Most likely dont know which score they use

Originally posted by @Fausto Carosella :
Hey Lender Friends,

Do you specifically know which version of the FICO score you use for qualification? — i.e. FICO score 5, FICO score 8 etc. — Is it typical for a lender to know or not know which one they use?

 Typical to not know since it's not possible to pick or shop it or anything else. And historically people trying to micromanage this sort of thing rarely end up actually buying homes, for whatever reason, so it's not like there's any incentive to 'specialize' in this for lenders. 

I have had exactly one client accurately tell me their FICO score. Everyone else is consistently anywhere from 20 to 75 points off, coin toss on which direction. 

That one single person who has ever been accurate did so by going to the FICO website, he clicked "show me the scores used by mortgage lenders," paid $20, and I ran his credit on the exact same day & the exact same number for all three bureaus (which meant it was a waste of his $20 in retrospect). Every other source is inaccurate 100% of the time... they are fine for knowing if the general trendline is up or down, but not for knowing what the number used by the mortgage industry will be.

My lender pulled a FICO 4 from FDC factulal data corp.

Thanks for the responses everyone. The reason why I ask is because I subscribe to "MyFICO.com" and you can pull up all your credit scores from each version. The one that instantly pops up is like a "rolling average" (I guess you could say) of them all. When I bring up the ones that are listed as "Typically used by lenders" they are a lot higher -- in my case at least--  So @Chris Mason , based on your experience, it does seem like those numbers would actually be the ones a lender would pull up and use. I wanted to get familiar with the tool myself being a Realtor since I could recommend it to buyers needing to get in control of their credit. @Russell Brazil yup, you're right... I asked my go to lender and he didn't know which one he used, so I figured I'd ask everyone here. @Jill F. did you only happen to find that out because you looked at paperwork from what they pulled, or did they say "Hey we're pulling a FICO 4"?

Because I was requesting seller financing for part of my down payment, I requested a copy of the credit report the bank pulled to share with the seller. This was great for me as it avoided another hard pull and got the sellers the same report used by the bank. It turned out that the bank is prohibited from sharing that info directly with me but when I requested the report, the bank gave me the number of the commercial credit provider that they used (Factual Data Corp) and I was able to request a copy directly from them.

Factual Data Corp specializes in providing commercial credit reports for small banks and mortgage brokers.

They would only send the report by regular mail so it took 4 days. The report I received was labeled as a FICO 4. 

@Fausto Carosella

The versions required for conventional loans are as follows:

Credit scores are required for most mortgage loans purchased or securitized by Fannie Mae. The classic FICO credit score is produced from software developed by Fair Isaac Corporation and is available from the three major credit repositories. Fannie Mae requires the following versions of the classic FICO score for both DU and manually underwritten mortgage loans:

• Equifax Beacon® 5.0;
• Experian®/Fair Isaac Risk Model V2SM; and
• TransUnion FICO® Risk Score, Classic 04.

The lender must request these FICO credit scores for each borrower from each of the three major credit repositories when they order the three in-file merged credit report. If the borrower’s credit file includes complete and accurate information to ensure the validity of the credit score, the lender does not need to further evaluate the borrower’s creditworthiness.

https://www.fanniemae.com/content/guide/selling/b3...

If you have your credit pulled for a mortgage and look at a copy of the report, you will see that those versions are listed on the report.