Score dropped after opening new CC's

[Anonymous]

I knew there was a risk pulling out new CC's, but I have become obsessed with trying to pull my score back up as I'm rebuilding from mistakes in the past. My score was a 645, I had a handful off credit cards with a a total combined credit pool of $8000. I just opened (2) new CC's, so I'm guessing my average age of account is what pulled my score down.

My philosophy has been trying to harvest as high of a credit pool as I can while obtaining a 5% or so utilization. So in theory as my total pool of credit rises, creditors can see I'm able to have the self control to only use X amount.

However, I do now have 7 CC"s open and total pool of credit is $12,350. The most recent (2) CC's I opened brought me to 7 CC"s total.

So now I feel as if I did more damage than good. Do I delete the most recent (2) CC's or will that not bring my score back up? 

[Anonymous]

I forgot to mention it dropped from 645->617

[Anonymous]

Relax. They'll go back up in time with some gardening. It's normal for scores to dip anytime you pull an HP or have new credit lines opened.

[Anonymous]

There's no taking it back with the new accounts. If you closed them, they'll still be there another 10 years. Like 12v said, the scores will come back up after a little time. Congrats on your 2 new cards though!

[newhis]

Go to the garden and do not app for a while.

Keep your util down and try to increase the limit on your cards, but only the cards that do SP CLI, you don't want any more HP so your score can grow.

[Anonymous]

Closing the cards will not delete the HPs from your record.

It's a shame you have 7 cards with a small line of credit in total.  You can fix that with time.  My first approval was a $500 Barclays card.  Now I have 9 cards with a minimum $5,000 limit on each.  I was really thrown off guard when Blispay finally reported.  I lost 32 points.  I was nearly at 800 before that happened.  Since then I have had the same credit score for two months and got a one point increase this month.  It's like watching grass grow.  Stay in the garden for two years, get above 740, and then apply for a CSP.  Then close an account with a small CL (one that's not be open the longest).  I've went through 20 credit cards since July 2014.  Closed all store cards except for Lowes.  Down to 9 cards with 8 being Visas and MCs.  If you're getting cards with limits below $2,000 then stop applying for cards until you establish some credit.

[Anonymous]

It's important to know what you are trying to do.  When you know that you can select strategies for achieving it.

Your goal, as you have described it, is not to get bonus offers, or to get VIP lounge access at airports, or whatever.  You have one overriding goal, which is "trying to pull my score back up."

Now that you know that this is your goal, we can tell you that opening more cards will not help you at all.  If you had 1-2 cards, then it would have helped.  You have seven cards, however, so more cards willl not help you at all.  I had scores in the low 840s with exactly three credit cards.

Your strategy of obtaining a big "credit pool" was also misguided.  As you were able to see, a person can have a very low utilization whether he has a big total credit limit or a small one.  What matters is having that small utilization you mentioned (5%).  As others have told you, however, you can acquire a larger total credit limit simply by using soft-pull-based CLI requests of the cards you have now.  Still I would be not be fully honest if I said that I thought that would help your score.  It won't hurt it of course, but I am skeptical that it would help it.

So as all other folks have told, your strategy should be to stay in the garden, let accounts age, let inquiries and eventually derogs fall off.  (If you have late payments, then as more time passes in which you use your cards and are never late, then the old lates will lessen in impact.)  While you are in the garden, you may want to see if you can get derogs removed via goodwill letters.

How many of the seven cards are major credit cards?  (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, etc.)  Of those that are not, how many are store cards that you imagine will still be very useful to you in five years?  Cards that are not major CCs or valuable store cards, are junk cards.  Fortunately FICO does not discriminate between these and the good cards, so you should keep the junk ones too, though eventually it might be worth considering cancelling them, as Credit Contractor did.

Do you have any open installment loans?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I knew there was a risk pulling out new CC's, but I have become obsessed with trying to pull my score back up as I'm rebuilding from mistakes in the past. My score was a 645, I had a handful off credit cards with a a total combined credit pool of $8000. I just opened (2) new CC's, so I'm guessing my average age of account is what pulled my score down.

My philosophy has been trying to harvest as high of a credit pool as I can while obtaining a 5% or so utilization. So in theory as my total pool of credit rises, creditors can see I'm able to have the self control to only use X amount.

However, I do now have 7 CC"s open and total pool of credit is $12,350. The most recent (2) CC's I opened brought me to 7 CC"s total.

So now I feel as if I did more damage than good. Do I delete the most recent (2) CC's or will that not bring my score back up? 

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You didn't do any damage. It's just a temporary dip. Over time, you'll be fine.

[Anonymous]

OP, not sure if you mentioned it yet but how thick is your file and what is your AAoA?  I know you said you have 7 CC's, but do you have any other accounts on your credit report making it thicker than 7 accounts?  I ask because the thicker your file and the greater your AAoA, the less time you'll feel the negative impact from opening new accounts.  My 15-25 point drop from opening 3 new accounts at once lasted 2-3 cycles at most, and by the 4th cycle my scores were all higher than they were before my mini-spree.  My file is reasonably thick at 22 accounts and 7 year AAoA just for a reference point.