“High-credit borrowers, those with FICO scores above 700, are almost entirely behind the surge in purchase applications.”

…

“… to get in on the QE “credit” money scheme, requires historically ever higher creditworthiness!”

The article doesn’t provide the rate at which banks are rejecting sub-700 applicants — I think sellers may be doing some of the the rejecting for them. Lots of “buyer to cross-qualify” in the areas we are looking in. Even if a lower tier score passes the cross-qualification, sellers could be inclined to go with the higher FICO, all other things being equal. Fewer accepted offers made by lower credit-tier bidders would lead to fewer originations with those scores.

I’d also bet a high number of people in the lower tiers are self-selecting out of the buying market.