Number of accounts with balances

[Anonymous]

I've posted before that in my experience, I have always gained additional points when my number of accounts with balances went down, even when that number was far fewer than half of my total accounts.

I pulled my TU score tonight, and just thought I'd share the results.  Notice that I gained 11 points even after adding a new account (and after I already had several new accounts in the last 12 months).  Neither report has any inquiries, both reports are clean, and both reports were pulled during the month of July, so there are no account anniversaries that come into play here.

Previously

Revolving utilization: 2%

Total number of accounts: 13

Accounts with balances: 3

Accounts opened in last 12 months: 10

FICO: 744

Currently

Revolving utilization: 1%

Total number of accounts: 14

Accounts with balances: 1

Accounts opened in last 12 months: 11

FICO: 755

Message Edited by cheddar on 07-24-2008 07:26 PM

[Anonymous]

1 account with a balance?

Dang- No Sl's, No mortgage, no Auto?

Just keep socking that $ away -

I have mortgage, auto (at 0% 29 payments left) 1 SL, so the lowest I can get to is 3-

I did 4 back in Nov (no cards reporting balance 2 SL's then) - good for about 20 points at the time.

I might try this again in Sept or Oct when I go 2 years clean payments.

[smallfry]

Cheddar I am wondering if I would take a score hit if I paid the remaining $100 left on my car loan. The loan can last until June 2012 if I allow it. Normally I let 2 credit cards report small balances along with the car loan giving me 3 accounts reporting balances out of 8 accounts in total.
I notice no changes in scores if I let 0 1 2 or 3 credit cards report balances along with a car loan in any given month.

[Anonymous]

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Timothy wrote:

1 account with a balance?

Dang- No Sl's, No mortgage, no Auto?

Just keep socking that $ away -

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Nope.  SLs were paid years ago and have already fallen off because they were baddies.  No mortgage (we are renters).  No car in my name; it's in DF's name.

So nope, I have no "grown-up" accounts.  For now, I have the luxury of allowing only one account report a balance.

[Anonymous]

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smallfry wrote:
Cheddar I am wondering if I would take a score hit if I paid the remaining $100 left on my car loan. The loan can last until June 2012 if I allow it. Normally I let 2 credit cards report small balances along with the car loan giving me 3 accounts reporting balances out of 8 accounts in total.
I notice no changes in scores if I let 0 1 2 or 3 credit cards report balances along with a car loan in any given month.

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Interesting.  I wonder if this is bucket related.

Or perhaps it is directly related to the number of installment and other non-revolving accounts one has.

[Anonymous]

UTL sweet spot extra 10 points maybe going from 2% to 1%. The extra 1 point don't know, maybe total age of file or history gain. I'm just guessing on this one.

As far a bucket, you probably are getting closer to a change. The next bucket up has a tighter sweetspot for UTL.

I am making this guess based on revolving balances. But if you closed an installment sometimes you get a few points in specific cases.

Was your reduced number of balances installment or revolving? Now you make me want to test something too. I'm going to make some changes to number of balances too. BRB. My break point was always 4 balances before taking a hit. Wonder if that has changed. Won't have an answer for 2 more weeks.

Message Edited by ilovepizza on 07-25-2008 03:42 PM

[Anonymous]

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ilovepizza wrote:
UTL sweet spot extra 10 points maybe going from 2% to 1%. The extra 1 point don't know, maybe total age of file or history gain. I'm just guessing on this one.

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I disagree.  I've never seen point fluctuations like this when going from 1% to 2% and back again.

Please read my post and the followups again.  Both pulls occured in the month of July.  There is no aging going on here.  In fact, the second pull with the higher score has a brand new account which actually brought my average age down in the meantime.

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ilovepizza wrote:

I am making this guess based on revolving balances. But if you closed an installment sometimes you get a few points in specific cases.

Was your reduced number of balances installment or revolving? Now you make me want to test something too. I'm going to make some changes to number of balances too. BRB. My break point was always 4 balances before taking a hit. Wonder if that has changed. Won't have an answer for 2 more weeks.

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I have no installment accounts, as I mentioned above.

[Anonymous]

I'd bet it was UTL changing from 2% to 1%. That's how it affects my CR anyway, 10 point change. The affect of number of balances reporting I believe will ding more than 10 points for most people that I have seen.

I am going to test this too. Wow. I'm going to have to pay off 7 balances for this test. I didn't actually ever count how many debts I was carrying until just now.

[smallfry]

pizza I have had an open installment (car loan) for just about forever now. Currently I have 6 credit cards only 1 with less than a 5 figure credit limit. 1 store card Walmart at $1000 CL.

I never allow any card to post over 4% utilization and my total utilization has been running between 1-2% which FICO always scores at the rounded up 2%.

My installment balance has been under 25% of the original loan amount for the past 4 reporting periods now only $100. BTW the only report I gained any points for killing the car loan was on TU when the score moved from 717-731. EQ and EX remained the same.
I think my scores have reached their potential in this bucket now. I have a 6 year old PR paid tax lien which drops next July and a 8 year old BK7 which drops off April 2010.

All my new accounts have reached 1 year with the exception of my new Citi DP card opened in May. I got no hit for that new account.

Are you saying that if I drop my car loan and pay it off I won't lose any points for no open installments reporting?

[Anonymous]

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@smallfry wrote:
Are you saying that if I drop my car loan and pay it off I won't lose any points for no open installments reporting?

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No. In some specific cases you can gain points by closing an installment. Closing a long term auto might result in a small drop or no change at all. It depends on each situation. I just brought up the point gain as one possibility because I didn't know the details on the CR in discussion.