Today I read a post by Greg Nino titled Geez leweez Does Anyone Have Good Credit Anymore??? Gawsh!. Greg was bitching complaining blogging about all the losers prospects he was getting lately and wanted to know if everyone else was having a hard time finding qualified buyers.
While I do agree with Greg that there are definitely a lot less "qualified" buyers out there now than in previous years, the primary reason for that is that lending guidelines are so much more stringent now than before.
Almost every day, I get calls and/or emails from prospects looking for info on getting pre-approved for a home loan. Not everyone I talk to is in a position to get pre-approved for a home loan - right now! The key word here being "right now", because some of these prospects "can" be qualified at a later date once they take care of some issue or another.
Greg's main complaint was that no one had good credit anymore and while I still see some really bad credit reports, I actually think that my average borrower now has better credit and a higher median (the score we use to qualify a borrower) score than in previous years.
Over the years, I have tracked a lot of different aspects of my business. I track where my prospects come from and subsequently, where my production (closed transactions) come from. I track my close rate and my fall-out rate as well as my pull-thru rate and as much as it may sound like these are the same things, I assure you, they are completely different numbers. Needless to say, I track a number of different things.
What I have never tracked are my borrower's credit scores. While I can't go back and look at the credit scores of every borrower I have worked with, I can say with some certainty and confidence that up until recently, I would put the average median credit score of most of my clients at the mid-high 600 range, probably somewhere between 640-680.
What I can track are the credit scores of all the borrowers I have worked with since I have been with Cobalt Financial Corp (April 2009). Since then, the average median credit scores of all of my Cobalt borrowers is as follows:
Closed Loans: 739
Currently in Escrow: 702
Active Pipeline: 748
(pre-approved and actively looking)
I can say with about 99% certainty (I would even bet money on it) that the clients I have worked with in the past 17 months have actually had much higher credit scores than the clients I worked with in previous years. Furthermore, the clients I am working with these days also have much more reserves and down payments than the clients I have worked with in the past (pre 2008). 
Granted, my actual number of sales are down, which means that I am working with less borrowers these days than I have in previous years but fortunately, my clients these days are in much better shape financially than they ever have been.
The bad part of this all is that just having a good credit score, money in the bank and a good job does not automatically mean that the person will "qualify" for a home loan. I've also got plenty of those that I'm working with too.
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