How many accounts should I have?

[Anonymous]

I currently have 12 positive, but new accounts. Like 8 store cards, and 4 visa, master card etc. Best card is a 5000 chase that I just got. 18 months ago fico in the 500 range, and now in the low to mid 600's. My utilization only 3% on all. Still a couple of negatives that will fall off in early 2015. Credit karma report card says I should have 20-22 accounts. Is this true? If so should I try and get a few more before I garden to get rid of these inquiries? Avg age is bad too less than 1 year.

[coldnmn]

Credit Karma is a fako scoring model. You have way more than enough accounts and with your utilization and credit file are doing a great job. Credit Karma is ok to check for any changes to your account but don't believe the scores or suggestions. 

[MarineVietVet]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
I currently have 12 positive, but new accounts. Like 8 store cards, and 4 visa, master card etc. Best card is a 5000 chase that I just got. 18 months ago fico in the 500 range, and now in the low to mid 600's. My utilization only 3% on all. Still a couple of negatives that will fall off in early 2015. Credit karma report card says I should have 20-22 accounts. Is this true? If so should I try and get a few more before I garden to get rid of these inquiries? Avg age is bad too less than 1 year.

---

I agree you should ignore both the scores and advice at CK.

There is no one size fits all answer to how many accuonts is enough. It's a personal decision.

Also CK calculates AAoA on open accounts only while FICO looks at both open and closed. You can't have an AAoA of less than a year. It's built into the system.

[takeshi74]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
Credit karma report card says I should have 20-22 accounts. Is this true?

---

No -- you should have however many you need/want and can responsibly manage.

---

@MarineVietVet wrote:

You can't have an AAoA of less than a year. It's built into the system.

---

How so?

[MarineVietVet]

---

@takeshi74 wrote:

---

How so?

---

I was told by a former admin of this site that AAoA can never be less than one year.

He didn't go into any detail about how that was calculated.

[NRB525]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
I currently have 12 positive, but new accounts. Like 8 store cards, and 4 visa, master card etc. Best card is a 5000 chase that I just got. 18 months ago fico in the 500 range, and now in the low to mid 600's. My utilization only 3% on all. Still a couple of negatives that will fall off in early 2015. Credit karma report card says I should have 20-22 accounts. Is this true? If so should I try and get a few more before I garden to get rid of these inquiries? Avg age is bad too less than 1 year.

---

CK does a dumbed-down report card to lump the entire population into A, B, C, etc rankings. My CK report card says I get an A for "Total Accounts" because I have 22+. But I've got several in there that are closed, still reporting. And, very importantly, there is a warning off to the right of "about this factor" that says this number of accounts thing has a very low impact on scoring. The reason CK includes it is that number of accounts lets them quantify how often someone has been granted credit.

This is a way to show length of credit history (more accounts gathered over time) and number of lenders who trust you with accounts, but that is not a cause of good FICO scores, it is coincident with good FICO scores.

Going for too many accounts too quickly (OP is at the "too many" limit IMO) results in lenders NOT trusting you, the applicant starts getting denials, so it's best to take a reality check and stop to garden for a while.