Average Account Age Calculation

[Anonymous]

Is Avg. age determined on just revolving accounts?  And just on OPEN revolving accounts?

Or is it determined on ALL accounts, including installment?   Or both?

When it is said that to avoid having "too many accounts with balances", we should only have less than half our accounts with balances, is that < 50% of ALL accounts, or only < 50% of OPEN accounts?

Please clarify.  Thanks.

[fused]

---

Boscoe wrote:

Is Avg. age determined on just revolving accounts?  And just on OPEN revolving accounts?

Or is it determined on ALL accounts, including installment?   Or both?

When it is said that to avoid having "too many accounts with balances", we should only have less than half our accounts with balances, is that < 50% of ALL accounts, or only < 50% of OPEN accounts?

Please clarify.  Thanks.

---

All accounts factor in average-age, including derogatory accounts such as CO's (but never PRs or collections). Assuming your closed accounts have $0 balances, it's best to have less than half of your open accounts reporting any balance.

[Anonymous]

So if you have a mtg, HELOC, and auto loan, then you will need at least 4 credit cards to get below the 50%, assuming NO balances on any of the cards - which is not ideal either.  So you would need at least 5 cards and a balance only on one of them and more than that if you want to or need to have balances on more than 1.

Seems counter intuitive.

[Junejer]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

So if you have a mtg, HELOC, and auto loan, then you will need at least 4 credit cards to get below the 50%, assuming NO balances on any of the cards - which is not ideal either.  So you would need at least 5 cards and a balance only on one of them and more than that if you want to or need to have balances on more than 1.

Seems counter intuitive.

---

You've nailed it. Yes, it does seem counter-intuitive, but that's the FICO game--less than 1/2 of all open accounts should carry a balance.

[Anonymous]

So how much of a hit is it for 50%, 60%, 75% of open accounts with balances, even if all are below 10%????   My scores are in the 650-670  range.........

[Junejer]

It's part of the utilization model.

[Anonymous]

I was wondering about average age also:  If you consolidate your loans, does the consolidation date count as the aged date, or the date of the oldest loan?

[fused]

Keep in mind installment util calculations carry FAR less weight than revolving ones. I just concern myself with the number of revolving accounts reporting a balance.

[Junejer]

---

@fused wrote:

Keep in mind installment util calculations carry FAR less weight than revolving ones. I just concern myself with the number of revolving accounts reporting a balance.

---

True, but TU for one hates to have half or more of ALL open accounts with balances. I have been yelled at about that since I have looked at my CRs.

[fused]

---

ByrdMan wrote:


True, but TU for one hates to have half or more of ALL open accounts with balances. I have been yelled at about that since I have looked at my CRs.

---

I agree that TU, more so than the other two CRAs, punishes you for having too many accounts with balances. Personally, I have found that having too many revolving accounts with balances hurts more than too many installment accounts with balances. As for average-age, EX's scoring model gives this more weight than EQ and TU.