Hi there its is a good thing to bring those cards down to below 50%, however, as you probably read your utilization is still high. The magic number seems to be 30% or less with 10 even better. Unfortunately that includes your HELOC as it is a revolving line of credit.
As far as your brother's 30 day lates back in '04 they really shuoldn't be hurting your scores much now, Upon initial reporting they can drag you down as much as 100 points but the older they get the less impact they have on your score. A 30 day over two years old probably isn't really figuring into the mix.
Your scores arent that bad considering. What is showing as your overall utilzation? That would be the number I would work on first once you're down under 30 percent, take another look and see ifyou like what you see.
Closing a card really does no good unless you can't fight the temptation of using it. Once it is open the damage to the average length of credit history has already been done. The only reason I would close it is after getting the rest of my revolving under 30% (wihtout this one figuring into the mix) so as not to scare my lenders into believe that I have so much avail credit that maxing it out at anytime would result in me having difficulty repaying. 40K avail is a lot of avail credit. Do you really need it? Personally, right now I have about 14k and that prospect alone is enough to cause me sleepless nights.
Can't imagine what my creditors think.
Can't imagine what my creditors think.