Cancel newer, lower limit CC's?

[Anonymous]

I have 5 credit cards on my report:

#1 - $24,000 limit, opened 2/2006

#2 - $20,000 limit, opened 11/2012

#3 - $6,000 limit, opened 8/2007

#4 - $1,400 limit, opened 6/2012

#5 - $1,024 limit, opened 5/2016

Should I cancel either of the last two? I'm trying to raise my scores for an eventual mortgage refi in 2019.

[Anonymous]

Going to take a wild guess and say the last two are retail cards.

Close 'em.

[JakeRogue]

According to this post I don't think so...

[Adkins]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I have 5 credit cards on my report:

#1 - $24,000 limit, opened 2/2006

#2 - $20,000 limit, opened 11/2012

#3 - $6,000 limit, opened 8/2007

#4 - $1,400 limit, opened 6/2012

#5 - $1,024 limit, opened 5/2016

Should I cancel either of the last two? I'm trying to raise my scores for an eventual mortgage refi in 2019.

---

What is your utilization rate on each card? Or are they all zero balances?

[AverageJoesCredit]

Almost no info on said accounts , to tell you to close them without that knowledge just seems irresposible. Can you elaborate on your cards?

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Going to take a wild guess and say the last two are retail cards.

Close 'em.

---

Yes, retail indeed. 

[Anonymous]

---

@JakeRogue wrote:

According to this post I don't think so...

---

Yeah, I realize canceling cards in general is not usually recommended, but didn't know if canceling newer, lower limit cards would be advisable to increase the average age part of my score.

[SBR249]

While I can understand and even suggest closing newer cards that you don't need and will never really use, I don't really see how doing so would raise your scores? Your available credit would go down (albeit by a little), your utilization might go up (also by a little), these cards will likely continue to report for a few years after closure so your AAoA will continue to grow as before. The only thing that I can think of is that your DTI might decrease when those cards and their minimum payments are no longer included but if your other limits are so high and you are thinking about going into real estate then I would imagine that your income is such that the DTI probably isn't so affected by not counting minimum payments from two low limit CCs. 

On the other hand, there are definitely benefits in terms of not having to worry about 2 basically SDed cards and simplifying your financial profile a bit so closing them is probably not a bad idea. I just don't quite see how it would impact your scores at all. 

Edit: saw your reply after I posted. I think closed accounts are still factored into AAoA so I don't think that'll help you in the way that you think. 

[Anonymous]

---

@Adkins wrote:

---

---

What is your utilization rate on each card? Or are they all zero balances?

---

#2 is currently highly utilized (>90%) but that will be going down significantly over the next few months (to get to less than 9%). All others have zero balance.

[Anonymous]

---

@SBR249 wrote:

Edit: saw your reply after I posted. I think closed accounts are still factored into AAoA so I don't think that'll help you in the way that you think. 

---

Ah, well yeah I guess that would really be the only benefit to canceling I was thinking about.