Thanks again, Jamie123. Note that you may be mishearing the problem. You see me being concerned about how an underwriter would see a new CC within the past YEAR. But the scenario I am raising is him being concerned about a card within the past 4-5 months. (Secondarily I was concerned about how he would view four new cards in a 2-year period, which was your initial recomendation).
I have to emphasize again that the scenario I am trying to protect myself from is getting a new card and then having a sudden change of needs and trying to buy a home 90 days later. The sources of information I have looked it seem to be unanimous in their belief that adding any new revolving line credit in the six months before formal underwriting begins is a bad idea -- it is a big red flag for lenders. It isn't the only piece of data they look at of course ("Did he get a new credit card in the last six months?") Of course not. Nor would it prevent the loan from going through (given the other positive things in my favor). But to be certain (as you seem to be) that it could not alter the size of the loan or the interest rate seems to me unwarranted, given the thunderous unanimity of advice on this particular seen from mortgage lenders.
It's a balancing act. One thing I have been trying to assess is where my credit score would be (in five years) without adding any new credit cards. That was the focus of this thread, phrased as a general question about how high someone can score with a small number of tradelines. The evidence that has been uncovered (such as it is -- the case study provided by a contributor) suggests that a profile like my mine would end up with score in the mid to upper 820s (after all my other accounts fell off).
Against that I need to balance a desire that I have to add more CC's (known to be a red flag to underwriters when they occur shortly before underwriting begins). I have no need for them, in the sense of needing a bigger credit limit or needing the benefits they would provide.. The only reason is to have some extra accounts when the others fall off. But the evidence thus far suggests that the loss of the closed accounts will only create a very small loss in my score: e.g. 833 to 827, say.
The only real concern that I have been able to uncover is your belief that adding a new CC in five years (if I ever chose to do that) would be more damaging to my FICO than if I did it now (while I have lots of other accounts to absorb the impact to my AAoA). But take a look at my earlier post where I discussed that particular concern of yours. To add a card now (which I did with reluctance a few weeks ago) will cause my AAoA to drop to a substantially lower number han it would have if I had waited to do it five years from now -- I calculated the impact for you and showed you that in five years my AAoA would drop only to 12 years (which is an AAoA higher than the known case of David Howe who scored a triple 850 and higher than my current AAoA where I have an 833).
It is as I say a balancing act. I needed to balance not having a lot of extra cards five years from now against the fact that I might have a very sudden need to buy a house in the next five years. After long thought I added one card, which is a compromise between the two concerns. It will turn out to have been the incorrect decision should I have a sudden need to buy in (say) August of this year. But a reasonable gamble is that I won't be buying a house this summer or early fall. And it will be (mildly) nice for my credit profile to have an additional card on it five years from now, four cards (plus two open loans), rathen than three cards.
