topic Re: AAoA in General Credit Topics

AAoA

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 18:49:38 GMT

How do they figure this? Is it all accounts or just credit cards? If they don't report to all three? My husband has had accounts at his credit union since early 2000s. Card wise, our oldest is from 2008 (older ones fell off)..Do they include negative accounts or just positive?

Re: AAoA

llecs — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 20:51:57 GMT

Per FICO reports and FICO scoring, AAoA is the average age of ALL OC accounts, whether good or bad, opened or closed. Of course these include items like loans, mortgages, CCs, charge-offs, etc. AAoA does not include CAs (in the collections section) or PRs.

AAoA is based per report based on what's reporting. It's not uncommon to have 3 different AAoAs because not everything reports to all 3 CRAs.

I cheat via a speadsheet which is below (older screenshot included), but I'll add up the total number of months an account's age based on the reported opened date. I'll then add up the sum of all the months. Then I'll divide the number of accounts into that total sum to come up with an average. FICO reads the average as a whole number only, so 2 yrs, 3 yrs, etc. And it'll round down to the nearest whole number. So, a 3.8 year AAoA is really a 3 year AAoA.

Re: AAoA

2NE1 — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:46:06 GMT

@llecs thanks for the spreadsheet sample.

I'm trying to put mine together. How do I go about updating the student loans that were closed and transferred? I think I saw on my EX report the year they'll fall off. Do these still count towards AAoA?

Also, once an account does fall off will I be able to calculate the new AAoA total by removing the whole row?

TIA!

Re: AAoA

llecs — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:07:02 GMT

@2NE1 wrote:
@llecs thanks for the spreadsheet sample.

I'm trying to put mine together. How do I go about updating the student loans that were closed and transferred? I think I saw on my EX report the year they'll fall off. Do these still count towards AAoA?

Also, once an account does fall off will I be able to calculate the new AAoA total by removing the whole row?

TIA!

Your sold and transferred SLs count in AAoA too for as long as they report. All OC accounts, opened or closed, CO'd, etc., count into AAoA.

My screen shot excludes EX so I could fit in the detail a bit better, but I have the same TLs lined up in the same row so that way if an OC does delete, it'll be easier to delete the entire row.

BTW, here's the formula if you wanted to cheat:

=(YEAR(C5)-YEAR(B5))*12+MONTH(C5)-MONTH(B5)

In the above, column C was today's date (always express the date for the first of each month (e.g. today is 6/1) because your CR backdates everything to the first on TU and EQ anyway). Column B is the date it was opened (again, backdate to the first).

Re: AAoA

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 03:24:19 GMT

Completely as a side note, you could also use the today() function to return your computer's system date. Converting that to always be the 1st of this month takes a touch more work: =DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),MONTH(TODAY()),1).

I set up a lot of conditional formatting off of this as well, for example a sheet that lists all of our account balances daily, and highlights today's date.

Re: AAoA

2NE1 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:36:47 GMT

Thank you @llecs and @cassembler.

Three more questions...

1. The SLs that have been closed/transferred and no longer report payment data nor the ND, those count as well? @llecs you said "Your sold and transferred SLs count in AAoA too for as long as they report." do you mean as long as they report (are shown) on my CR? cause they're not reporting any data for years, what do I do with those TLs?

2. I just noticed on my EX report that some SLs started reporting data before the account was OPEN... how's that possible? for example, one says: Reported Since: 10/2006 and Date Opened: 7/2007 - that's a ONE year difference! what's up with that? or is this a reporting error?

3. For the AAoA calculation, do I go by the Reported Since date? or the Date Opened?. Like CapOne was opened (applied) on 1/2012 but did not report the payment history till 3/2012.

Thanks again!

Re: AAoA

llecs — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:46:02 GMT

@2NE1 wrote:
Thank you @llecs and @cassembler.

Three more questions...

1. The SLs that have been closed/transferred and no longer report payment data nor the ND, those count as well? @llecs you said "Your sold and transferred SLs count in AAoA too for as long as they report." do you mean as long as they report (are shown) on my CR? cause they're not reporting any data for years, what do I do with those TLs?

