Adding someone as AU to fix credit score!?

[BlueHusky]

Hi all,

My mom filed bankruptcy in 2008, and is now trying to get a mortgage. A bank said she needs to increase her credit score some first. Since her bankruptcy, she now has NO credit card accounts, only an auto loan. Despite that, her avg. age of accounts (according to creditkarma) is 4 years? She has 0% utilization (because she has no CC) and then student loans and the auto loan. So my question is...if I add her to my CC accounts as an authorized user, will it help or hurt her? It will bring down her AAoA, but give her credit card accounts. I can add her to premium cards, like my AMEX Blue Cash Everday, which is newer but is AMEX and has a $12,500 limit...or I can add her to an older, but less prime line with a lower limit limit (like BoA with $3,000).

Will it help or hurt her? Should I add her to AMEX or an older one? Advice to help her increase her score?

[llecs]

AAoA, in FICO-speak, includes ALL OC accounts, whether opened or closed, good or bad. So, any loans or past accounts IIB would be factored into AAoA as well. CreditKarma doesn't calculate AAoA the same way. They only factor in open accounts. Definitely ignore their scores and advice.

As long as your CCs are free of baddies, I bet she'd see a large spike in her FICO scores. Revolving is an important component to your mix of credit and many on here see solid double digit gains as they add their first CC.

[BlueHusky]

So adding her as an AU will help? Should I add her to multiple ones?

[llecs]

Yes. I'd do one at a time, have her pull her two FICOs to see where that stands, and then repeat for another. I don't know how the lender would see the AUs, though. Probably not a big deal.

[rckstrscott]

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@llecs wrote:

Yes. I'd do one at a time, have her pull her two FICOs to see where that stands, and then repeat for another. I don't know how the lender would see the AUs, though. Probably not a big deal.

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Most Mortgage lenders often ignore AU accounts when manually underwriting, so if that is her only account, they will see it as score fabrication.

I am not saying you shouldn't put her as an AU because the score increase will def. help her get additonal credit, maybe establish a few lines on her own ect ect.. but I would strongly encourage not going for a mortgage with AU accounts being the primary means of revolving credit.

-scott