Had to pay off car loan thinking about getting a mortgage

[Hex]

Thanks Hey everyone one! I’m looking to you score wizards to provide me with some insight on what closing my car loan will do to my mortgage scores while I’m thinking about for a mortgage. I had no choice- the car loan matured and it had to be paid off. But it is some bad timing and I’m wondering how far my mortgage scores will drop. 

My middle mortgage score is Experian at 713.

I have a BK 7 discharged in July 2016

I have 24 credit cards with only one of them carrying a $38 balance (because I killed my PayPal MasterCard for off cycle reporting and now it’s officially been listed as closed with zero balance on my credit report. Now I only have the one card reporting that I wanted to. It has a $38 balance .

I have an open student loan with a balance $34894.25 left on an original loan amount of $48693 so 

The utilization of the student

 loan is currently  71% if I figured it out correctly. 

Now the part that worries me is I have (had) a $18800 car loan that I had to pay off yesterday and I have had it reporting <$200 for many months. 

What is going to happen to my mortgage scores when I lose this account? How many mortgage points do you think I’ll lose? I’ve heard that you can gain points for having less accounts reporting balances so that could offset the loss of the car loan closure a little I hope. 

My only accounts with balances will be my $38 credit card and the student loan. Anyone care to venture how many points I will lose when the car gets reported as paid?

[SouthJamaica]

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@Hex wrote:

Thanks Hey everyone one! I’m looking to you score wizards to provide me with some insight on what closing my car loan will do to my mortgage scores while I’m thinking about for a mortgage. I had no choice- the car loan matured and it had to be paid off. But it is some bad timing and I’m wondering how far my mortgage scores will drop. 

My middle mortgage score is Experian at 713.

I have a BK 7 discharged in July 2016

I have 24 credit cards with only one of them carrying a $38 balance (because I killed my PayPal MasterCard for off cycle reporting and now it’s officially been listed as closed with zero balance on my credit report. Now I only have the one card reporting that I wanted to. It has a $38 balance .

I have an open student loan with a balance $34894.25 left on an original loan amount of $48693 so 

The utilization of the student

 loan is currently  71% if I figured it out correctly. 

Now the part that worries me is I have (had) a $18800 car loan that I had to pay off yesterday and I have had it reporting <$200 for many months. 

What is going to happen to my mortgage scores when I lose this account? How many mortgage points do you think I’ll lose? I’ve heard that you can gain points for having less accounts reporting balances so that could offset the loss of the car loan closure a little I hope. 

My only accounts with balances will be my $38 credit card and the student loan. Anyone care to venture how many points I will lose when the car gets reported as paid?

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I don't think you will lose any points or gain any points from paying off your car loan.

[Hex]

@SouthJamaica 

Really? I hope you're right. I'm worried that when the car loan reports closed my installment loan utilization will increase enough to lower my score. I'll be super happy if you're right. 

[SouthJamaica]

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@Hex wrote:

@SouthJamaica 

Really? I hope you're right. I'm worried that when the car loan reports closed my installment loan utilization will increase enough to lower my score. I'll be super happy if you're right. 

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Good luck to us both then.

Be sure to report back when you find out.

[pizzadude]

If this was your only active installment loan then you might see a small FICO score hit but since it's not I think you'll be fine.

[Hex]

I have partial data. Equifax (always my lowest scores) reported the account closed and @SouthJamaica was correct. No change in my FICO 5. I am posting all of my Equifax Scores in case it is helpful to anyone. This is with only one student loan and one of 24 cards reporting a small balance 

EQ 8 from 722 to 713  down 9

EQ 5 693 unchanged 

EQ Auto score 5 686 unchanged 

EQ Auto score 8 from 736 to 728 down 8

EQ Auto score 9 from 792 to 774 down 18

EQ Bankcard score 8 from 736 to 727 down 9

EQ Bankcard score 5 from 709 to 705 down 4

EQ Bankcard score 9 from 788 to 770 down 18

EQ 9 from 788 to 767 down 21

Resilience Index from 50 to 49 (the only thing that improved)

Good thing I’m not applying for any cards right now or I’d be pretty sad. I’m very pleased that my mortgage score didn’t go down. Hopefully my middle mortgage score (Experian) won’t go down either.

I will report back when the other bureaus update. 

