While not a huge part of your score,
average age of accounts does move the needle.
Not exact matches
Balances
do tend to increase with
age, yet even so, roughly three - fourths
of people surveyed by the institute had less than the
average $ 76,000 in their
accounts.
The chart above
does not
account for a person's specific behaviors,
age, sex, location, or other factors that can shift the results; it's an
average of the entire US population.
Additionally, if you
do open a new
account, you'll likely lower the
average age of the
accounts on your credit reports, which can potentially have a negative score impact.
If you have an older credit card that doesn't charge an annual fee, go ahead and keep it open to boost the
average age of your
accounts.
Hi, Assuming your available credit and total %
of credit used (utilization)
do not change, closing any
account that has been open fewer years than your
average age of accounts will increase your
average age of accounts so that it's a wash.
When calculating
average age of accounts VantageScore
does not include closed
accounts, whereas FICO
does.
Doing so will help lengthen your
average age of account, which is a factor in computing your credit score.
Not only
does closing the card
do nothing to remove either the inquiry or new
account that left your score lower, closing it won't prevent the card's very short credit history from unfavorably impacting the scoring calculations —
average account age, oldest and newest
account age, for example — that make up the length
of credit history scoring category (about 15 percent
of your score).
Don't close old
accounts, because part
of your score depends on the
average age of all
of your
accounts.
New
accounts will lower your
average account age, which will have a larger effect on your FICO ® Scores if you don't have a lot
of other credit information.
Do note that even when you close a credit card, it typically isn't removed from your credit history immediately; it could even stay on your report for 10 years, and as long as it was in good standing (paid up) when it was closed, it could help your
average age of accounts as long as it's there.
But if you
do so, that would change your oldest active
account AND lower the
average age of all
accounts.
Doing so could significantly lower your credit score, by lowering the
average age of your
accounts and raising your credit utilization ratio.
Their new product, the Credit Report Card,
does provide some information such as credit card utilization,
average age of open credits, total
accounts, the number
of hard inquiries, and the debt - to - income ratio, etc., but what is missing is detailed information
of each credit card I own and use to own.
I personally never found this to be true, so even though I
do agree that as long as the new
account is new (less than 6 months) your score will be affected by the new
account, but once six months pass your score will be back to the same or even higher then it was before, regardless
of what your
average age of credit is now.
Doing so will help lengthen your
average age of account, which is a factor in computing your credit score.
In addition, you can look into getting business credit cards to help mitigate damage
done to your
average age of accounts.
Doesn't make a huge difference either way, keeping
accounts open will help your
average age of accounts over time and would likely improve your credit utilization as well.