I don't understand AAoA

[Booner72]

How is AAoA determined?  My average age of an open account is 5 some years.  But I've had accounts going back for many years - I think 98 or earlier is my first account, but those are closed accounts.  Are closed accounts factored into this?  I'm asking because I'm trying to get some lates off student loans that are paid off - there are many sallie mae's listed and I only need to get 2 lates removed and even if they deleted the tradeline, it would still leave many others.  Would getting rid of a closed tradeline affect AAoA?

Also, my dad put me as AU on his Visa - don't know how long he's had it but I know a good while - he said "forever."  So maybe my forever is longer than his (hope not).

Does MYFICO list on here AAoA somewhere in the score/report summary, cus I'm not seeing it.

Thank you.

[haulingthescoreup]

If it's on your reports, open or closed, revolving, installment, or mortgage, it's counted.

On a closed account: figure its age from when it was opened to now, not to when it was closed.

On an open account: figure its age from when it was opened to now.

Getting rid of a closed tradeline will affect AAoA. If it's older than your current AAoA, it will lower it. If it's younger, it will increase it. (Please don't try to remove TL's to increase AAoA, though, as this can result in a mell of a hess. AAoA is important, but it's not the be-all and end-all.)

To figure out your AAoA, take every account on your report and figure age, expressed in months. So if an account is 3 years, 4 months old, express it as 40 months.

Add them all up, and then divide by the number of accounts. That's your AAoA in months. Divide again by 12 to get AAoA in years. If it's X years and change, FICO looks at the even number of years. So if your AAoA is 4 years 2 months, or 4.166667 years, it counts as 4 years for FICO scoring.

If you want to see what happens to your AAoA when an old account falls off, just exclude it from the sum of ages, and divide by one less account.

If you want to see what will happen if you open a new account, take that total of ages in months and divide it by one more account. In other words, if all your account ages added up to 240 months, and you now have 4 accounts, your AAoA is 240 months/ 4 = 60 months or 5 years. But if you add a new account, it will be 240 months/ 5 = 48 months or 4 years.

This is why mad app sprees can be so devastating to AAoA and therefore scores, and the wait is long and painful while waiting for scores to recover. Don't ask me how I know this. 

[Booner72]

Thanks for your fast reply - So here is what is listed:

 OK:  So if the sallie mae gets deleted because I'm GW'ing them about the late - then that means I could be F'd?

Also, how old would my dad's Visa have to be to help this situation by putting me as an AU?

Also, I thought things dropped off after a certain time - why would that 1998 account still be on here?

And open accounts age really mean nothing?

 

Gemb/Carec		9/2010	$496	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Gemb/Jcp		8/2009	$344	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fhut/Metbk		11/2007	$283	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fst Premie		11/2007	$58	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Us Dept Ed	XXXXXX0461	8/2009	$61,382	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Sallie Mae	XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX0010	9/2001	$0	Pays account as agreed		Details
Cit Bk/Dfs		12/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Cit/Fhut		11/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Cap One		12/2000	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Niss Infi	XXXXXXX4349	11/2001	$0	Included in Bankruptcy		Details
Cap One		7/2002	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Ptld Comm	XXXXXXXXXXX4603	12/1998	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Nissan	XXXXXXXXXXX0001	8/2001	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Nwde Nw Lp		6/2010	$8,329	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fireside	XXXXXXXXXXXX6402	8/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details

[Walt_K]

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@Booner72 wrote:

Thanks for your fast reply - So here is what is listed:

 OK:  So if the sallie mae gets deleted because I'm GW'ing them about the late - then that means I could be F'd?

Also, how old would my dad's Visa have to be to help this situation by putting me as an AU?

Also, I thought things dropped off after a certain time - why would that 1998 account still be on here?

And open accounts age really mean nothing?

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If Sallie Mae gets deleted, then you aren't f'd.  You just have one less tradeline.  It's a 10 year old tradeline which looks to be older than your average (I'm not doing the full calculation) so it is going to lower your AAoA if it gets deleted, but as Hauling pointed out, this isn't the be all end all.

Your dad's Visa would have to be older than your current AAoA.  To figure that out, you're going to have to do the calculation as described.  Sum of the age of all of your accounts in months, divided by the total number of accounts.  If the Visa is older than that, it will help AAoA.  If it is younger than that, it will hurt AAoA.

Things stay on your CR for 10 years after they close generally.  I'm assuming the 1998 date is the date the account was opened, not the date it was closed. 

Not sure what your question is with regard to open accounts.  They don't mean nothing.  They are factored into your AAoA like every other account.

