@jlg1970 wrote:
I opened 7 new CC's in an "app spree" this month. Going in, my AAoA was 20 months with 7 accounts and I calculated that it will be around 10 months with 14 accounts when all new accounts get reported. Will this have an impact on my score?
20 months rounds down to 1 year, right? So won't 10 months round up to one year since it's less than a year?
We have some really sloppy data regarding AAOA unfortunately.
On my dirty file where I've pretty consistently added accounts over time, I've never lost points for adding a tradeline unless I crossed an AAOA boundary (excluding inquiries which of course impact, and assuming the account reported $0 and not something which skewed one of my utilization metrics).
I'm 100% confident of a boundary at 2 years, I'm 98% confident of nothing at 3 years, I'm way less confident of anything shorter than 2 years and beyond 3, that isn't well tested in recent years. Old wisdom was that anything less than 2 years gets rounded to 1 year by default, but I never saw proof of that and people which might have opined on that are gone.
If you're monitoring your scores closely, since the accounts will report at different times it'd be interesting to see what your score does (assuming you keep revolving utillization pretty / fixed and don't have old inquiries falling off or whatever) as they come in and you cross over that presumed 12 month threshold that may or may not exist.
@Anonymous wrote:I agree with what Rev said above, but also think there could very well be a threshold at 1 year as well. You would think there would be plenty of data on the 1 year mark since it's the most commonly hit number, generally speaking. Maybe others that have crossed 1 year could weigh in on it. If so, when you drop from 20 months to 10 months you'd cross that threshold and then cross back over it in a positive direction 2 months later... so it's possible you'd see a score drop of X, then see a score increase of X (approximately) 2 months later, give or take.
Problem isn't bounded by the number of people who have crossed the 1 year mark unfortunately, but what you describe is the way I've always tested: go above, spree below, go above again, and if the point values match and nothing else has changed, that's an AAOA boundary. Fortunately with spree applications like I've done that minimizes the time periods for things like inquiries falling off and what not and other anniversary style changes.
1) Most people don't really track their credit scores to the level of detail needed.
2) Those that do, often are beyond the 1 year AAOA mark
3) Even of that subset which is around 1 year, holding their file fixed for a controlled test is unlikely
4) There isn't a lot of interest around this, longer AAOA = better AAOA, duh.
That's why I suggest the data is sloppy: I'd argue similarly on the installment utilization side, everything points to there being a breakpoint somewhere north of 50% but the people that have gone looking don't agree and there's some issues with quality of everyone's data (including my own). The 10% line (or 9%, I'd love someone to go to $46/$500 just to see how the rounding works unless I missed it) is well characterized but we haven't even nailed down the rounding on that one. Lack of interest, when we know what works, rest is kinda intellectual masturbation.
Guess I could argue that about all of our credit score analysis from a laymans perspective, it's a pretty niche hobby to say the least haha.
@Anonymous wrote:That all makes sense. There are always far too many variables at play to really pinpoint 1 event that caused a change of X points. Even if you take a brand new profile that scoops up say 3 lines of credit on the same day. 1 year from now they'll reach AAoA of 1 year... but also the 3 inquiries they have from their 3 lines of credit will become unscoreable, so their score is going to go up regardless. No way to tell how much of that was from the inquiries no longer being counted, or possibly crossing an AAoA threshold at the 1 year mark.
Well there are ways around that, namely staggering some apps, or otherwise clustering inquiries on one bureau and tightly monitoring another or even both others via $1 CCT or similar if we're just talking FICO 8 on the premise AAOA is probably the same across all bureaus.
There's ways to do it; if I ever get a new file to test not sure if I'd chase an AAOA boundary sub 2 years, or whether I'd just ruthlessly press for 800 ASAP (1 SSL and 3 credit cards day 1 and then just sit on hands) to see how quickly it could be done. I guess I could do both, get to 800 on 4 tradlines which is likely 2 years and then spree down below 1, could do it I guess but likihood of my getting a clean file or even one with zero positive history is pretty minimal, and I wasn't invested enough to try that when my own file qualified.
@Anonymous wrote:
Revelate,
Can you elaborate on your findings of the 2 year AAoA please?
The reason I ask is that I have obtained something like 22 cards in the past 18-20 months. Up until recently my score has been in the high 700s. I thought my recent dip was just balances taking time to update but I have seemed to top out at the 725-735 mark and I believe all balances have updated. When I check my various fake scores I have noticed that the most recent cards from 6 or so months ago have knocked my AAoA down below 2 years to 22-23 months. Just wondering if anyone knows if that could be worth another 50-60 points once it gets back to a 2 year average, etc
Heh, on my dirty file I gained 4 points going above, lost 4 points going below, and gained 4 points again going above.
Clean files will be different but I'm surprised at the magnitude of your change just for AAOA, probably non-trivial inquiries in there too and that will dominate the score drop in my estimation.