what kind of credit event is payoff of a mortgage?

I can only speak anecdotally about my own situation. When I paid off my mortgage, my credit score went down slightly and stayed there. Having only revolving credit accounts (rather than a mix of different types of loans) is generally a slight negative and is always brought up on my credit reports as a way to improve my score. (No thanks; not going to take out a different type of loan for the sake of a few credit score points!) The effect on the overall score was not significant, though it was noticeable because it went from just over 800 to slightly below.

Of course, I also paid off a mortgage upon the sale of property after just 2.5 years of owning and moved to a new city, where I opted to rent. For all I know, the effect may be different if you pay off a mortgage without changing your address or after holding it for a longer period of time. Or if you also have an auto loan, student loan, or some other type of account. (All I had were mortgage + credit cards that were/are always paid in full each month.)

Paying off credit can actually hurt your FICO score, but who cares. The whole Fair Issacs system is screwy and eveyone knows it. A person with little money and debt who pays his bills could end up with a better score than an asset rich person with no debt. Do what makes sense, don't live your life based on some stupid SCORE.

thanks.
it was more out of curiosity since i expect to be doing this soon and have never done it before.

just paid mine off so will let you know when i know... i think it updates once per month
btw- i totally agree re the comments on how STUPID the scores are.

Hurt my score, as did not carrying ENOUGH revolving debt (despite having the requisite number of cards and a credit limit of about 50K). So, I'm through with thinking about it too.

Celebrate and be glad you are not them....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxylHPnoloI&feature=related