The 20-Point VantageScore Offset Ended October 1: A 738/742 File

My mortgage file has two numbers on it. The credit report my loan officer ordered came back with both sets of scores: the middle of my three Classic FICO scores is 742, and the middle of my three VantageScore 4.0 scores is 738. The loan is $400,000 on a $500,000 purchase with $100,000 down, which is 80 percent loan-to-value, on a 30-year fixed term.

Across most of the range a four-point difference costs nothing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac price loans in score bands, most of them 20 points wide, and a gap that small matters when a band edge falls between the two scores. One of the edges is 740, with one of my numbers just above it and the other just below.

Those grids lasted three weeks. On September 30 both companies removed them, effective October 1. I worked out from the published documents what that does to my own file. The numbers belong to this one file and are not a general result; the method carries over to any file.

The announcement and the rule came in different documents, and only the rule carries a date.

Both effective dates are worded around the lender handing the loan to the company, and neither mentions the day a borrower applied.

My column is 75.01 to 80.00 percent. It runs from 0.375 percent at 780 and above to 2.750 percent at 639 and below, in steps of unequal size. The percentages below are the matrix's; the dollar column is my arithmetic on a $400,000 balance.

My Classic FICO 742 lands in the 740 to 759 row, at 0.875 percent, and my VantageScore 4.0 738 lands one row down, 720 to 739, at 1.250 percent. The matrix says adjustments are calculated on the principal balance at acquisition. Taking $400,000 as that balance, the first is $3,500 and the second is $5,000.

The difference is 0.375 points of the loan, or $1,500. The borrower, the three credit reports and the house are the same in both cases. What differs is which model's number is attached to the loan when it is delivered.

Nothing I have read makes that $1,500 a fee I pay at closing. The matrix says adjustments on securities transactions are drafted from the lender's account. Freddie Mac describes its version as a one-time fee assessed and billed to the Seller when the mortgage is sold, and the Seller is the lender.

Neither document says how a lender recovers that cost from a borrower, or whether it recovers all of it. That is why 0.375 points stays in points and dollars here: any interest rate I attached to it would be a number I invented.

The documents do support something narrower: the charge exists, it is computed on the loan balance, it is assessed to the lender, and its size depends on the row the score falls in. The matrix also says adjustments are cumulative, so this table is one of several that can apply to a single loan, and the only one I am looking at.

Some loans do not carry the adjustment at all. The matrix lists waivers for first-time homebuyers with qualifying income at or below 100 percent of area median income, or 120 percent in high-cost areas, and for HomeReady loans. It names one exception: the adjustment for the minimum mortgage insurance coverage option is still charged where it applies. I am in neither group. If you might be, ask about that before anything else here.

Fannie Mae's September 9 grid is no longer on its pricing page, and I have not read its cells, so I cannot quote them. For Fannie Mae I have HousingWire's September 10 description, quoted above, which added that the top purchase tier of 780 and above for FICO lined up with an 800-plus VantageScore bucket.

From that description I can only make an inference: if the offset worked the way it says, a VantageScore 4.0 of 738 would have been priced like a Classic FICO of 718. The Classic FICO numbers themselves have not moved, since Fannie Mae's earlier matrix, dated 01.28.2026, has the same value in every cell of the purchase table. On those numbers 718 falls in the 700 to 719 row, at 1.375 percent, or $5,500 on $400,000.

None of this says one model runs lower than the other. On my file the VantageScore is four points lower, and I do not know why. On an invented file with the numbers swapped, a VantageScore of 742 and a Classic FICO of 738, the result reverses and the VantageScore delivery lands in the better row of the single grid.

That leaves a choice worth 0.375 points on my loan to be settled by the lender, loan by loan. The documents do not say how a lender decides.

One consequence is my own inference: because the choice belongs to each lender on each loan, two lenders looking at the same file could deliver it with different models. If so, a second quote is worth having when your two numbers straddle an edge, though nothing here says the second quote will be better.

The change on October 1 was narrow. The following stayed as it was.

• The grid's numbers did not move. The purchase table matches the January matrix cell for cell, so a loan delivered with Classic FICO is priced as it was, and the row a VantageScore 4.0 loan lands in is the part that changed.
• Nothing in the lender letter, the bulletin or the agency's page describes a change to how any credit score is calculated.
• Three bureaus are still required: a lender electing VantageScore 4.0 must request it from each of the three credit repositories.
• Classic FICO is still approved. The agency says it expects to retire it at a future date and that no retirement date has been announced.
• Manually underwritten loans must still use Classic FICO, and FICO Score 10T is not currently eligible for delivery.

Whether any of this touches your loan depends on where your two numbers sit. If both representative scores are in the same band, say 745 and 751, the model makes no difference in this table, because both read 0.875 percent. The model matters when the numbers straddle an edge, and the edges are not equal: in my column the step at 740 is 0.375 points, the step at 720 is 0.125 points and the step at 760 is 0.250 points.

The order I am taking this in would work for any file, and it starts with the two questions that can make the rest irrelevant.

