Too many credit cards: TU4 "Number of Established Accounts" Data Point
As some of the regular hobbyists here know, I'm in the process of buying a home. I've collected a lot of interesting data points in the process and I plan to do a more in-depth writeup of all of them eventually, but for now this will have to suffice.
Profile information as of 2/23/26:
- Squeaky clean
- Number of accounts: 14 total. 12 open credit cards, 1 closed credit card, 1 closed installment loan
- AAoA: 3y7m
- AoY(R)A: 6m
- AoO(R)A: 7y6m
- AAoIA/AoORA: 2y5m
- AZE2 ($31 on one and $5 on the other)
- HPs: 1 scoreable from 2/26/25 for a CC + several other de-duplicated HPs from mortgage lenders within the previous week
The negative reason codes on the other two bureaus are pretty unremarkable. All the codes you'd expect from a churner. The interesting one here is "Number of Established Accounts." This is the first time I've seen that one. That's the reason code for too many revolving accounts. Many churners believe that there is no negative impact to having this many accounts, but my scores are proof that there is. This also makes credit karma's "21+ accounts is excellent" particularly sinister.
It's worth noting that we're talking about a very minor penalty here. This is the last reason code which means it's impacting my scores the least of the four listed. I'd be shocked if the penalty were worth more than 10-15 points. There's a decent chance it's worth single digit points. I wouldn't use this to scare someone away from churning. I'm easily qualifying for the most favorable terms on my mortgage even despite being a dirty filthy churner.