No. Worse credit never gets you a better mortgage. The myth grew out of a real change that got badly explained. No bill passed and no law changed; the FHFA directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to restructure their loan-level price adjustments, the pricing add-ons that raise your cost for things like a lower credit score or a smaller down payment. The new grids took effect for loans acquired on or after May 1, 2023. What the restructure did: - Shrank the penalty that lower-credit, lower-down-payment borrowers used to pay. - Raised costs somewhat for some higher-credit, larger-down-payment borrowers. - Split the top of the grid into new tiers: 740-759, 760-779, and 780-plus. So the gap between strong and weak credit narrowed. It didn't flip. Only a couple of narrow spots on the grid price two different profiles the same, and on conventional loans weaker credit also carries a much higher mortgage-insurance rate. Deliberately tanking your score to game the grid would cost you every time. The useful takeaway: on conventional financing, top-tier credit is still rewarded, just less than it once was. And for many first-time buyers putting the minimum down, FHA often comes out cheaper on both cash to close and monthly payment, even after accounting for FHA's upfront mortgage-insurance premium. If you want conventional and FHA priced side by side against your own numbers, that's exactly what the free Roadmap conversation covers.