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First I just want to apologize for all my recent threads. Just trying to understand how this works.
On both my TU and EQ reports, one of the things that's hurting my score it listed as "short account history".
When I look at the average age of myacconts, it says 7 years (this should change once Amex starts reporting).
I thought 7 years was pretty good, FICO disagrees. So at what AAoA would this stop huring a score? Any idea?
Never apologize for posting. I had a Latin teacher that always annoyed me when she said, "You'll never learn unless you ask questions". Several times a day she'd say that, but she's right looking back on it.
As you may know, you are assigned into one of many buckets. The comments you see on the +/- factors page are based around which bucket you are in. It just so happens that when you are compared directly to others within your bucket, your 7 yr AAoA happens to be on the low side on average. That's not a bad thing. Sounds like you have solid credit and you are compared to others with a long, clean history. There's nothing you can do about AAoA other than to prevent it from dropping by adding new credit or letting your accounts close whereby they get removed early.
Thank you!
Didn't think about the comparision aspect of it.
I agree with llecs. Improving your AAoA is somthing that usually just requries accounts getting older.
The issue is to understand how accounts enter into your AAoA, and to try to minimize negative things that could hurt it.
AAoA is only part of part of your credit score. Length of credit history is, overall, only 15% of FICO score. AAoA and date of oldest account are two factors within that 15% total. So it is simply not a huge deal, except for possible placement in a better FICO scoring bucket.
AAoA has some clear, and some not-too-clear, factors to consider.
On the clear side, adding a new account will necessarity lower your AAoA. A fact if math. But that does not mean that one should never open new accounts.
The drop in AAoA may be offset by gains in other FICO scoring categories, such as added CL to thus reduce your overall % util, and improving your credit mix, or moving you out of a "lean" credit scoring bucket into a thicker credit file.
Closing of accounts is defrinately in the category of unclear impact on your AAoA. Closed accounts continue to be included in your AAoA computation the same as open accounts, but only as long as they still remain in your CR. Deltion of closed accounts from your CR can occur in two ways, neither of which you have any control over. There is nothing to prevent the OC from reporting total account deletion at any time after account closure. If the OC does not report an actual account deletion, the CRA can later delete it on their own, but they normally wont do this until at least 10 years after account closure. The reason for this is that if any delinquencie of derogs were reported while the OC account was open, the CRA wants to wait until all of the CR restrictions of FCRA 605(a) have expired, and thus could not be included in your CR after those dates. The dates under FCRA run, for most derogs, from 7-10 years from their dates. So after 10 years ffom closling, it is pretty safe for them to just delete it. But there are NO rules for this. So you never know.
Thanks, RobertEG
I did the math on my backdated Amex. Looks like it should add 1 year to my AAoA, provided I did the math correctly.
Will not be opening any new accounts.
Currently I have two things hurting my score. 1. serious delinquency which is a paid CO and 2. Short account history.
Regarding 1, it's going to be 5 years in March 2011 so should drop off on it's own with TU and EQ (NY resident).l. Will probably have to fight it with EX .
So nothing I can do but wait that one out.
Was hoping tot do something more in the meantime to help my AAoA. I guess I can beome an AU on my DH's other CC's.. but that's not somehing I really want to do. And considering it's only 15% of your score, not worth it.
@ficonightmare wrote:Thanks, RobertEG
I did the math on my backdated Amex. Looks like it should add 1 year to my AAoA, provided I did the math correctly.
Will not be opening any new accounts.
Currently I have two things hurting my score. 1. serious delinquency which is a paid CO and 2. Short account history.
Regarding 1, it's going to be 5 years in March 2011 so should drop off on it's own with TU and EQ (NY resident).l. Will probably have to fight it with EX .
So nothing I can do but wait that one out.
Was hoping tot do something more in the meantime to help my AAoA. I guess I can beome an AU on my DH's other CC's.. but that's not somehing I really want to do. And considering it's only 15% of your score, not worth it.
You might want to rethink this. IF his account is older than any of yours then your AAoA will go up. You would inherit the entire history of the card. But that AU account also needs to have a long and clean payment history with very, very low utilization. Plus not all cards will report to the CRA's. You'll need to ask the issuer if they will report.
From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".
This is where it gets convoluted so please bear with me or just ignore the following
My oldest account is1995 with Amex. His oldest is 2001 with Citi. I'm on the Citi one. His next oldest is also 2001 with Amex but I'm not on that account.
My newest is a GEMB card less than a year old. Got it on 3/10.
When I called Amex prior to applying for Zync, I asked what date would be reported if my DH added me as an AU. I was told that even though my first Amex went back to 1995, as it's his account, they would only be able to backdate me to 2001. I would have lost 6 years of history. So that's why I applied instead of being added as an AU.
(I have since read here that that's not true but I can't verify).
So, would be it be worth it to add me to a 9 year account (if AMEX will only backdate to 2001 instead of 1995) since my newest CC is only 8 months old? I
Everything else on his EQ and TU FICO reports are fine. No lates ever, and onlly 2% util. His scores are TU 801, EQ 806.
In your case it doesn't look like being an AU would help.
From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".
@MarineVietVet wrote:In your case it doesn't look like being an AU would help.
From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802, EQ - 10/10-813, TU - 10/10-774
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem".
That's what I figured...
Thank you.