.

The change also does not eliminate other factors that determine mortgage approval and pricing, including income, debt, down payment, property characteristics, loan type and prevailing interest rates.

What comes next

The most important unanswered question is how quickly lenders shift meaningful production toward VantageScore once the unified pricing framework is implemented.

FHFA has already opened VantageScore 4.0 to all approved Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders, UWM is reporting favorable results for a portion of its borrowers, and credit bureaus are competing aggressively on score pricing.

The move to a single GSE pricing grid could accelerate that adoption by making the choice between credit models less about separate pricing mechanics and more about which model produces the most useful credit assessment for a particular mortgage.

For an industry facing continued affordability pressure, increased competition in credit scoring may become one of the more consequential changes to conventional mortgage origination in years.

Media updated October 1, 2026, 2:21 p.m. ET. Original publication date unchanged.

Cover: Official FHFA portrait of William J. Pulte.