What caused such a huge change?

[Anonymous]

My score has been 832 for several months in a row now (FICO Score 8)...after having crept up over the past 6ish months from 811...to 832.  Well, this month, my score suddenly drooped 20 points, down to 812! I can't figure out why. My first assumption was that it was caused by me opening a new credit card account last month- my first new account in over a year. However, when reading about the issue, everything I read says a new credit card account creates a drop of 6 points on average. But this was 20! There were no other significant credit changes that took place that I can think of- no missed payments, no new sudden increase in my utilized credit (as in i didn't suddenly go rack up a bunch of debt), no closed account, no account changes- only the opening of that one new credit card account. 

Am I missing something? Could there be another reason for the drop that I am not thinking of? Or is it possible that the new credit card had that huge of an impact on my score?

[Jnbmom]

Did you also get a HP on same report for the new application? A HP and a new account could explain the drop? 

Congrats on an excellent score by the way.

[HeavenOhio]

Welcome @Chouchens198.

Every time you open a new account, your AoYA (age of youngest account) is reset to zero. If your previous youngest account is over a year old, a twenty-point hit isn’t a surprise. If your previous youngest account was opened more recently, you would have already taken the hit, and it would be probable that your scores would drop by much less.

[Anonymous]

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@AnonymousWell, this month, my score suddenly drooped 20 points, down to 812! I can't figure out why. My first assumption was that it was caused by me opening a new credit card account last month- my first new account in over a year.

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Your assumption is 100% correct.  Around 20 points is the expected score drop from an AoYA drop from > 12 months to 0 months alone, not counting the inquiry.  If the inquiry also landed on the same bureau that you're seeing this score drop, I'd say you made out pretty well, as your drop from the AoYA shift may have only been (say) 14-15 points.

[Medic981]

Welcome to the myFICO forums!

Honestly, any score over 780 is golden so this drop is not of great concern. I can see why you would want to prevent further drops in your FICO scores though.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My score has been 832 for several months in a row now (FICO Score 8)...after having crept up over the past 6ish months from 811...to 832.  Well, this month, my score suddenly drooped 20 points, down to 812! I can't figure out why. My first assumption was that it was caused by me opening a new credit card account last month- my first new account in over a year. However, when reading about the issue, everything I read says a new credit card account creates a drop of 6 points on average. But this was 20! There were no other significant credit changes that took place that I can think of- no missed payments, no new sudden increase in my utilized credit (as in i didn't suddenly go rack up a bunch of debt), no closed account, no account changes- only the opening of that one new credit card account. 

Am I missing something? Could there be another reason for the drop that I am not thinking of? Or is it possible that the new credit card had that huge of an impact on my score?

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There's no way to predict with certainty how many points a particular profile will be affected; all profiles are different. Frankly, I don't know where you are getting this 6-point thing from.

When you added a new account, you picked up one or more inquiries, lowered your age of newest account, and lowered your average age of accounts. Those would usually cause a point drop in the short term. In your case the age of newest account went from over a year -- which is a very safe place -- to zero months, which causes a ding.

[Anonymous]

What is a HP?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What is a HP?

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Short for "hard pull". A hard pull credit inquiry.

[HeavenOhio]

Just to add, a hard pull (hard inquiry) is an inquiry generally associated with applying for new credit. It's viewable to anyone who looks at your credit report. When a hard pull occurs, expect a small ding to your score, and be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen.

A soft pull isn't viewable by anyone other than you and doesn't affect scoring. These are associated with routine account reviews, promotional inquiries (to send you offers), or pulling your own credit (via services like myFICO, Credit Karma, etc.).

Requests for CLIs (credit limit increases) can generate either a hard or soft pull, depending on the lender.