CLOSING ACCOUNTS, GOOD OR BAD?

[Anonymous]

Ok, here is my dilemma.

I've built my scores from mid 5's to almost 7's across the board in 4 months (need to get EX over the hump). The beginning of rebuilding my profile I opened up a lot of accounts just because I thought that was gonna help, it didn't. The majority of the accounts are store cards that I won't ever use. I have a very thin and new profile. AAoA about 1.5 years and that's only because of a 11 year old Kay's card still reporting.
So, I want to close some of the store cards I will never use. They are only months old. Will this look bad on my part to a lender when they pull my report?

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's ever a bad idea to close cards that you don't or won't use, unless they are very old and positively impacting your AAoA. 

[Anonymous]

Once closed would they still be viewed as "recently opened accounts" by lenders? 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Once closed would they still be viewed as "recently opened accounts" by lenders? 

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Yes.  Closing them doesn't stop them from being counted as accounts you opened recently.

The only small addition I'd give to the advice of BBS is to avoid closing cards if the closures would bring you to less than five open cards.  Having a solid five cards may have advantages in some models (e.g. the mortgage models) where you want to show exactly one card with a positive balance and several other open accounts with a $0 balance.  That's harder to do when you have a smaller number of open cards.

Otherwise there is no problem with closing junky cards you don't like, if as BBS says they were opened recently.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the info. Much appreciated!