[Mr_Mojo_Risin]

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@Hex wrote:

I have partial data. Equifax (always my lowest scores) reported the account closed and @SouthJamaica was correct. No change in my FICO 5. I am posting all of my Equifax Scores in case it is helpful to anyone. This is with only one student loan and one of 24 cards reporting a small balance 

EQ 8 from 722 to 713  down 9

EQ 5 693 unchanged 

EQ Auto score 5 686 unchanged 

EQ Auto score 8 from 736 to 728 down 8

EQ Auto score 9 from 792 to 774 down 18

EQ Bankcard score 8 from 736 to 727 down 9

EQ Bankcard score 5 from 709 to 705 down 4

EQ Bankcard score 9 from 788 to 770 down 18

EQ 9 from 788 to 767 down 21

Resilience Index from 50 to 49 (the only thing that improved)

Good thing I’m not applying for any cards right now or I’d be pretty sad. I’m very pleased that my mortgage score didn’t go down. Hopefully my middle mortgage score (Experian) won’t go down either.

I will report back when the other bureaus update. 

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Nice DPs, they'll be helpful to the community. 👍

[Hex]

So I got my updated Experian scores and my middle mortgage score did go down by 9 points. I am confused about this because one of the negative reason codes for my mortgage score says: “You have a lack of recent activity from a non-mortgage installment loan” which is incorrect because I do have my student loan listed on my report. I’m wondering what @SouthJamaica thinks of this because it doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I have paid my student loan throughout the pandemic but I do remember that Greatlakes automatically put it me into deferment at the start of the pandemic and that that activity had actually made my Experian score go down. I discovered it after a few days and had them reverse it and my points came back. I’m wondering if they are reporting it incorrectly again (or still)? They aren’t open until Monday to ask them now. 

Here are my updated Experian scores:

EX 8 from 742 to 738 down 4

EX 2 713 to 704 down 9

EX Auto score 2 716 to 709 down 7

EX Auto score 8 from 753 to 749 down 4

EX Auto score 9 from 802 to 790 down 12

EX Bankcard score 8 from 752 to 748 down 4

EX Bankcard score 2 from 713 to 706 down 7

FICO score 3  711 unchanged 

EX Bankcard score 9 from 795 to 784 down 11

EX 9 from 793 to 780 down 13

Here are my incorrect negative reason codes:

Is it possible that there is a reporting error causing this? Could that negative reason code mean anything other than they are not factoring in my student loan for some reason? I'm confused. If I’m missing something please let me know.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Hex wrote:

So I got my updated Experian scores and my middle mortgage score did go down by 9 points. I am confused about this because one of the negative reason codes for my mortgage score says: “You have a lack of recent activity from a non-mortgage installment loan” which is incorrect because I do have my student loan listed on my report. I’m wondering what @SouthJamaica thinks of this because it doesn’t make any sense to me at all. I have paid my student loan throughout the pandemic but I do remember that Greatlakes automatically put it me into deferment at the start of the pandemic and that that activity had actually made my Experian score go down. I discovered it after a few days and had them reverse it and my points came back. I’m wondering if they are reporting it incorrectly again (or still)? They aren’t open until Monday to ask them now. 

Here are my updated Experian scores:

EX 8 from 742 to 738 down 4

EX 2 713 to 704 down 9

EX Auto score 2 716 to 709 down 7

EX Auto score 8 from 753 to 749 down 4

EX Auto score 9 from 802 to 790 down 12

EX Bankcard score 8 from 752 to 748 down 4

EX Bankcard score 2 from 713 to 706 down 7

FICO score 3  711 unchanged 

EX Bankcard score 9 from 795 to 784 down 11

EX 9 from 793 to 780 down 13

Here are my incorrect negative reason codes:

Is it possible that there is a reporting error causing this? Could that negative reason code mean anything other than they are not factoring in my student loan for some reason? I'm confused. If I’m missing something please let me know.

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I've seen them use the negative reason code 'lack of recent activity from an installment loan' when there were no installment loans open.  So it might mean EX's version hits you for having no non-mortgage installment loans open, even though you do have a mortgage loan open.  Which, if that's what it is, would be sad, and dumb.

[Hex]

@SouthJamaica

Do you think I could be because it says date of last activity: "Not available" ? I think they were (at least at one time) reporting student loans incorrectly because of the laws related to the pandemic. Congress passed a law that they couldn't report anything that would hurt people's credit related to the pandemic deferment and as a result they did changed how they reported the deferments and inadvertently hurt people's credit. 
Is it normal for them to report last activity "not available"?