First I ask whether the loan is headed to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac at all. These grids belong to those two companies, so a loan sold to neither is not priced on this matrix, and nothing I have read here speaks to it.

Second, I ask whether a waiver applies. For me it does not.

Fourth, I find my own row, which anyone can do because the matrix is a public document: loan-to-value picks the column and the representative score picks the row.

Last, because my numbers straddle 740, I say so and ask whether the loan can be delivered with Classic FICO. The rules leave that choice to the lender, so a no is a legitimate answer, and a no is when a second lender's quote becomes informative.

The answer to the delivery question decides which row applies. Delivered with Classic FICO, my 742 reads 0.875 percent, $3,500 on $400,000. Delivered with VantageScore 4.0, my 738 reads 1.250 percent, $5,000, which is $500 under the 1.375 percent, $5,500, in the row Freddie Mac struck through. Whichever it is, the lender is charged.

The $1,500 between the two answers exists only because of which side of 740 each number fell on. I cannot choose the model. I can find out which one is being used and read the row myself, and I can do both before the loan is locked.

October 1 changed none of my scores or reports and left the three-bureau requirement in place. It moved my 738 up one row on a table, and the choice between the 738 and the 742 stayed with the lender, which makes it on each loan it delivers.

1. What changed in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage pricing on October 1, 2026?

Both companies stopped using separate pricing grids for loans delivered with VantageScore 4.0. Fannie Mae reissued Lender Letter LL-2026-06 and a Loan-Level Price Adjustment Matrix dated 09.30.2026, effective for whole loans purchased on or after October 1, 2026 and for loans delivered into mortgage-backed securities with issue dates on or after October 1. Freddie Mac issued Bulletin 2026-K, effective for mortgages with Settlement Dates on or after October 1, 2026. One grid now applies to either model, and its numbers are the existing Classic FICO numbers.

2. What was the 20-point VantageScore offset?

It is HousingWire's description of the separate VantageScore 4.0 grids that existed from September 9 to September 30, 2026. HousingWire reported on September 10 that price adjustments designed for FICO were applied to VantageScore 4.0 at 20 points higher, with the top FICO purchase tier of 780 and above lining up with an 800-plus VantageScore bucket. Fannie Mae's version of those grids is no longer on its pricing page, so for Fannie Mae the description rests on HousingWire's report. Freddie Mac's removed grid is still visible, struck through, in the redlined Exhibit 19 issued with Bulletin 2026-K, and its rows run 20 points above the Classic FICO rows.

3. Which pricing row do a 742 Classic FICO and a 738 VantageScore 4.0 land in at 80 percent loan-to-value?

On the purchase table for terms greater than 15 years, in the 75.01 to 80.00 percent column, 742 falls in the 740 to 759 row at 0.875 percent and 738 falls in the 720 to 739 row at 1.250 percent. On a $400,000 balance that is $3,500 and $5,000, a difference of 0.375 points or $1,500. These figures belong to one file and are not a general result.

4. What would the 20-point offset have done to a 738 VantageScore 4.0?

For Fannie Mae the answer is an inference from HousingWire's description and was not read from the superseded grid: a 738 would have been priced like a Classic FICO of 718, which is the 700 to 719 row, at 1.375 percent, or $5,500 on $400,000. Freddie Mac's struck-through grid shows 1.375 percent in its 720 to 739 row, which matches. On the single grid the same 738 reads 1.250 percent, or $5,000, a difference of 0.125 points, $500.

5. Does the borrower pay the loan-level price adjustment?

The documents say the charge is assessed to the lender. Fannie Mae's matrix says adjustments on securities transactions are drafted from the lender's account, and Freddie Mac describes its Credit Fee as a one-time fee assessed and billed to the Seller when the mortgage is sold. Neither document says how a lender passes the cost on, so this article does not convert it to an interest rate.

6. Who chooses whether a loan is delivered with Classic FICO or VantageScore 4.0?

The lender. The Federal Housing Finance Agency's credit score page says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allow lenders to determine which model to use on each loan they deliver, and the same model must be used for all borrowers on a given loan. A borrower cannot choose, but can ask which model the loan will be delivered with and what the representative score is on that model.

7. Did credit scores themselves change on October 1, 2026?

Nothing in Fannie Mae's lender letter, Freddie Mac's bulletin or the agency's page describes a change to how any credit score is calculated. The October 1 change is to the pricing grids two companies apply to lenders. Classic FICO remains approved, scores from all three credit repositories are still required, manually underwritten loans must still use Classic FICO, and FICO Score 10T is not currently eligible for delivery.

8. When does the choice of score model make no difference to this pricing table?

When both representative scores fall in the same band. A file at 745 on one model and 751 on the other reads 0.875 percent either way at 75.01 to 80.00 percent loan-to-value. The model matters only when the two numbers straddle a band edge, and the steps differ: in that column the step at 740 is 0.375 points, the step at 720 is 0.125 points and the step at 760 is 0.250 points.