Number of CC's..

[Carloscda40]

I've noticed that some have like 8+ cards.

Now wouldn't that get a negative look from credit bureaus?

Also looking at credit karma it says one of the things affecting my credit is that I only hav 6 open accounts. Where as 11+ would be in the positive?

[K-in-Boston]

It's a balancing act of number of accounts, type of accounts and age of accounts.  As long as someone has at least 3 revolving accounts and an open installment loan, they've got most of the tools they need.  Certainly not a good idea to just open a ton of accounts to meet an arbitrary number of accounts.  That 11+ they mention is all accounts, open and closed, not just credit cards.

[AverageJoesCredit]

Yes, here on myfico, many have 20+ lol but as K stated, 3 and some kind of installment loan is sufficient for obtaining a good score. The amount of cards needed or wanted will depend on your needs and wants. No 2 myficoers are created the same

[Anonymous]

Some women digs guys with ridiculous amount of CCs, Mrs K-in-Boston for example. 

[AverageJoesCredit]

Lol, Special K

[Anonymous]

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@Carloscda40 wrote:

Now wouldn't that get a negative look from credit bureaus?

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No.  The bureaus just collect data, so they don't "look" at anything.  A larger number of revolvers also won't adversely impact your FICO scores.  Potential (or current) lenders can look at your reports and see how many revolving accounts you have.  Generally, the number of accounts is a non-factor.  Total balances and utilization of course CAN be a big factor, but more lines of credit isn't directly proportional to debt.  Now, total credit limits can be a limiting factor when they grow large enough that a potential (or current) lender deems them to be at their limit relative to your income.  In such a case, one may be denied new credit or additional credit based on being maxed out in the view of that lender.  That's about the only negative look I can think of with respect to having a larger number of revolvers, but it's more based on overall limits not number of trade lines. 

[Revelate]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Carloscda40 wrote:

Now wouldn't that get a negative look from credit bureaus?

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No.  The bureaus just collect data, so they don't "look" at anything.  A larger number of revolvers also won't adversely impact your FICO scores.  Potential (or current) lenders can look at your reports and see how many revolving accounts you have.  Generally, the number of accounts is a non-factor.  Total balances and utilization of course CAN be a big factor, but more lines of credit isn't directly proportional to debt.  Now, total credit limits can be a limiting factor when they grow large enough that a potential (or current) lender deems them to be at their limit relative to your income.  In such a case, one may be denied new credit or additional credit based on being maxed out in the view of that lender.  That's about the only negative look I can think of with respect to having a larger number of revolvers, but it's more based on overall limits not number of trade lines. 

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1. You have too few or too many credit accounts

TU 04 and industry options; apparently the same reason code for both too thin and too obese credit files.

Not too worried about it but it does exist in some buckets at least on one of the mortgage scores.  That said I have 29 tradelines and didn't see this until I landed into a pretty niche bucket apparently so people's mileage will vary.

[Anonymous]

Hi Revelate.  I remember you posting about this and I thought it was really interesting.  I wonder if the algorithm is including closed accounts in its assessment of "too many" or if it is just open accounts.  If it is just open accounts the problem can be easily fixed by anyone -- the person just needs to close a couple cards.  (Anyone with 20+ open accounts must have a few cards he doesn't care about.)

On the "too few" side, there's no question that this can be true.  Total number of accounts is one of the three factors for scorecard assignment (assuming a clean profile) and so a profile with only a couple accounts can land you in a scorecard with a maximum celing to your score.

Note to our OP:

Six open accounts almost certainly causes FICO to consider your profile to be "not thin."  So you're fine.  The reason that Credit Karma says you aren't is because CK makes its money (as do many other sites) in part by acting as a gateway for applying for credit cards and loans.  (For example, look at all the APPLY NOW buttons at the top of your myFICO screen.)  If you apply for a card through CK, CK will get a finders fee from the bank for leading you to them.

Thus CK has an interest in using its "credit score advice" as a means of inducing people to get panicky about not having "enough" cards.  In their moment of panic, CK hopes they will click APPLY NOW on its website to remedy this illusory problem.

A number of people have reported a perfect 850 score with six open accounts.  So don't worry about having too few.

[Anonymous]

PS to Revelate.  My memory is that there was in your case something wonky with this reason statement ("too many").  Namely that you had 29 accounts in January, pulled your scores later, and this reason statement did not appear.  Then later in the year (late summer?) the reason statement appeared (but with the total number remaining 29).  I think that this might have led you to speculate that even in TU FICO 04 the "29 = too many" might be a consideration only in a few scorecards -- and that perhaps you had been rebucketed.

Is that right?

[Anonymous]

The other thing to consider is that while 3 cards and 1 installment seems to be the magic number for points, having more cards will help solidify the average age of accounts. I wish I knew the magic number of accounts to have, for now I am just focusing on cards tailored to my spending habits so I can gain the most rewards.