topic Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good in Understanding FICO® Scoring

What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

10022016 — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 01:26:45 GMT

...and excellent?

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 02:07:51 GMT

5-6+ is probably very good, 8-9+ excellent.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 02:10:31 GMT

Good question. I know I won't like the answer.

I haven't seen FICO's info, but V3 is 9+/Excellent, 7-8/Good, 5-6/Average. I won't be average for 3+ years. I am sooo regretting my "cash only" lifestyle. My DH has offered to AU me on one of his cards... I have been saying no, I want to build on my own. 'My scores are very good now, they'd be excellent w/age. AAoA is a shiny object that is now taunting me.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 07:51:54 GMT

All of that fair/good/excellent stuff and the pretty red/yellow/green colors are just fluff provided by a CMS. It can vary from CMS to CMS, so you can't go by any of their charts/graphs on these things. What matters is how the FICO algorithm views them.

When it comes to AAoA, a top FICO score (850) can be reached at some point between 6.5-7.5 years. On EX I got there at 6.7 years, on TU it was 7.4 years. A "safe" number of course would be 8 years. Anything 8+ is excellent... likely a little less on most profiles as was the case on mine.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Thomas_Thumb — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 17:48:31 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
5-6+ is probably very good, 8-9+ excellent.

I'd say 5 to 8 years is very good with 8 years and above being excellent. Certainly Fico points are being left on the table for AAoA in the 5 to 8 year range.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

FireMedic1 — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:13:42 GMT

From My FICO........

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 07:39:28 GMT

What is considered a high achiever? Is it a 760+ score like the thread in this section states? 780?

If so, I strongly disagree with the graphic that suggests that high achievers on average possess an AAoA of 9+ years. If someone wanted to argue that for everyone that possesses an 850 score sure, I'd get that, but not 760-780 or so. Heck, 760-780 can be achieved with an AAoA of 1-2 years.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Revelate — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 12:21:54 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
What is considered a high achiever? Is it a 760+ score like the thread in this section states? 780?

If so, I strongly disagree with the graphic that suggests that high achievers on average possess an AAoA of 9+ years. If someone wanted to argue that for everyone that possesses an 850 score sure, I'd get that, but not 760-780 or so. Heck, 760-780 can be achieved with an AAoA of 1-2 years.

You have to remember 760 was the line set on the forums back in the FICO 98 / FICO 04 days... and that was a damned good score back then, and not so easy to achieve. Even clean and swabo inquiries I peaked at 774 EQ FICO 5 or thereabouts, and that was with my first rebuild acounts opened nearly 7 years ago at that point with an AAOA of 4 years too.

To the OP - you have to take any 3rd party interpretation of one's credit report with a grain of salt: ultimately the score that the lender pulls is what matters anyway, and even FICO scores while they can generally give you a good idea of where you stand, ultimately it's the report data that matters and in this case what one lender thinks is a good or excellent credit age, might not be the same for another lender.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Thomas_Thumb — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 13:41:47 GMT

A Fico 8 score of 760 represents the 65th percentile. While above average, I'd hardly clasify that as "high achiever". If one defines above 80th percentile as a benchmark for high achiever, then a Fico 8 score of 800 is a better fit.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Revelate — Sun, 23 Sep 2018 00:19:08 GMT

@Thomas_Thumb do you still happen to have the v2 or v3 Experian sheets? My GoogleFU is failing though I've seen them in the past the best I could dig up were their proprietary scores and VS 3.0.

Agreed that 800 would be a better number for FICO 8 for High Achiever given the new look score distributions, but it'd be curious to compare that vs. some of the older models for a better estimate as I'd be tempted to shift the threads with the percentiles backing it up.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 02:54:23 GMT

Fico Mortgage score distributions. See below

@revelate

Below is a detailed score distribution for EX Fico score 2 (Fico 98). Interestingly, the percentiles are on par with Fico 8. With either distribution it would be a stretch to label 760 a "high achievement" score. Per the above summary graphs, the top bracket starts at 800.

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Revelate — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 05:05:30 GMT

Thanks for that senor!

Seriously WTH though, apparently a 760 back on mortgage scores is roughly equivalent to a 760 now (based on percentage of people who have that score) and I wouldn't have expected that at all with the data here.

Higher revolving utilization perhaps out in the general population and FICO 8 penalizing that more harshly than FICO 04 models as we preach financial responsibility here and most people here eventually get to PIF every month?

Re: What Average Age of Credit History is Considered Very Good

Thomas_Thumb — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 12:07:37 GMT

I recall reading that Fico intentionally adjusts (normalizes) model scores so that they are in the same range around the 50th percentile. Note: Although Fico 04 may treat higher utilization more harshly, it does not penalize for no open installment loans the way Fico has does.

See score comparison graph below. Note convergence of Experian Fico scores in the 40th to 50th percentile range.