What happened when my HELOC hit

[Lel]

I refinanced a higher interest rate home equity loan with a HELOC. The CL of the HELOC is $98,000, and I maxed it out on the refi. A couple days ago, this new account hit my EQ credit report, and I received a Score Watch alert. My FICO score dropped by only 7 points.

There's been discussion on these forums about how HELOCs are factored into the credit score, and there's evidence that low CL HELOCs are treated as revolving accounts, whereas higher CL HELOCs ($50,000 or higher, supposedly) are treated as mortgage (installment) accounts. I think my results support this hypothesis, because if this account were treated as revolving credit, I should have taken a bigger hit, because my utilization would have soared from 3% to about 70%.

A couple confounding factors, however, are that on the same day that I received the SW alert for the HELOC, I also received alerts that one of my credit cards had a balance increase and that the original home equity loan is now paid in full.

[Anonymous]

I am not suprised-

When my HELOC hit- it did zero points on all 3.

[Junejer]

Sometimes, it's very hard to figure out what is dinging you. My guess is the newness of the account and possible loss of credit mix.

[Lel]

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@Junejer wrote:
Sometimes, it's very hard to figure out what is dinging you. My guess is the newness of the account and possible loss of credit mix.

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Yes, the new account was probably worth a handful of points. Did I really lose the credit mix though? The prior home equity loan will still persist on my credit report, so should still "count" towards my credit mix. Or does credit mix only apply to active accounts?