Average Age of Accounts question

[Anonymous]

I have been repairing my credit since Aug 2008. We needed two reliable cars, and I had sworn off credit a number of years back because our family income was so variable (self-employment) that I didn't want to count on when we would have what. Now things are much more stable - I pulled credit reports, got nearly every negative report off that was inaccurate or an old collection, anything medical, and anything I could PFD.

In order to get more credit in the meantime I got a number of rebuilder cards, CreditOne, Orchard, Cap One, plus a store card (Target) and a gas card (ExxonMobil.) I have been calling them for CLIs (telling them you'd rather close it than have a low limit usually brings you an offer of $100 or so in CLI) and working on getting the derogatories off. We also bought two new cars, which were a necessity.

Now that my CRs are almost as clean as I can get them, two things are hurting me.  Low limits and average age of accounts.

Experian says "most of your accounts are under 3 years old." I am wondering if I close the ones with low limits that I don't want, CreditOne, Orchard, etc. and GW them to ask them to remove these (they are in good standing - don't know why they wouldn't do that favor if they do it for charge offs) and get my AAoAs older than 3, do you think my score will rise? I have a couple of old accounts that can balance them out.

(PS. Before you tell me that if I close then my utilization will go down, I know and will just keep my util below 9% no matter what my total credit is.)

Thanks for any help. 

[haulingthescoreup]

Well, I suppose you can try. And I know you know that the Experian comment is a FAKO, right? And also, FICO doesn't care about the limits on your cards.

What precisely is your AAoA?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for answering HTSU. Yes that's the FAKO comment, with their totally useless PLUS scores. I didn't know FICO doesn't care about credit limits. 

My AAoAs is 25.3 months.  

Current accounts are as follows:   

Litton Loan Mortgage              127 mos

Credit Union     Auto Loan           6 mos

Local Bank       Auto Loan          2 mos

Primus Charge off (not a repo)   98 mos

Cap One                                    7 mos

Credit One                                 8 mos

Crown Jewelers                          8 mos

ExxonMobil Personal Card          5 mos

Credit Union Visa                        3 mos

Orchard Bank                             8 mos

Target Red Card                          6 mos

I have heard of other people who have only a couple of accounts and have high scores. But I have a long string of lates on my mortgage that I doubt I can GW, and so I'm trying to "drown out" with lots of good accounts.  Obviously some of these CC are rebuilders, and I will close them at some point. 

If we hadn't needed the cars, our scores would be much higher, but both DH and I went from low 500s last August  to mid 600s (where we are now). I screwed up the timing on our newest card and it reported with a util of 42%, though I'd paid it to 15%. When I get that to 9% it should give us another boost.

What do you recommend as a next step?