I am new to building/rebuilding my credit (thin file) so this should be taken as second opinion/data point, not expert advice.
Also, I do not have access to my FICO scores yet, except on Equifax. I do not have any accounts that are six months old on the other two. I am tracking with VantageScore for now. Usual caveats apply.
That said, yes, my scores dropped, even more than yours - more like 20-30 points, when my Self Lender loan appeared a few days ago. I asked about it here and was told to ignore VS.
In my case, I doubt it has much to do with account age on TU and EX, since my oldest account is only 1 month old. It might be explained by account age on EQ, since it took me from over 7 years to under 6 years, average. But at least on VS, at least on TU and EX, I do not believe account age is the explanation.
Perhaps it's because borrowing $500 (or less specifically: taking out a small, secured loan) looks desperate? Like you are trying to keep the lights on? Of course, that is not the case with Self Lender, but the formulas may not know that.
It doesn't bother me, since this is a long-term play, for me, but it did confuse me just as it confused the OP, and it's something that I think people should be aware is a potential issue.
It's possible based off some recent datasets that there are patterns of new accounts in FICO 8 and probably 9 (which anyone building / rebuilding would fall into if they're doing it well) which may penalize more heavily than just a simple AOYA metric which the older algorithms seem to use.
VS score really isn't worth analyzing that much cause it's used so rarely, just build a pretty file and VS will reward you appropriately as will FICO.
Good FICO score almost always has a good VS score too, just they react differently to various things; the same is not always true, at points of my journey my VS 2 and 3.0 have been really good and FICO, not so much. Actually right now with a singleton 30D late from a year ago on EQ and same time 60D late on TU, both my FICO 8 scores for those bureaus are around 750, and the VS scores are kissing 800.
I'll just add. After BK I had no MC/Visa cards on my file. I cut them up years ago. But without credit these days its hard to do many things. My first card in 2015 took a big hit. But as time goes on and more credit is added to your report. They wont hurt as much. As each card was approved. The HP and new account hardly took a hit as I moved up to 10 approvals. My 2nd and 3rd card was up to 8-10 pts. My newest card which is being analized in another thread as it sits for now on TU took no hit. On EQ I lost 3 points for a new account. There's many other factors invovled as explained above. But the hits will lessen as time goes on and your file gets thicker. Congrats on your rebuild so far.