[haulingthescoreup]

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@Booner72 wrote:

Thanks for your fast reply - So here is what is listed:

 OK:  So if the sallie mae gets deleted because I'm GW'ing them about the late - then that means I could be F'd?

 --Well, your AAoA would drop. Frankly, I'd rather have the cleaner report, but that's just me.

Also, how old would my dad's Visa have to be to help this situation by putting me as an AU?

 --What's the "situation"? What's your current AAoA? You're right, myFICO reports don't list it specifically, but it often shows up on screen two (positives and negatives.) If his card was opened in 9/2001, it would exactly replace the Sallie Mae TL. If older, it would increase your AAoA; if younger, it would drop it.

Also, I thought things dropped off after a certain time - why would that 1998 account still be on here?

--They stay on ten years after closing.

And open accounts age really mean nothing?

--What?? Why would they "really mean nothing"? They're factored in. All accounts, open or closed.

 

Gemb/Carec		9/2010	$496	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Gemb/Jcp		8/2009	$344	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fhut/Metbk		11/2007	$283	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fst Premie		11/2007	$58	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Us Dept Ed	XXXXXX0461	8/2009	$61,382	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Sallie Mae	XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX0010	9/2001	$0	Pays account as agreed		Details
Cit Bk/Dfs		12/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Cit/Fhut		11/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Cap One		12/2000	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Niss Infi	XXXXXXX4349	11/2001	$0	Included in Bankruptcy		Details
Cap One		7/2002	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Ptld Comm	XXXXXXXXXXX4603	12/1998	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Nissan	XXXXXXXXXXX0001	8/2001	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Nwde Nw Lp		6/2010	$8,329	Pays account as agreed	No	Details
Fireside	XXXXXXXXXXXX6402	8/2007	$0	Pays account as agreed	No	Details

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eta: outtyped by Walt_K!

[Booner72]

Okay thank you both so much for helping me break this down.  I will get a calculator out and figure out the AAoA.

"The situation" is getting my score to 640.

When i said open accts mean "nothing" ..... I just thought that open accounts weighed more in a general sense w/ the score, but I see now that in determining AAOA, which will in and of itself, affect the score.  I see now (thanks to ya'll) that AAOA is just one of the many pieces that go into the overall score -

The AU can help in terms of a long history (AAoA), decreasing utilization, and also, increasing limits (I've been dinged for low limit cards) -- So the AU can affect the score in many different ways that I can see.  So complicated!  I barely passed statistics in college.  I think they would have gotten my attention more in that class if they would have applied some of this as a way to catch attention.

[Booner72]

I still am heavily confused.

My first SW report says the only thing helping my score was long account history, that my AAoA was six years, and my oldest account was over 21 years old.

My next two SW reports (all 3 in last month) say that the # 3 thing "hurting my score"  is Short Account History!

So does this mean that the Father's Visa-that-has-yet-to-report will have to be over 21 years old to do any good?

[llecs]

You could have been rebucketed assuming the AAoA was the same between reports. This can cause the items to switch up. Nothing to worry about...just means you are doing better in terms of credit.

A 21 year old TL is older than a 6 year AAoA. It would certainly help.

[Booner72]

Hi llecs- maybe I'm just tired from constantly worrying about this loan which is causing me to be confused- but I don't understand the rebucketing thing you are talking about.

Found out today that it is a 5000.00 limit card he has had since 1994.  The Credit Union lady I talked to today said that they sent everything last night to the CRA's - so hopefully soon.

Also, she said that she doesn't think I will get the whole history, that she says it will look like a "new account opened in June."   I told her I didn't think so, she wants me to call her and tell her if I do get the whole history.  Now worried to death!  But she sounded dumb anyway.

[Anonymous]

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@Booner72 wrote:

Okay thank you both so much for helping me break this down.  I will get a calculator out and figure out the AAoA.

"The situation" is getting my score to 640.

When i said open accts mean "nothing" ..... I just thought that open accounts weighed more in a general sense w/ the score, but I see now that in determining AAOA, which will in and of itself, affect the score.  I see now (thanks to ya'll) that AAOA is just one of the many pieces that go into the overall score -

The AU can help in terms of a long history (AAoA), decreasing utilization, and also, increasing limits (I've been dinged for low limit cards) -- So the AU can affect the score in many different ways that I can see.  So complicated!  I barely passed statistics in college.  I think they would have gotten my attention more in that class if they would have applied some of this as a way to catch attention.

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Hey Booner,  The highlighted text above is most commonly seen on FAKO reports and scores.  Did this come with your lender pulled CR's?

I have yet to see this on a FICO report, even when DH (with an EQ FICO over 800) had only one revolving account with a $500 CL.