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Kooky
Builder of Shaka, the payment router that pays every agent their commission on closing date.
About Kooky and Shaka →The Federal Housing Finance Agency is preparing to direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to accept mortgage credit reports built from two credit bureaus instead of three, the trade publication HousingWire reported on 1 October 2026. HousingWire did not break the story itself: it relayed a Bloomberg report that rests on one unnamed person described as familiar with the plans.
That makes this a report and not a decision. As of 8 October the agency has announced nothing, and HousingWire wrote that FHFA officials did not immediately respond to its request for comment. What follows is therefore what has been reported, who reported it, and where the account stops.
The change, if it comes, would touch one of the most routine steps in an American home purchase: the credit report a lender pulls on a borrower before a loan is delivered to one of the two mortgage companies the agency oversees.
HousingWire, 1 October 2026, relaying a Bloomberg report based on an unnamed source. None of this has been confirmed by the FHFA.
What the report says
According to HousingWire's account of the Bloomberg report, the FHFA plans to direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to move from "tri-merge" to "bi-merge" credit reports for loan deliveries, and to do so within weeks. The person who described the plan to Bloomberg is not named.
Two points of timing come with it, both attributed by HousingWire to Bloomberg. The first is the announcement. It is expected as soon as 12 October 2026, when FHFA Director Bill Pulte could make it at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Chicago. The second is the start date: the requirement is expected to take effect one to three months after it is announced.
Related readAustralia: how APRA's debt-to-income limit and buffer cap home loansThe wording matters, and it is not fully settled by what has been published. HousingWire's headline speaks of ordering the two companies to "accept" two-bureau reports, and its text says that under the new policy lenders could use only two of the three bureaus. The same account also calls it a requirement with an effective date. Whether a lender would remain free to keep pulling three files, or would have to change its process, is not something the report as relayed makes clear. That is one of the questions a formal announcement would have to answer.
This is a reported plan, not an FHFA announcement
The account comes from one unnamed person who spoke to Bloomberg, relayed by HousingWire on 1 October 2026. The FHFA had not commented when HousingWire published. Until the agency speaks, the current three-bureau practice is unchanged.
Tri-merge and bi-merge, in plain terms
A tri-merge report, as HousingWire describes it, combines data from the three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. It is the format the report says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac work with today for the loans delivered to them.
A bi-merge report would draw on two of those three. Nothing in the account changes who the bureaus are or what they hold; the reported change is in how many of them a lender has to consult for a loan bound for one of the two companies.
| Point | Tri-merge | Bi-merge |
|---|---|---|
| Bureaus consulted | Three | Two |
| Which bureaus | Equifax, Experian and TransUnion | Two of the same three |
| Status | The format in use for loan deliveries | Reported plan, not announced |
| Who decides | FHFA, for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac | FHFA, for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac |
Source: HousingWire, relaying Bloomberg. The bi-merge column describes a plan attributed to an unnamed source.
The report as relayed leaves several practical matters open. It does not say which two bureaus would be used, or whether the lender would choose them. It gives no figure for what a two-bureau report would cost compared with a three-bureau one, and no estimate of what a borrower would save. It does not describe how a lender should treat a borrower whose files differ from one bureau to the next. Readers who see firm numbers on any of these points before the agency has spoken should ask where they come from.
Related readAustralia's big four banks pass on the cash rate rise from 9 OctoberAn idea that has been tried before
The proposal is not new. HousingWire recalls that a bi-merge option was considered under the Biden administration, when Sandra Thompson led the FHFA, and that it was delayed over implementation challenges. The publication does not list those challenges in the material reviewed for this article, and the reported plan does not say how they would be handled this time.
There is also a third format in the debate. HousingWire describes the Mortgage Bankers Association as the most vocal supporter of a "single-file" option. The reported plan stops at two bureaus. It is the association's own conference, in Chicago, that the report names as the possible setting for the announcement.
The current director has spoken publicly about the subject. In early September 2026, HousingWire reports, Bill Pulte posted that the FHFA was seriously considering bi-merge and was weighing stronger solutions, which he described as safer and sounder. In the same post, according to HousingWire, he accused the three bureaus of having overcharged Americans for a long time. Those are his words as HousingWire reports them, set down here in paraphrase; the bureaus' response is not part of the material reviewed.
