Available credit

wmat983

Hi guys I was under the impression using only a small amount of your available credit was good for your credit rating, however I read an article yesterday on here saying to close down some old credit cards as too much available credit also puts lenders off, thoughts?

System

The prior. Keep your utilisation low. You can't really have access to too much credit.
VERY rarely some lender might be against this but 99.99% of the time its better to have lots of avalible credit and very low utilisation.

etienneg

I never understand why people get so hung up about their credit rating. It isn't something you need to maximize for its own sake. If you have plenty of available credit then you don't need more, so why does your credit rating matter?

wmat983

etienneg wrote: »

I never understand why people get so hung up about their credit rating. It isn't something you need to maximize for its own sake. If you have plenty of available credit then you don't need more, so why does your credit rating matter?

You may not need more credit, but maybe want to take advantage of a long 0% balance transfer deal.

[Deleted User]

Credit ratings don’t matter.

Or indeed exist

kingstreet

I've been a mortgage broker for 35 years and I have never once suggested anything like this to a client.

The simple advice is to make sure you pay everything on time and try to avoid unnecessary hard credit searches on the run-up to a mortgage application.

System

!!! wrote: »

Credit ratings don’t matter.

Or indeed exist

But credit files and histories do. Which is clearly what the OP is referring to here. So lets not unnecessarily confuse people with this literal obsession of terminology shall we.

[Deleted User]

If they meant history they would have said history.

So let’s not unnecessarily post for the sake of posting yes?

System

!!! wrote: »

If they meant history they would have said history.

So let’s not unnecessarily post for the sake of posting yes?

Tip. The general public, newcomers and people who don't sit all day on this forum often use the terms credit rating/file/history interchangeably. They don't know the difference. They mean the same thing to them. Case in point, the OP on this very thread said "credit rating" but clearly meant their credit file and it's history as seen by lenders.

So when people smugly say "Your credit rating doesn't matter" and just leave it at that. The OP could well leave the forum thinking their credit history doesn't matter. I'm not posting for posting sake. Quite a few people have raised this now and it has to stop.

[Deleted User]

No. Otherwise I would say your credit history doesn’t matter either.

But it does. So...

wmat983

beany_bot wrote: »

Tip. The general public, newcomers and people who don't sit all day on this forum often use the terms credit rating/file/history interchangeably. They don't know the difference. They mean the same thing to them. Case in point, the OP on this very thread said "credit rating" but clearly meant their credit file and it's history as seen by lenders.

So when people smugly say "Your credit rating doesn't matter" and just leave it at that. The OP could well leave the forum thinking their credit history doesn't matter. I'm not posting for posting sake. Quite a few people have raised this now and it has to stop.

Spot on, I don't come on here often, I thought credit rating and history was the same thing.

I guess I will just keep old credit cards open then with no balance rather than close them down.