If I re-consolodate, do I lose the history?

[footballfan33]

Hey, my oldest line of credit on my credit report is my student loan at about 4 or so years. The interest rate is 8 percent and I hate it. I don't feel like I'm making any progress.

 

I'm getting offers in the mail to re-consolodate, on place offering me 3.5 percent. That would help in payback.

 

Question: If I re-consolodate, will I lose the credit history on my credit report? Would I essentially be creating a new line on my credit reports?

 

Thanks.

[LynnInMN]

Hey, my oldest line of credit on my credit report is my student loan at about 4 or so years. The interest rate is 8 percent and I hate it. I don't feel like I'm making any progress.

 

I'm getting offers in the mail to re-consolodate, on place offering me 3.5 percent. That would help in payback.

 

Question: If I re-consolodate, will I lose the credit history on my credit report? Would I essentially be creating a new line on my credit reports?

 

Thanks.

 

 

Note on your offers that it says "as low as 3.5%". Interest rates are set as a weighted average of what your interest rates are now. So if you are 8%, you will stay 8%. Also you cannot reconsolidate unless you have another loan to add to it.

[imoriginal]

Consolidating does make a new line on your reports. All your old lines change to $0 balance, with a remark of paid-in full, transferred or something similar.

 

As far as age, yes you are creating a new TL so tha will bring down the average age. The old lines will all still be there, so overall the age change should be helped by that. It just depends on how many you have.

 

If you have 2 TL's that are 3 years old and you consolidate then you now have 3 TL's with average age of 2 years. The more TL's the less the impact.

 

As far as score, there is no guarantee.

 

The good: Reduced number of open TL's; bad marks are limited to one TL is you make a mistake.

 

Tha bad: Reduced age on acct's; New loan opened.