Avg age of Accts: Is that ACTIVE ACCTS or all accts listed???

[UtahTiger]

On my credit report it said I had too many accts and that this was lowering my score and my avg age is only 5 yrs. .  Even if I close some of my newer accts they still stay on my report for 10 years so I don't believe it will not increase the avg age of my accounts.  Unless active accts are what is computed in the "AVG" age of accounts. Does anyone know?

My current avg age is "5" years.  The avg high achiever age is over "6" yrs.  If I cancel a credit card that I got last year and maybe 3 retail accounts a received in the past 3 years will this raise my avg age number? I could also cancel 2 other credit cards I received 3 yrs ago.  I am not worried about Credit Utilization because I will have everything paid down in the next 30 days and my credit limit is 68,000 now.

[MarineVietVet]

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@UtahTiger wrote:

On my credit report it said I had too many accts and that this was lowering my score and my avg age is only 5 yrs. .  Even if I close some of my newer accts they still stay on my report for 10 years so I don't believe it will not increase the avg age of my accounts.  Unless active accts are what is computed in the "AVG" age of accounts. Does anyone know?

My current avg age is "5" years.  The avg high achiever age is over "6" yrs.  If I cancel a credit card that I got last year and maybe 3 retail accounts a received in the past 3 years will this raise my avg age number? I could also cancel 2 other credit cards I received 3 yrs ago.  I am not worried about Credit Utilization because I will have everything paid down in the next 30 days and my credit limit is 68,000 now.

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Your AAoA is the sum of the ages of every account (except CA collections) on your report, whether open or closed, calculated in months, divided by the number of accounts and then divided by 12. I use the division by 12 to make it easier to convert into years. This is measured from the time each account was opened until present.

You’ll need to figure the age of each account, open or closed, on each report. If all three reports are identical (very unlikely), you're in luck; otherwise, you'll need to run this for each report.

On one of my reports it says I have 36 accounts and it never seems to damage my score. I wouldn't worry about it.

From a BK years ago to:
EX - 9/09 pulled by lender 802
EQ - 7/06-663, 3/10-800
TU - 8/10-772

You can do the same thing with hard work

[RobertEG]

I concur.

There is one real advantage to closing an account... to avoid payment of annual fees on the card.

There are two significant disadvantages, one immediate, and one only potential.

Closing the account will cause, if it is a paid account, immediate loss ot its CL in your % uti calculation.  That will hurt.

ONce the account is closed, there then arises the chance that the entire account may later be deleted from your credit file, then causing you to lose its ave of account.

The creditor can selectively just delete the account.  Or, it is also possible that, after more than 10 years after closing, the CRA can take it upon themselves to delete it from their data fail, again affecting your AAoA.

[UtahTiger]

I got on a AMEX acct as a AU and I just closed that one.  They take it completely off your credit report, as if you never had the acct I was told. Since I will be keeping my CU under 9% this will be a positive for me because this is only an 11 mth old acct.   My AAoA should go up now and hopefully my credit score will go up a little.