I think there may be some portion of the scoring that can be improved by having more accounts with good payment history. The MyFICO education pages say so:
https://www.myfico.com/credit-education/credit-payment-history/
In bold: How many accounts show no late payments.
“ A good track record on most of your credit accounts will increase your FICO score”
The Payment history calculation has to be able to include a “percentage of on time payments” because using only an absolute count of Lates is not sufficient.
Cardholder #1 has 36 months of on-time payments on two cards. 72 payments. He misses one payment by 30 days.
Cardholder #2 has one card, has made one on time payment, then misses the second payment by 30 days. The severity, as a percentage of historical payments is much worse for cardholder #2 and simply must be in the calculation.
Cardholder #2 has also not built up a track record of payment so would likely have started at or just below 700.
Cardolder #1 would have increased score to the low 700s at least.
Each would lose score, but #1 should still have a higher score after the late.
By the same logic, and the quote regarding positive accounts, OP should be better off by adding another account, and aging all accounts with more ( overwhelming ) positive payments.
How many accounts show no late payment
The OP’s proposal is to open another account, which will be without blemish. In the scoring advice above, that seems like a good idea. In the experience of all the rebuilders here opening new accounts is a given / assumed effort, but usually for the benefits provided by the card such as cash back or travel points.
There is still a ceiling on score at any given age of baddies.
But to prove whether opening new clean accounts is not beneficial in a file with accounts blemished by lates, the control situation of cardholders working with the all-baddies lineup would be needed. We never see that.
The OP’s proposal is to open another account, which will be without blemish. In the scoring advice above, that seems like a good idea. In the experience of all the rebuilders here opening new accounts is a given / assumed effort, but usually for the benefits provided by the card such as cash back or travel points.
There is still a ceiling on score at any given age of baddies.
But to prove whether opening new clean accounts is not beneficial in a file with accounts blemished by lates, the control situation of cardholders working with the all-baddies lineup would be needed. We never see that.
Agreed the new account appearing has a near term drag on score. The objective with the additional account would be to see that age and help score over the long term.
The difficulty is in not having comparative files where someone merely aged existing baddie accounts, whether there is a similar improvement long term, or if such a file is at all stunted until the baddies fall off.
The difficulty is in not having comparative files where someone merely aged existing baddie accounts, whether there is a similar improvement long term, or if such a file is at all stunted until the baddies fall off.