Credit Usage vs Credit Age

[Anonymous]

My husband and I are working on our mortgage scores. I have a few more cc than him and I am an authorized user on all of his. Therefore my credit line is higher. My usage is around 40% and his is around 70%. Yes, we are working on paying them down. My question is should i add him as a user on my target card to lower his usage percentage or is this a bad idea because the card is only 3 months old? Will this lower his average credit age?

[Adkins]

If I remember right, it's not going make a difference because they aren't going to factor AU accounts into a mortgage score. Adding him would lower his credit age, with points lost depending on which FICO score in model they are using. You best best is to get your utilization down first, and see how the FICO points settle. 

[HeavenOhio]

Don't add him. One thing each of you want to do is bring your youngest account to a year in age. There's a nice score bump for that. And while you're waiting for that to happen, inquiries will gradually become unscorable.

The big thing, of course, is paying down your debt.

[Anonymous]

Do you plan to pay off all your CC debt before you go through pre-authorization?  If so, I can't see how there is any point in attempting to artificially lower his utilization through AU accounts.  Just do it naturally by paying off your debt.