Better to pay personal loan off early or make steady, monthly payments?

[Anonymous]

I have a personal loan (orginal $1000) owe $800 that I took out to help with my credit mix and rebuilding. The payment is $51, I've paid on it for 6 months and have another 12 months to pay it off. I can pay it off much sooner, but not sure if I should? Is it better to pay early or make on time payments?

I have a good mix now (auto, personal loan, cc and charge cards, student loan) and my Fico 8 scores are EQ 696, TU 701, EX 703. One of the "negatives" I have with MyFico is "the remaining balances on your mortgage or non mortgage loans is too high". Student loans predominately are the cause of this I'm sure, but wondering if I get rid of this loan, it will help. My utilization on cc's is currently 16% and going down each month (probably to %10 next month). 

I'm hoping to buy a home next year and need to make sure I'm making all the right moves. Any advice is appreciated!

[gizmotchy]

You have 3 loans as installment loans - auto, personal, student loan.  Is the personal loan the only one where your remaining balance and the original amount of the loan are still real close together?  If your auto loan or student loans are in that situation as well, paying off the personal loan is probably not going to matter much - you'll still have that negative on there.

Paying off debt is always good, tho - so if you can do it without impacting your other obligations, I would say to go ahead and do it - not for the credit boost you may or may not get, but for the simple fact that paying off debt is good.

[Anonymous]

Hi, sorry for the delay in answering, but thank you for your input! No, I've been on the income based plan for the student loan and the payment is just covering interest. The auto loan is also new, (I was hoping to wait another year but my trans went and where I live, public transportation is non existant), which is why I was thinking I could improve things by paying off the small personal loan. Which, as you pointed out, is probably a good idea either way. I just didn't want to lower my score by paying it off to soon.