My only installment is about to close - score damage?

[Anonymous]

I am in the same situation.  My only (open) installment loan will close in 2 months.  I have been dreading the thought getting dinged in the "credit mix" catergory when my auto loan is PIF and closed.  I have a 15 year file with three other closed and PIF auto intallment loans.

I will also closely monitor any point changes when the account does indeed close out.  Nothing else will change in the file.  No new accounts, no (hard) inquries, no revolving util changes as well. 

For reference, I have 2 major revolvers, an AMEX charge and a store charge for open accounts.

[haulingthescoreup]

My only semi-evidence is that when I added an auto loan, after paying off my SL's, I got a happygram from EQ or TU about adding an installment loan. Can't find it now --it was in a Suze package that hit one year and went poof. This was during the app melee, though, and so there's no way of isolating its influence, if any, on my scores.

I was surprised because I had an open mortgage, and I thought that would have done the trick.

[Anonymous]

Your installment loan will continue to benefit you.  It's age continues to be a factor for FICO for 10 more years and the fact that you successfully obtained, maintained and paid off a loan is going to be a good credit reference and FICO factor.

Also, your debt ratios and other factors will be positively affected.

[llecs]

I'm readying the drum for the drum roll....

I made my last payment yesterday on my last open installment loan. I really tightened the belt financially this month and did away with it. It is set to update later this afternoon and hopefully, fingers crossed, a balance of $0 will update on tomorrow's CRs. EQ and EX are quick to update, and TU still shows my balance from a couple months ago.

In preperation, I pulled my scores 2 days ago on TU and EQ and will do so again tomorrow. Hopefully EQ will will update tomorrow and I'll post back with the results. It will be interesting to know what the change it given that I will have no installment accounts open and factoring into the mix of credit.

ETA.....Just to be safe, I'll pull scores again today...I do have a higher util set to report sometime this week and better catch it now to narrow out any change.

Message Edited by llecs on 04-30-2009 09:13 AM

[Anonymous]

For the bulk of CRs I've seen small point losses after last long term loan with no other installments open was about -3 to -7 points. I did not find one that gained points yet after PIF of the only open installment unless there was an exception. This doesn't mean I've seen it all.

There are exceptions I believe in some other types of loans that are not counted evenly. However Auto loans are strongly counted.

There is an exception for people with good credit scores and paper thin credit files consisting of pretty much only an old mortgage ready to PIF. Even 1 cc and 1 mortgage, I have seen when closing that mortgage or other installment a hard score drop. However that may be due to many other factors such as going from 2 open accounts to only 1 account with 100% of open accounts used, ect....

Also there is another exception for people who recently opened their only installment and PIF quickly. They will see a score rise usually but haven't gained all the POS points because they closed too early, while it sometimes looks like a gain they may NOT have gained the points for carrying an open loan yet to loose or not have gained the history points yet. So this may appear to have gained where keeping it a bit longer and closing it looks like a loss, but the loss is still a gain overall if they kept it open just a bit longer in this case because over all more points were gained totall. For thoses that understand this exception.

With all that said, my guess is -3 to -7 points for avg to good credit profiles for PIF of the only installment that is an Auto loan. Not sure about reports with baddies in the history because I haven't seen to many.

[llecs]

OK.....EQ is in.

Score increased 7 points when my last installment loan reported closed and $0. Everything on the report was relatively the same. CC balances decreased by $150 or so but overall utilization was exactly the same. All positive and negative factors are the same except that one positive factor was added:

"You've been keeping the balances on your credit accounts low" at $8981.

I disagree with that one though. Ain't gonna argue.

Out of curiosity, I did run the simulator and my prev. report said the best I could do is to pay balances over the next 2 yrs to get 727-767. On this new report it was 744-784. FWIW.

[Anonymous]

Great!

I'll take 7 points this summer when my auto loan closes!  Before this thread I was sure I was going to be wacked 5 or so for a less than perfect "credit mix"

[llecs]

Well, not so fast.... TU results came in today:

Mine: TU FICO dropped 8 points. However, my util increased by 4%. Though, using best solution for estimator, my old TU would be 742-782 if I paid everything down within the next 2 yrs. It now has changed to 754-794.

DWs: Her TU FICO dropped 4 points. Her overall util dropped by 1%. Using same scenario as mine, her old range was 685-725. Her new is 701-741.

In both cases, all other positive and negative factors (except for util) remained the same.

ETA....DW's EQ didn't change. It shows $0, but didn't say "closed" anywhere.

Message Edited by llecs on 05-08-2009 10:27 PM

[Anonymous]

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@llecs wrote:
OK.....EQ is in.

Score increased 7 points when my last installment loan reported closed and $0.

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Sweet!

I've been away for a while,question about your CR profile.

5 questions please.

1. Were there "negatives" on your CR?

2. How many, and "type of negs".

3. Overall age?

4. Average age?

5. Total open accounts remaining?

Thanks.

Message Edited by ilovepizza on 05-08-2009 10:37 PM

[llecs]

---

ilovepizza wrote:

I've been away for a while,question about your CR profile.

5 questions please.

1. Were there "negatives" on your CR?

2. How many, and "type of negs".

3. Overall age?

4. Average age?

5. Total open accounts remaining?

Thanks.

Message Edited by ilovepizza on 05-08-2009 10:37 PM

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1 & 2) Aside from util, the only resident baddie was a redeemed and since-paid repo from 2005 w/ 14 lates (one 90, four 60 days, and nine 30 days). It appears that FICO isn't scoring this. It is marked as disputed, even though I haven't disputed it since 2007. In the "Credit-At-A-Glance" page, it says 14 lates with no red flag next to it and my payment hisotry is marked as "Great". And my last impactful baddie was a 90 day on a CapOne acct that was removed due to CRTP a couple months ago. That resulted in a bucket change with a 17 points loss on EQ with the history going from good to great, even though there still was a 90 within that repo. So, the technical answer is that I have no baddies on my CR that are impacting FICO.

3) 12 years and 4 months

4) AAoA is 2 yrs.

5) It shows 18 accounts, 11 of which have a balance. All 11 are CCs. To add, there are two other CCs w/ $0 balances that are still open. So, 13 all together. The remaining 5 closed accts are 2 pd car loans, 1 lost CC, and 2 closed CCs from long ago.

Message Edited by llecs on 05-08-2009 10:59 PM