Hi all! I was wondering, what do you guys think is a decent age of accts? I know 2 yrs is the min, but should I wait another 2yrs b4 I get taken off my mom's crd as AU? Her util is high, and her CL and age overhadows my toy cards. ANY input appreciated!
Since you said "any input appreciated" ... here goes: Rather than answering your specific question of what is supposed to be a decent age of accounts ... let me address the underlying reason that prompted you to ask the question. It seems to me, that you have been added as an AU to your Mom's card, and it's age and credit limit are adding to your FICO. On the other hand, it's high utilization is getting your FICO down. Now you are in a dilemma whether to keep or to drop the AU line from your reports .... Is there a particular reason why you want to be taken off your Mom's card as authorized user (other than being worried about FICO score, I mean) ? I'd think that the high utilization situation with your AU card is most likely a temporary situation, and you should ride it out. If it ever gets too bad to outweigh the benefits of it such as this card being charged off -- you can always call the creditor and/or CRA to dispute the tradeline and have it taken off your reports. Until that time, I'd advise you to let the tradeline be on your report. It is too easy to underestimate the large FICO boost that age and credit limits provide. As a data point -- I added my brother to my 14 year old Citi card, with a 12% utilization ($1500 on a $12000 line), his FICO score rocketed to 801! We don't have the FICO score from before the AU; so we used the simulator to guess what FICO would have been without this tradeline; and it comes out to 697! That's a 104 point boost. My own score was languishing in the 770's HTH
