Question

Question: I have good/excellent credit. Six months ago I moved to a new rental community with online payment. I selected the option to report my payments to the credit bureaus thinking it will add to my credit score. But I'm not planning to live here more than 1-2 years , and I also paid off my student loans about a year ago. The student loan account was 13 years old, so the combination of these 2 things means my average credit age is now about 5 years as the student loan was the oldest, and the rental is the newest. I'm thinking maybe I should see if I can stop the credit reporting on my apartment asap. and it will give me a longer time to rebound from the dent. I'm thinking 2 years absolute max in this rental as I am waiting for work eligibility to transfer out of state. Would this be my best option?  

Answer 1

@conduction your credit score is calculated on a variety of inputs-- Information about you and your credit experiences, like your bill-paying history, the number and type of accounts you have, whether you pay your bills by the date they’re due, collection actions, outstanding debt, and the age of your accounts, is collected from your credit report.  
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articl...cores

Comments

I realize there are many factors, but I'm asking specifically about this factor, re. the age of accounts. I have been tracking my credit for many years, and am thinking I made an error on selecting the option to report my rent to the credit bureaus. I feel I've made good decisions on the other factors, but maybe screwed this one up.  

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@azarria94051 Are you a bot?  

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@conduction, Nope.  

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@azarria94051 that’s exactly what a bot would say  

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OK, @medulla what should I have said?  

Answer 2

Yeah probably not a great move having your rental reported to the bureaus if you already had good credit; that’s more of a move for people trying to build credit. However if you have them stop, it won’t remove what they’ve already reported, so I think it might be too late to do anything about it. Best thing to do is just move forward from here; age of credit won’t affect your score as badly as missed payments, so your score will be fine down the road. Do you have any credit cards currently? If not I’d recommend getting one and keeping it open indefinitely to help with the age thing. Of course, as you go through life you’ll add new credit as time goes on, always affecting the age of credit. I wouldn’t worry about it too much.  

Comments

Thanks for the advice. I've got several credit cards and a couple store cards that I use mostly for my side gig. I don't have a mortgage, but my car loan will be paid off in probably 2 years.  

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The credit cards are the big ones. Just never close the accounts, using them at least a few times a year (if you don’t use them the stores or banks will probably eventually close them, hurting your age of credit).  

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@spencer8887 Gotcha. the one cc I run everything through for points back, and the other I keep open and try to use once a month or so.