This has been one of my favorite quotes over the last year, "but I have great credit". It usually comes out of a clients mouth right after they tell me something that I don't really want to hear. Like they just started their own company, or they don't really have enough money for the down payment.
What makes this statement so much funnier to me is that most people that you deal with are just like the rest of us, frustrated with the way things were a few years ago which led us to the housing market of today, yet they still want us to make an exception just for them. For most of these clients I gently let them know that while great credit is appreciated it is not the biggest factor in todays mortgage market. In fact its easier to get someone qualified with less than perfect credit as long as we can prove their income. 
We relied so heavily on scores a few years ago, that many of the programs that were available didn't even bother to think about someones ability to repay. Stated Income loans and No Doc loans, which had traditionally performed very well, were suddenly being offered to a whole new group of clients based on Credit Score alone. When these programs were first introduced to the marketplace, they were for a very specific section of clients who had shown the ability to manage their assetts very well, and were treated more as portfolio loans. As new investors began offering them to the masses however, it was really just a score game, and whoever could get their Fico up to the right score got to play.
This brings about a very interesting question. "what is great credit?" Is it just the basics of the fico score? Is it the last 2 years of credit debt that we review? If we base our answers of mortgage terms and rates we get different answers. Fha and VA investors start adjusting the rate for borrowers once they go below a 660 Fico, while conventional starts adjusting the rate you get at 739! I would say there is a big difference.
I want to know what you think is great credit, and how do you think we should be looking at it going forward?
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