For decades, one three-digit number has stood between millions of Americans and the front door of their first home: the FICO score. That's finally starting to change, and it could reshape who gets to become a homeowner in this country.

FICO has dominated consumer lending since 1989. It's a useful tool, but it has a fundamental blind spot. To generate a FICO score, a consumer must have at least one credit account that's been open for six months and reported to a bureau in the last six months. Millions of Americans – recent graduates, people who pay cash, people rebuilding after a rough patch – simply can't be scored. In the eyes of most mortgage lenders, they don't exist.

 VantageScore, launched in 2006 as a joint venture of the three major credit bureaus, was built to close that gap. Its newest version, VantageScore 4.0, can generate a score from as little as one month of credit history and a single reported account. It also incorporates the kinds of payments that actually dominate most household budgets – rent, utilities, and telecom bills – alongside "trended" data showing how balances move over time. It treats medical debt and paid collections less punitively, recognizing that a surprise hospital bill........

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