Understanding FICO® Scoring

[MidnightVoice]

The things I hear do not seem to make sense.  Berry mentined that open or close makes no difference for some scoring attributes.  I have a CRA (EX) of course, that complains my average age is too short.  The only difference between this and the other reports is one 10 year old TL.  Is that enough (out of 6 active and 22 total) to ding my score?

Example:  I take out a mortgage in 1997, and  2004 refinance it.  So right now I have a closed Mortgage of 7 years and an open one of 3.  What is the average age?

7+3 divided by 2?

10+3 divided by 2?

How do they calculate it?

Message Edited by MidnightVoice on 06-28-2007 05:35 PM

[MidnightVoice]

So is it a really stupid question, or is it that no one knows the answer? 

[rifleman]

I wish I knew---I want to know, because I want to know how much my score might drop by opening 3 new CC accounts this month. None have posted to the credit agencies yet.

I know the score should drop--but by how much? How is Average Age calculated?

[MidnightVoice]

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rifleman wrote:
I wish I knew---I want to know, because I want to know how much my score might drop by opening 3 new CC accounts this month. None have posted to the credit agencies yet.

I know the score should drop--but by how much? How is Average Age calculated?

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I am so happy that I am not the only one that does not know 

[jaguls66]

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MidnightVoice wrote:

So is it a really stupid question, or is it that no one knows the answer? 

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I believe it is more like ((7+3)T/Y+PI-G)M

In this case:

T= Years old the tires are on your car

Y= Year your graduated high school

PI= 3.46759 or something like that Math Class was long ago

G= Grade point average in 9th grade

M= Moon Phase 1pts/Full 2pts/Half Waxing 3pts/Qtr Waxing 4pts/No Moon

5pts/Qtr Waning 6pts/Half Waning 7pts/New Moon

These Phase points are round up to the nearest phase that day.

[MidnightVoice]

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jaguls66 wrote:

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MidnightVoice wrote:

So is it a really stupid question, or is it that no one knows the answer? 

---

I believe it is more like ((7+3)T/Y+PI-G)M

In this case:

T= Years old the tires are on your car

Y= Year your graduated high school

PI= 3.46759 or something like that Math Class was long ago

G= Grade point average in 9th grade

M= Moon Phase 1pts/Full 2pts/Half Waxing 3pts/Qtr Waxing 4pts/No Moon

5pts/Qtr Waning 6pts/Half Waning 7pts/New Moon

These Phase points are round up to the nearest phase that day.

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You are begining to sound like TNWM 

(and that is a compliment) 

[jaguls66]

LOL,except I like my Child Support Enforcement Officer.

thanks Midnight.

[Tuscani]

I believe it's simply the age of each account divided by the number of accounts (regardless if they are open or closed).

[MidnightVoice]

Is the "age" of an account the number of years it was open?

[smallfry]

If they are both still reporting and they are in this case this is how you do it. Two is easy. Convert to months first of all. Get the open date of TL. Figure months to current time. Do the same for second TL. Add the total of months for both TL's. Divide by two in this case. That is your average. If you had 25 accounts still reporting open or closed you would just do the same calculation for all TL's then divide by the number of TL's. That's all there is to it. This is the reason why closing accounts is not desirable unless there are fees involved. In your case and I know this is a mortgage but say it was a credit card by leaving the account open it will continue to report and not drop off after ten years. Once you close an account it will only help you for ten years. Open it will help your average indefinitely. Add up the months since opened and divide by the number of accounts. OK?