Number of CCs and number with balances

[Anonymous]

The impact of multiple CCs reporting balances has been discussed in several posts on this forum. I just wanted to share some data from my experience. My EF score consistently drops by 8 points when 2 CCs report a balance and recovers the 8 points back when only 1 reports a balance. My only open accounts are CC accounts. Also the scores show the exact same behavior irrespective of whether I have a total of 3 or 4 open CCs. EF only seems to care about the number of accounts with balances, not the fraction, which matches with the description on the "What's in your FICO score" and "FICO reason codes" pages.

I had also wondered if adding a fourth CC to three CCs contributed anything to credit mix at all. It absolutely did not in my case. I was able to do an experiment where I did not have to worry about the impact of inquiries, new account, AAoA etc. as an old CC was incorrectly reporting as open, so I disputed and closed it. Then I disputed something else on it and EF for some reason marked it back as open. None of it made any difference.

I am still not sure if going from 2 to 3 open CCs helps mix at all. I'd like to know if does not make any difference to the mix or if it helps some but is mostly offset by the negative impact of inquiries, new credit, AAoA etc.

[haulingthescoreup]

It's not that going from 2 to 3 helps mix; it's that it increases the number of TL's reporting clean history.

Mix is revolving vs installment.

[Anonymous]

Did you mean the number of TL's or the number of open TL's reporting clean history?

[haulingthescoreup]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Did you mean the number of TL's or the number of open TL's reporting clean history?

---

That's a good question, and I don't know.

I do know that the lower the percentage of the number of "dirty" TL's, the better, but whether the total includes open and closed or just open, I'd never thought about that.

I didn't have many TL's, period, when I started rebuilding, so it was very helpful (although initially painful) to open a lot of new TL's and keep them squeaky clean.

[Anonymous]

I have 15+ accounts with 3 open. The 2 accounts with minor derogs are both closed. So it seems unlikely that adding one more TL would make much difference irrespective of whether open or closed clean TL's mattered.

I think going from 1 to 2 CCs helps irrespective of whether you have lates or not. Just coz the number of revolving accounts by itself counts for something--I've been thinking mix, thanks to this forum (probably llecs or fused).

[haulingthescoreup]

Oh, and I wasn't thinking: if you have any open installment accounts, including mortgages, they always report a balance. There's a ding (of course) for "too many accounts with balances," and it can be a pain if you have few open revolving accounts. We've all found that it's good to have at least one CC report a balance, but that once you have half or more of all accounts reporting balances you lose points. One way around that is to have one more open CC than the number of open installments.

It's probably not a huge ding, but it's something to be aware of.