too late to co-sign account with parent?

[gen-specific]

Hello, 

I have a lot of credit, high income, but low AAoA and only have credit cards, no other kinds of credit accounts. My credit scores are good and will recalculate to around 750-760 after some inquiries drop off. So I am not an 21 year old student trying to build credit for the first time and I'm not sure if what I currently know about credit still applies to where I am in life.

My mom has a much greater average age of account, a more diverse set of credit accounts (mortgages, credit cards, larger deposits in checking accounts). Her credit score would be nearer the highest on FICO and FAKOs.

So I'm obviously on that trajectory too, but this is an exercise of patience that I don't really think is necessary, given the ineffeciences in FICO credit evaluation.

I want to somehow use her credit profile to give mine a boost. If she co-signed on a credit product with me, would my score be boosted? or is this only a perk for people without any credit?

Reason I ask and give this preface about me is because I don't think boilerplate responses really apply to me and this may be more trouble than its worth. Thanks

[CreditExpressNJ]

what she would have to do is just add u as an AU on an acct that shes had open for sometime.... also make sure the company report authorized users.

[09Lexie]

Applying for a new acct with your Mom would just drag your AAOA down.

Like the other poster mentioned, pick the oldest rev tl with low util and positive history.

[enharu]

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@09Lexie wrote:
Applying for a new acct with your Mom would just drag your AAOA down.

Like the other poster mentioned, pick the oldest rev tl with low util and positive history.

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+1.

Really no good way to get around this. Some banks don't even look at accounts that you are AU on, so it seems that the best way to go around it is to let time do its work.

[halos24]

What helped me about two years ago was have my father add me as an AU to his Discover which had bee. Open since 95 I believe. Soon after that is when Amex opened the doors to me with a low Fico and close to my bankruptcy falling off. As the others posters stated a new account would only drag your scores.

[gen-specific]

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@shaun2009 wrote:
what she would have to do is just add u as an AU on an acct that shes had open for sometime.... also make sure the company report authorized users.

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okay, so this would raise my AAoA which would in turn raise my score. Got it, interesting!

Maybe I should have her put me as an AU on several things then

[09Lexie]

Keep in mind, AAOA accounts for approx 10% of your score. Also, there's the possibility of being rebucketed. Being added as an AU for scoring purposes IMO, works best on a person trying to establish credit. That's when they will see the significant bump.

[gen-specific]

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@09Lexie wrote:
Keep in mind, AAOA accounts for approx 10% of your score. Also, there's the possibility of being rebucketed. Being added as an AU for scoring purposes IMO, works best on a person trying to establish credit. That's when they will see the significant bump.

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ahhh so true, I did know these things. What does rebucketed mean?

Better to just stay in the garden for some time then

I will be back to 760 or 780 given my utilization and having inquiries drop off

[enharu]

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@gen-specific wrote:

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@09Lexie wrote:
Keep in mind, AAOA accounts for approx 10% of your score. Also, there's the possibility of being rebucketed. Being added as an AU for scoring purposes IMO, works best on a person trying to establish credit. That's when they will see the significant bump.

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ahhh so true, I did know these things. What does rebucketed mean?

Better to just stay in the garden for some time then

I will be back to 760 or 780 given my utilization and having inquiries drop off

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FICO classifies people's scores into different categories, also known as buckets. This is so that people whom have similar profiles are "compared" to others with similar credit standing. For example, someone with xx years of credit history should "ideally" have x numbers of accounts in good standing, <Y number of inquiries, >Z AAoA, in order to be >800. This is why sometimes there are people whose FICOs drop even though they had no new accounts / inquiries / derogs, with the only change being the length of credit history. Really nothing to worry about, not that anyone can predict and/or do anything about that anyways. Best approach to handle this is to instead worry about what's on the CR itself.

With your current limits, your best solution is to simply age your accounts and let those inquiries fall off. Some banks don't look at AU history anyways, so it may not be of any use at all. For someone else who has less than "ideal" credit history, getting added as an AU would help them a lot. For people like us, no drastic difference really.

[gen-specific]

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@enharu wrote:

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@gen-specific wrote:

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@09Lexie wrote:
Keep in mind, AAOA accounts for approx 10% of your score. Also, there's the possibility of being rebucketed. Being added as an AU for scoring purposes IMO, works best on a person trying to establish credit. That's when they will see the significant bump.

---

ahhh so true, I did know these things. What does rebucketed mean?

Better to just stay in the garden for some time then

I will be back to 760 or 780 given my utilization and having inquiries drop off

---

FICO classifies people's scores into different categories, also known as buckets. This is so that people whom have similar profiles are "compared" to others with similar credit standing. For example, someone with xx years of credit history should "ideally" have x numbers of accounts in good standing, <Y number of inquiries, >Z AAoA, in order to be >800. This is why sometimes there are people whose FICOs drop even though they had no new accounts / inquiries / derogs, with the only change being the length of credit history. Really nothing to worry about, not that anyone can predict and/or do anything about that anyways. Best approach to handle this is to instead worry about what's on the CR itself.

With your current limits, your best solution is to simply age your accounts and let those inquiries fall off. Some banks don't look at AU history anyways, so it may not be of any use at all. For someone else who has less than "ideal" credit history, getting added as an AU would help them a lot. For people like us, no drastic difference really.

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Oh, interesting. When was this information about the buckets revealed?

My AAoA is less than 3 years, with my oldest reporting one being 5 years. I would like to know when I can expect to get shifted into a different bucket