...a major appliance purchase from Home Depot. I plan on paying off the account within one week of opening the account then I will close it. Will that effect my credit rating if I open it and close it in less than a month?
You might want to just open it, use it, pay it off, and let it sit. Opening it will create a credit inquiry, and shorten your average account age, which both affect FICO negatively. But it will decrease your debt to available credit ratio, which will affect FICO positively. The negative effect will decrease with time as the account ages. Closing it immediately will remove the positive effect from debt to available credit. Since you have just bought a house, you are already seeing some of the above effects due to your recent mortgage. In a year or more, that should start pulling your scores up, while currently it is probably pulling them down. You may want to delay this until the negative effects above have faded, maybe 6 to 12 months. If your FICO scores are mid 700s or higher, it probably doesn't matter. If you are lower, you don't want to panic your other creditors into jacking your rates, or restricting your available credit which would further depress your scores.
Great advice from apex and ontrack. Why are you thinking of closing a new account immediately? Self control, or do you plan on making another major purchase soon and think it would look better to have less available credit?
