Credit score?

[Closingracer99]

I get my TU FICO score through my discover card and one factor affecting it was:

LACK OF RECENT INSTALLMENT LOAN INFORMATION:

Your report shows no open or recently reported non-mortgage installment loans. People responsibly using different types of credit are generally less risky to lenders.

Since I only have Credit cards and say wanted to buy a house or a car and want more favorable rates should i get a small personal loan and pay it off before hand to improve that ?

[user5387]

An installment loan can help you, but it's not a big breakthrough.  A person can have scores well above 800 without any installment loans showing.

If you get such a loan, and gain X points, then you need to decide what value of X makes it worthwhile.  For example, if you gain 10 points, would it be worth it?

An installment loan may also help in some non-scoring contexts, for example with specific lenders or underwriters.

There are inherent short-term costs to such a loan, for example the costs of  an inquiry and reduced AAoA.  There is also a maintenance cost of making the monthly payments.  If a person has a hard time remembering to make payments, any new account of this type can backfire.

If you do this, I'd recommend doing it for the long haul, rather than as something that will immediately boost your scores.