Yes. You can buy a house with a 620 credit score, on a conventional loan or an FHA loan, and in Massachusetts you can do it with 3 to 5 percent down. The number changes what the loan costs and which lenders will look at it. It doesn’t decide whether you’re allowed to buy.
There’s an important detail to consider here. 620 stopped being Fannie Mae’s rule in November 2025. It’s still real, in two narrower places than the internet thinks, and one of them is expensive.
The 620 Rule Changed in November 2025
Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide announcement of November 5, 2025 removed the minimum representative credit score of 620 for new Desktop Underwriter casefiles created on or after November 16, 2025. The Selling Guide now says plainly that a minimum credit score isn’t required for a Desktop Underwriter casefile, because the system runs its own analysis of the credit report instead of applying a cutoff. Freddie Mac says the same thing by a different route. Its Seller/Servicer Guide gives no minimum Indicator Score for a loan that gets an Accept through Loan Product Advisor.
There’s one situation where 620 does survive. On a conventional loan a human underwrites by hand, 620 is still the floor for a fixed-rate loan, and only up to 75 percent loan-to-value with reserves. If you’re putting 3 or 5 percent down on a house you’ll live in, you aren’t in that box.
So Why Does Everyone Still Say 620?
Because the lender says it, and the lender is allowed to. The agency floors govern what Fannie Mae will buy, what FHA will insure and what the VA will guaranty. None of them tells a lender it has to lend at the floor. A lender’s own minimum, called an overlay, is above it, and it’s set differently at different shops.
So “do I qualify” has a different answer depending on who you ask. One underwriting desk won’t look at a 620 on a 5 percent down purchase. Another will, with reserves and a clean two years. Neither is quoting an agency rule, which is why a pre-qualification at 620 is worth more than it sounds. You’re finding out whose guidelines your file already fits. If the credit check itself is what’s stopping you, here’s what a mortgage pull does to a score.
What 620 Costs on a Conventional Loan
Your score gets priced into a one-time fee the lender owes Fannie Mae when it sells the loan, called a loan-level price adjustment. There’s no 620 row on that grid. The bottom row of the current pricing matrix is 639 and below, so a 620 and a 500 pay the same fee, and Freddie Mac’s grid matches it. A 620 to 639 row ran until May 1, 2023, which is why so many articles still quote one.
So the question isn’t what a 620 costs, it’s what it costs at your down payment. Here’s that bottom row on a $525,000 North Shore purchase, 30-year fixed, one unit.
| Down payment | Loan-to-value | Loan amount | Fee | In dollars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 percent | 97.00% | $509,250 | 1.750% | $8,912 |
| 5 percent | 95.00% | $498,750 | 2.250% | $11,222 |
| 10 percent | 90.00% | $472,500 | 2.625% | $12,403 |
| 15 percent | 85.00% | $446,250 | 2.875% | $12,830 |
| 20 percent | 80.00% | $420,000 | 2.750% | $11,550 |
Read the dollar column twice. At 620, on the same house, the fee is bigger at 15 percent down than at 3 percent down, even though you’re borrowing $63,000 less. The 2023 rewrite of this grid made the score penalty peak in the middle of the range instead of falling in a straight line.
That doesn’t make a small down payment cheaper overall, because at 20 percent down the mortgage insurance disappears, and that’s a far bigger number. Buying without 20 percent down is its own decision. The narrow version is that saving another $20,000 doesn’t shrink what your score costs. So when somebody quotes you a percentage, ask which band it belongs to.
Where the 620 Cliff Is
The cliff is at the mortgage insurance company.
Arch MI publishes a borrower-paid monthly rate card, effective February 9, 2026 and valid in Massachusetts. On that card, at 95 percent loan-to-value, the 620 to 639 tier runs 1.42 percent of the loan a year and the tier below 620 runs 1.99 percent. On the $498,750 loan in the table, that’s $590 a month against $827. One point of credit score, $237 a month. At 3 percent down the gap is wider still, $789 against $1,103.
Now compare that with climbing. Reaching the 640 tier saves about $38 a month on the same loan, and reaching 660 saves about $58. Falling one point below 620 costs roughly six times what climbing twenty points above it saves. Which gives the most useful instruction on this page. Between your pre-qualification and your closing, don’t open a store card, don’t finance the furniture and don’t let a balance run up. Premiums vary by insurer and by the day, so treat these as one published card rather than your quote.
FHA or Conventional at 620?
With a small down payment, FHA usually wins. A conventional loan prices your score twice, in the delivery fee and in the insurance tier. FHA prices it zero times. HUD’s Handbook 4000.1 sets the upfront premium at 1.75 percent for everybody and the annual premium by loan size, loan-to-value and term. Credit score appears in neither table.