2. I just noticed on my EX report that some SLs started reporting data before the account was OPEN... how's that possible? for example, one says: Reported Since: 10/2006 and Date Opened: 7/2007 - that's a ONE year difference! what's up with that? or is this a reporting error?

3. For the AAoA calculation, do I go by the Reported Since date? or the Date Opened?. Like CapOne was opened (applied) on 1/2012 but did not report the payment history till 3/2012.

Thanks again!

1) As long as they are OC accounts, regardless of when they reported last, they count into AAoA. I have accounts that haven't reported or updated in 9 years. They still count for as long as they are showing in the CR. Basically, ALL accounts on the Accounts page of your FICO report are included into AAoA.

2) Sounds like it is misreporting. If the account is open, I would contact the lender and see if you can find the right person/department in charge of reporting. If closed, there's always the risk of deletion instead. Certainly weigh it to your AAoA if closed.

3) Date opened.

Re: AAoA

RobertEG — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:23:16 GMT

Aside from the issue of the AAoA itself, it might be useful to ponder the possible, resulting score implications...

Assuming length of credit is 15% of scoring, based on the standard weighting, that would offer approx 127 points.

Part of that is oldest account, and part is AAoA. Assuming, for purposes of numbers, a 50/50 split in relative weighting, that would result in a total of approx 62 or so total points to be garnished for AAoA.

That is approx on par with what a single, new major derog might initially cost. A bit of perspective....

Re: AAoA

llecs — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 03:15:09 GMT

@RobertEG wrote:
Aside from the issue of the AAoA itself, it might be useful to ponder the possible, resulting score implications...
Assuming length of credit is 15% of scoring, based on the standard weighting, that would offer approx 127 points.
Part of that is oldest account, and part is AAoA. Assuming, for purposes of numbers, a 50/50 split in relative weighting, that would result in a total of approx 62 or so total points to be garnished for AAoA.

That is approx on par with what a single, new major derog might initially cost. A bit of perspective....

You can't calculate it that way though for a couple of reasons. Scoring buckets aside whereby AAoA can weigh more for some vs. others, there are only 550 available points within the FICO score, not 850.

Re: AAoA

compassion101 — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 20:18:41 GMT

@llecs wrote:
@RobertEG wrote:
Aside from the issue of the AAoA itself, it might be useful to ponder the possible, resulting score implications...
Assuming length of credit is 15% of scoring, based on the standard weighting, that would offer approx 127 points.
Part of that is oldest account, and part is AAoA. Assuming, for purposes of numbers, a 50/50 split in relative weighting, that would result in a total of approx 62 or so total points to be garnished for AAoA.

That is approx on par with what a single, new major derog might initially cost. A bit of perspective....

You can't calculate it that way though for a couple of reasons. Scoring buckets aside whereby AAoA can weigh more for some vs. others, there are only 550 available points within the FICO score, not 850.

So, the assumption is that the amount of points associated with the 15% in age of accounts would always be 82.5 points (550 x 15%), but the amount of the 82.5 points associated with AAoA and the amount associated with oldest account would vary depending upon the various buckets?

Re: AAoA

llecs — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:49:51 GMT

That 15% would include AAoA with length of history, and FICO looks at the overall length, longest, installment, longest revolving, etc.

Yes, the buckets play heavily into that. That's why some can see an increase to an AAoA of X years, and others cannot. And the report content plays into it too. If length of history/AAoA is listed in the #1 slot as a negative, then you stand to see bigger gains. If not listed, lesser gains. In other words, the 82.5 is not fixed and is variable.

Re: AAoA

marty56 — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 11:41:43 GMT

IMHO AAoA is very important on MR since having a long consistent history could help overshadow a local ding. I feel that helped me get a good refi even when I had a 120 day late on my CR as well as when my CR was pulled as part of my periodic background check at work.

It is also 00% under your control and easy upkeep.