Next best type of CC?

[Anonymous]

I'm saying that for the OP, who is 21 and probably not buying a house soon, worrying about his AAoA in the short term seems like it could hurt him when he gets to the age when he wants a house.  

If he adds three cards now, he lowers his current AAoA by a few months to a year, and his FICO score by a couple dozen points, but by the time he wants to buy a house, he'd have 5 cards with a pretty high average age.  At that point, if he wanted to add a card, he really wouldn't have to worry about anything but the INQ.  

If he doesn't apply for cards right now, out of fear of lowering his FICO score at a time when he doesn't want a loan and his FICO score is almost entirely irrelevant, he'd still only have the two cards with a high average age by the time he's ready to buy a house and start a family and the AAoA will be far more vulnerable if he wants a new credit card around that time.

[spengbab]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'm saying that for the OP, who is 21 and probably not buying a house soon, worrying about his AAoA in the short term seems like it could hurt him when he gets to the age when he wants a house.  

If he adds three cards now, he lowers his current AAoA by a few months to a year, and his FICO score by a couple dozen points, but by the time he wants to buy a house, he'd have 5 cards with a pretty high average age.  At that point, if he wanted to add a card, he really wouldn't have to worry about anything but the INQ.  

If he doesn't apply for cards right now, out of fear of lowering his FICO score at a time when he doesn't want a loan and his FICO score is almost entirely irrelevant, he'd still only have the two cards with a high average age by the time he's ready to buy a house and start a family and the AAoA will be far more vulnerable if he wants a new credit card around that time.

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In that case I would suggest getting 2 more cards. This is the same approach I took to applying for credit. I got a charge card and a credit card. Then another because my car needed fixing. Then I got 2 more. The reason being that right now my AAoA is still pretty low (2 years) so I'll let it suffer for now since I don't plan on getting a house. But in a few years when I do, AAoA will be less of a problem.

[Anonymous]

err I was actually not planning on applying for at least 6-12 months and this question was just a question in advance (although I did sorta settle on a CU - for low APR in case I do need to purchase something with monthly payments in the future, like a large screen TV) and for low mortgage (planning on buying a condo within the next 3 years, maybe having a pre-established account will lower the rate even further?)...

You make a great point about the AAoA now... so should I just go ahead and apply now in that case?

P.S how long do CC INQ's stay on an account? I applied for my AMEX back in May and just pulled my credit score and report last week and it does not show any INQs aside from a recent chase CLI. It hasn't even been a year - could it have disappeared that quickly?

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

P.S how long do CC INQ's stay on an account? I applied for my AMEX back in May and just pulled my credit score and report last week and it does not show any INQs aside from a recent chase CLI. It hasn't even been a year - could it have disappeared that quickly?

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2 years; however, sometimes strange things happen, and most credit / charge lenders don't pull more than one bureau.  In Amex's case, Experian is most likely the bureau they pulled, but you may have to check all three reports to find their inquiry if you haven't already.

[Anonymous]

Yup I'm checking all three =/ No complaints though