Minnesota's average score of 718 tops Experian's most recent list. The U.S. average is 687, with southern states typically reporting lower scores.
Similarly, Mortgage Marvel, a mortgage-shopping website, analyzed more than 330,000 mortgage applications received in 2011 to compute average FICO scores. The mortgage-shopping website's data shows applicants' credit scores declined in most states last year.
California (754), Oregon (750) and Wisconsin (749) led the country with the highest Mortgage Marvel average FICO scores, based on a scale of 300 to 850.
It should be noted that neither credit agency's reporting sample is representative of an entire population.
Click a state in the map below to view average credit scores for each state:
