FICO hit for 5 of 12 reporting?

[expatCanuck]

Hi folks -
While I'm maintaining PIF behavior, I may have to let as many as 5 of 12 cards report over the next month or two. No single card will exceed 28% util, and aggregate util will remain under 8%. Recently, I've been allowing only 3 cards to report.

Any sense of how much of a score hit this might entail? (All scores currently exceed 810; all components are in good shape, except for New Accounts.)

[Anonymous]

"Cards" may not be as important as "accounts" here, so make sure you figure total accounts with balances as well.  Some people report the first "hit" at 50% of accounts with balances on TU and some on EX.  With EQ, the penalty can come as early as 33% of accounts with balances.  Some (myself included) see no penalty at all on EX with > 50% of accounts with balances all the way up to 100%. 

Regardless of if the first penalty you see is at 33% or 50% (or something else) IMO the "hit" you take is incredibly minor and not really worth talking about, probably to the tune of 3-5 points.  For me, it was 0 EX, 3 TU, 4 EQ on a clean/thick/aged file and 800's scores, just to give you a reference point.

[HeavenOhio]

I get dinged by about five points when a second card reports on EQ. Others often report "getting away" with numbers like BBS mentions. This factor varies from profile to profile. If you're watching your own profile, you'll probably get to the point where you can predict changes. But it's a tough call when looking at someone else's profile.

Having said that, I'd expect to lose a few points, but nothing that would be concerning.

[expatCanuck]

Thanks @Anonymous  & @HeavenOhio.

Particularly helpful to know about the account/card distinction -- I'll be 7 of 14 reporting a balance, and I suspect it'll cost me 5 to 8 points.  We'll see.

[Anonymous]

Accounts verses cards is an interesting distinction.  When you're talking top-tier scores, it becomes sort of amusing to see the reason code shift.  The best example I can give is with respect to someone that has exactly 1 open installment loan and exactly 1 revolver with a non-zero balance reported.  When it comes to revolvers, they're at AZEO... but they're really at AZE2 due to the presence of an open installment loan.

We all know that having an open installment loan (especially if significantly paid down) is "better" than having no open installment loan... so when discussing accounts with balances, AZE2 is actually "better" than AZEO.

What I find amusing though are the negative reason codes associated with AZEO vs AZE2 here.  With AZEO (no open installment loan, 1 revolver with a reported non-zero balance) you'll get the negative reason code "no recent installment loan information" which could be costing someone (say) 25 points.  With AZE2 (1 installment loan, 1 revolver) you may see the "too many accounts with balances" negative reason code, which is costing someone (say) 5 points.  Clearly, the extra account with a balance is less of a negative [with respect to FICO scoring] than not having an open installment loan... but by definition, one will always possess one of these codes.  I just find this amusing.

[Revelate]

It may depend on model.

AFAIK FICO 8 is on revolvers (mostly cards as others may be excluded) at least for my dataset, FICO 04 and below appears to be accounts.

5/12 will only be a ding on EQ FICO 8 in my experience, and it won't be a big deal.  I'd guess ~7 points on a clean file.