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I see in your signature that one day, you want some of NFCU's cards. If you have a way in, I would suggest doing their SSL.
Wait and see how it affects your score.
I only lost 15 points.
Now a year later because of accounts aging, only down 5.
For me not worth going the SSL route.
If your loss is enough, you know how to fix it, but it might not be as bad as you are thinking.
I wouldn’t worry. Back when my only installment loan was my car, I didn’t take a big hit when it closed. And the points bounced back rapidly. Plus, I wouldn’t even consider opening a loan you don’t need just to boost your score. Good luck!
@Anonymous wrote:I see in your signature that one day, you want some of NFCU's cards. If you have a way in, I would suggest doing their SSL.
Hello OP. Is there any reason you don't want to take Overmed's advice?
@pinkandgrey wrote:I wouldn’t worry. Back when my only installment loan was my car, I didn’t take a big hit when it closed. And the points bounced back rapidly. Plus, I wouldn’t even consider opening a loan you don’t need just to boost your score. Good luck!
All the time people put into this forum is far more expensive than what Overmediciated and CGID are suggesting.
It may be manipulation but 20-30 points on FICO 8 is hard to turn down, and the SSL trick with NFCU at least is alive and well, pay it down to $5 or whatever and you're paying like 10 *cents* in interest annually.
That's seriously picking up loose change on the sidewalk cheap.
Also as far as a score recovery goes, it wasn't tied to the installment loan at all... some other change, so really it's just lost points. If you're gold plated like Kforce that's one thing, but for the vast majority who are not this should really be considered especially with the recent data coming out that suggests installment loans don't reset AOYA for FICO 8 classic: other than AAOA ding there may be no penalty in doing this.
As others have already mentioned all profiles are different, but when I paid off my Amex installment loan last year (my only installment loan) my EX dropped a full 40 points, from 823 to 783. My EQ and TU dropped similarly (30-some odd points IIRC). Next month will be a year, and I never got the points back. To be fair I did add a card back in February, but that didn't make a difference in either direction.
My scores aren't bad (770s - 780s) but I haven't been in the 800s since the loan was paid off. On a positive note I seem to have found my 'floor' since even with the new addition in February my scores barely flinched, and balances reporting now don't seem to make an impact. My normal fluctuation is +/- 5 points.
TL;DR... sometimes there's a significant drop when one's only installment loan is PIF, and those points might be difficult to regain until/unless another installment loan is added (and paid down). Luckily there are easy (and cheap) options for that.