So the direction was signalled about a month before the report. What the 1 October account adds is a format, a possible date and a lead time, all from an unnamed source.
A busy week for credit scoring rules
The report did not land alone. HousingWire notes that earlier the same week Mr Pulte said the two companies would use a single loan-level pricing grid that treats VantageScore 4.0 as equivalent to Classic FICO. That reversed grids released only weeks earlier. Those earlier grids, HousingWire writes, had assumed that VantageScore overstated creditworthiness by about 20 points compared with FICO.
Related readAustralia: RBA finds under 1% of mortgage borrowers in negative equityThe two subjects are related but distinct. One concerns the score: which scoring model is accepted and how it is priced. The other, the subject of the 1 October report, concerns the data underneath: how many bureaus' files go into the report. A lender's cost and process depend on both.
A lender group weighed in during the same days. On 30 September 2026 HousingWire reported on a letter from the Community Home Lenders of America to Mr Pulte. In it, according to HousingWire, the group backs the idea of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac disclosing their own credit scores for mortgages and for mortgage-backed securities. The group says that credit score price increases have occurred every autumn since 2022. It asks for up to four score suppliers, and for references to FICO to be removed from the two companies' guidelines.
That letter helps explain why the number of bureaus is debated at all. The price of credit data is a standing complaint among lenders, as that group describes it, and the director has used strong language about the bureaus. A move from three files to two sits inside that argument. Whether it lowers what a borrower pays is a separate question that the reported plan, as relayed, does not answer.
What it would mean for lenders, buyers and agents
For lenders, the one concrete element in the report is the lead time. One to three months between announcement and effect is short for a change to a step that sits inside every loan file bound for the two companies. The earlier attempt was delayed over implementation challenges, according to HousingWire, so the operational detail in any announcement will matter as much as the headline.
Related readWhy Australia fixes so few home loans, and how the US and Korea differLenders are also absorbing other changes from the same two companies. HousingWire reported on 30 September 2026 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have granted a one-time exception on the appraisal data standard known as UAD 3.6. Approved sellers may submit appraisals in the older UAD 2.6 format from 2 November 2026 until 19 May 2027, with resubmissions accepted until 27 June 2027, and UAD 3.6 becomes mandatory for all new submissions on 20 May 2027. Bob Broeksmit, president and chief executive of the Mortgage Bankers Association, supports that exception, HousingWire reports. It is a separate matter from credit reports, but it lands on the same operations teams.
For a buyer applying for a mortgage this week, nothing has changed. No start date exists, because no announcement exists. A borrower should expect the lender to follow the practice in place today, and no part of the published account supports delaying an application in the hope of a cheaper credit report.
For agents, the report is mainly something clients may ask about. The accurate short answer on 8 October is that a trade publication, relaying Bloomberg, says the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac intends to let lenders use two credit bureaus in place of three; that the agency has not confirmed it; and that the earliest date mentioned for an announcement is 12 October. How it would affect a particular borrower depends on that borrower's own files and on rules that have not been published.
The dates to watch
The sequence so far, and the two steps still ahead, fit on one line of time. Only the first three have happened.
- Early September 2026Bill Pulte posts that the FHFA is seriously considering bi-merge, HousingWire reports.
- Week of 28 SeptemberHe says the two companies will use one pricing grid for VantageScore 4.0 and Classic FICO.
- 1 OctoberHousingWire relays Bloomberg: a move to two-bureau reports is planned within weeks.
- 12 October, possibleEarliest date reported for an announcement, at the Mortgage Bankers Association conference in Chicago.
- One to three months laterThe reported gap between an announcement and the date the requirement takes effect.
Some simple arithmetic shows what that last step could mean, with the caveat that it rests entirely on the reported dates. If an announcement did come on 12 October 2026, a lead time of one to three months would put the effective date between 12 November 2026 and 12 January 2027. If the announcement comes later, or not at all, that window moves or disappears. It is an illustration of the reported timetable, not a schedule set by the agency.
Three things would turn the report into news of a different kind. The first is a statement from the FHFA itself, whether at the Chicago conference or elsewhere. The second is the detail: whether two bureaus become an option or an obligation, which two, and from what date. The third is guidance from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the lenders that deliver loans to them, since that is where a change of this sort becomes a working rule.
Kooky, from Shaka
Kooky edits Agents Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for real estate professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.
