I wouldn't apply for anything new right now.
If your balances are getting tidied up (they aren't that much in the grand scheme of things, you don't owe much money just you have awkward ratios) there isn't really much need to take him off.
What did his reason codes say?
Mortgage specifically we're seeing some REALLY weird things in EX FICO 2 recently with not only high CL tradelines being discounted (which we sorta knew) but potentially also credit union revolvers too which was a massive surprise, and when you're trying to clear a tier I would absolutely, unequivocably keep a balance on a national bankcard when it comes to a mortgage app and if you clean up your own balances his file will be in a better place than without the AU's probably.
Good chance a new account might take 2 months to report anyway so wouldn't even land in time to help him, and ticking over a year on all those accounts might help too: if it were me I'd just AZEO leaving a small balance on one of those Cap One cards and see where I was at in 2 months and then go mortgage shopping personally.
@Anonymous wrote:in my case i applied for 3-4 credit cards in December for christmas savings and so forth. I applied for a mortgage late January and was approved. I just had to show they all had zero balances and explain the inq on my credit reports with accounts not reporting yet. I have around 15 new accounts the past 12 months. My scores are 700-720 across the board and my utilization is at 12%. My DTI is low, so probably why i had no issues.
Everyone is different, but in my case i was prequalified for a mortgage and will close in a month. Talked to the underwriter today and he said once i get my appraisal next week i can close 3 days later if i choose to. I believe everyone will tell you to not apply for new credit and i would agree. I am probably lucky and an exception.
The problem is if you hadn't had those accounts you might've been at a 720 or higher instead and that is a tier boundary and might've saved you real money in terms of interest rates.
Can you get a mortgage with even a bunch of new accounts, sure if your score supports it and yours did; however, if you're not gold plated (and anyone who isn't top shelf from a tiering perspective, read as 760+) can benefit from putting as much lipstick on the pig as possible which means don't apply for new accounts.
Ultimately everyone has to decide what is most important, but with even one new account you're simply not as optimized from a FICO scoring perspective as you could be, and given a mortgage is the most expensive credit thing virtually any of us will ever do in our lives, it helps to be as optimized as possible.
My opinion anyway.