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Paying off loans vs cards

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I ran across a post I found interesting.  The poster was inquiring about paying off all his bills except mortgage wondering about it lowering his score.  I am curious how that worked for the original poster and all your thoughts.  I am aware paying off credit cards will do nothing so your score but possibly raise it but what about the loans?  Most referred to the cards in the comments and not the loans being paid off.  

Before I had learned that you had to have credit cards I thought paying your loans and paying them off was a good thing but when I had tanked our score (68 points) by paying off a loan early I quickly learned the difference.  Said loa was a 3 year 20K loan, paid it off in a year and a half and crap went down the tubes.  

I am in a position now to be able to pay a loan off but have just let it run (2%) so it's not costing me much but I don't want to tank my score again.  Simular situation but on a toy where before was just a personal loan.  Does the loan type make a difference?  

Here is the link to the thread I am referring to.  I appreciate all reply's.  


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Many years ago, there was discussion about an open loan  placing one in a different score bucket than someone who didn't have an open loan.  I know there is also a score hit that comes from all credit cards being zero'ed, which is how AZEO came into being.  I posted within the past week or so about my recent experience with everything being at zero since it all but confirmed that the AXP charge product does NOT factor into the balance equation. 


Within a few months, I will be able to offer a similar comparison with no active loans.  However, based upon mom's score, I don't envision a substantial drop on most models.  She is also still 800+ and has had no active loans for more than a year.  She had a 0% deal on her car but got tired of making payments and the payoff for the remaining few years was not an obstacle or hardship.  Cannot say I blamed her given the lack of meaningful interest paid on savings and checking accounts...

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It doesn't matter what type of installment loan you have.


I'm paying down a ~$550 mortgage until we move or 23 more years elapse, whichever comes first.


Rationale and excruciating detail here:



Edited by cv91915
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