Over the past few years the federal government and lenders have taken several steps to open up the credit box. Signs that the efforts were paying off came last fall when credit scores on closed loans lowered to 723. As of April 2016, the average FICO score was still 723 – but nearly one-third of purchase borrowers had credit scores below 700. And the closing rate on all loans was more than 70% this past March, the highest rate since Ellie Mae began tracking the data in 2011. As a bonus, borrowing costs for buyers remain low. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage continues to remain below 4%.
