If you want to buy a house, you must stay aware of what your FICO score is. However now there is going to be a a new way to check it, and it will pick up late property taxes, liens placed on your property, etc. This may not sound like a big deal. But...
Scenario. You make your house payment faithfully every month. Your servicer takes the money and puts it into the escrow account. Let's say the tax bill comes, the person who handles this quits, a new person comes in and not trained properly and the taxes don't get paid on time. That will show up on your FICO score even if you made your payments on time!!
Let's say you own a property that sides to a busy street. You are good to mow your lawn and your house has great curb appeal. However, outside your fence by the busy street the weeds grow up and you might even get a pesky letter from the city. Eventually you get out there and mow, or one day it is mowed and you don't know who did it. Later when you check your FICO you could find a bad mark for the city having it mowed and putting a lien on your property. In the past this would not show up. I sold a trailer park and at closing found out the city had put a $75 lien on my property for weeds outside our fence. If this new way of doing FICO scores had been used then, my credit score would have gone down.
So be- aware - stay vigilant. Check your scores regularly and get the annual free report so if there is somethign on there that could ruin your scores you will know it, and if there are errors, you can get those taken off.
Remember without the right ### on the FICO, you can't qualify for a mortgage loan.
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