How long your accounts have been open make a difference!
Your Credit History, or how long your accounts have been opened – 15% impact on your credit score. The longer your accounts have been opened, the higher your score will be; newly opened accounts will bring your score down.
Here are three practical steps for you to improve your score in this area:
- Do not close your credit accounts. If you have too many department store credit cards, close the newest ones – do not close the old accounts. If you keep your accounts open and use them every once in a while, your score will improve over time.
- Think twice before jumping on that latest 0% credit card offer or opening a new card just to get a 10% discount at a department store.
- If you don’t have much of a credit history, and you are planning on taking out a mortgage in the future, it would probably be a good idea to establish a few open credit lines with little or no balance on them. Although newly opened accounts tend to lower your score initially, they will improve your score once they have been open for awhile, somewhat active and paid off with little or no balance.