On the same $525,000 purchase, FHA at 3.5 percent down is a $506,625 loan, $8,866 upfront which you can finance, and 55 basis points a year, about $232 a month in year one. Conventional at 5 percent down with a 620 is $11,222 at closing and about $590 a month. FHA is $2,356 cheaper before the monthly money starts, and another $358 a month cheaper after that.
It turns over in four places. You should know which apply before you choose a loan.
- Twenty percent down. No mortgage insurance on a conventional loan, so the 620 costs a one-time 2.750 percent and nothing monthly, ever. Conventional wins outright.
- Ten percent down or more. At 90.00 percent loan-to-value or below, FHA’s annual premium runs eleven years instead of the life of the loan. Put 9.99 percent down and you pay it for thirty.
- A bigger loan. Above a base loan of $726,200 FHA’s annual premium steps up to 70 or 75 basis points, and Essex County’s FHA limit of $962,550 means loans that size happen here.
- The first-time buyer fee waiver, which takes the conventional fee to zero. Next section.
Above 90 percent loan-to-value, FHA’s annual premium never comes off. Conventional mortgage insurance ends automatically once your balance is scheduled to reach 78 percent of what you paid. If you expect to stay fifteen years, read when PMI drops off first.
What 620 Means in Massachusetts
Fannie Mae waives the credit-score fee outright for a first-time buyer whose qualifying income is at or under the area median, and the threshold rises to 120 percent of it in a high-cost area. Essex County is one by Fannie’s own definition, a county whose loan limit beats the national baseline, ours being $962,550 against $832,750. So a first-time buyer here, under the income line, pays the same credit-score fee at 620 that a 780 borrower pays, which is nothing. The $11,222 in the table becomes zero.
First-time buyer means no ownership interest in the last three years, not never, and the income figure is set by geography finer than the county, so it gets looked up on the address you’re buying. HomeReady is the companion program. It waives the same fee under 80 percent of area median income and cuts the mortgage insurance you buy from 30 percent coverage to 25. Both survive at a 620.
MassHousing’s product eligibility matrix, effective July 6, 2026, sets 640 as the credit minimum on every product it offers, and ONE Mortgage is 640 for a single family or condominium, 660 for a two or three family. At 620 you’re twenty points short of both, and the down payment help attached to them is a second mortgage rather than a grant, so it inherits the floor. Down payment assistance in Massachusetts covers what’s out there.
Should You Buy Now or Wait for 640?
You should buy now if the state programs aren’t central to your plan. At 620 the biggest swings in cost come from which program you use and whose guidelines your file fits, and both get decided this week rather than in ninety days. Meanwhile you’re paying rent.
However, if you’re within a few points of 640, and MassHousing or ONE Mortgage assistance is why the purchase makes sense, wait. Those twenty points are worth real cash instead of a few dollars a month.
Paying down revolving balances is your best bet, because utilization is about 30 percent of the score and balances re-report monthly. Pulling all three reports at annualcreditreport.com and disputing a genuine error starts an investigation the bureau has 30 days to finish. Once something has changed, your loan officer can ask the credit vendor for a rapid rescore. Most of the rest doesn’t work. Paying off an old collection generally doesn’t move a mortgage score, and closing an old card hurts, because it shrinks your available credit and your average account age at once. We earn nothing from the version where you wait, which is why we’ll say which one you’re in.
Questions We Get at 620
Is 620 Still the Minimum for a Conventional Loan?
Not as an agency rule. Fannie Mae publishes no minimum for a Desktop Underwriter casefile and Freddie Mac publishes none for a Loan Product Advisor Accept. The 620 you keep finding is either the hand-underwriting floor at low leverage or one lender’s overlay.
Does FHA Require a 580 Score?
No. FHA’s eligibility floor is 500. The 580 is a down payment line. At 580 and up you can put 3.5 percent down, and between 500 and 579 you need 10 percent.
Do I Need 25 Percent Down with a 620?
No. Nothing in the agency rules ties a 620 to 25 percent down. Three and five percent down are both ordinary at that score.
Is FHA the Loan for Bad Credit?
No, and that framing walks buyers into the wrong loan. FHA is often cheaper at 620 because of how it prices insurance, not because of who it’s for. At 20 percent down conventional beats it at any score.
Will My Score Change the Rate I’m Quoted?
Your score drives a fee, and the wholesale lender decides how that fee reaches your pricing. Setting a rate and holding one are both the lender’s job. What GoldCoast does is put a single file in front of several lenders’ guidelines and show you what each one does with it.
Where These Numbers Come From
Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide and its pricing matrix, Freddie Mac’s Guide and Exhibit 19, HUD Handbook 4000.1, the Arch MI rate card, the MassHousing product matrix, the ONE Mortgage guidelines and the FHFA loan limit file, each with the date it carries. The $525,000 example, and every dollar worked out from it, is ours.
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