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What is the minimum credit score for an apartment rental?

Why does it matter what your credit score and history is when looking into renting an apartment?

  • I have a good rental history and have never had any problems with my previous landord. I am looking to move to another city due to my job and every decent apartment community does credit checks and I know that my credit is not good due to some financial issues and credit cards when I had lost a job, but I never had unpaid rent or utilities. I do not think it is fair to use this as a sturdy reference alone, do they consider the fact that you have had good rent history and that it's not necessarily your fault that you came into an unfortanate situation that caused major problems financialy?

  • Answer:

    As a landlord, you have no real in depth knowledge that the person who is going to be renting is going to pay their rent. The only way you can tell if they are likely going to is how they've paid their bills in the past. Credit Checks and Referrals are one the only tools that they really have. If you are trying to rent and you have bad credit, a good reference *may* help. Depending on the development and local laws, you may offer to pay a larger security deposit. Sometimes this helps.

Andrea M at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

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better to look at places where you can talk to the landlord directly and not a PM or some like, then you can explain your situation and the landlord can call your current landlord for the reference and that may push you over the hill so to speak

goz1111

Your credit score and history help determine your risk factor. References from your current landlord and a letter of explanation for the credit issues may help.

geistswoman

get a letter of reference from current landlord

golferwhoworks

They are probably doing that to determine your deposit. But if you don't have evictions or owe another complex rent, they will more than likely rent to you.

Video_Production

yeah they look at a full picture, but its really hard to evict someone so they make sure you can afford it

Kate B

Never heard of check credit score when renting an apartment.

Sure it's fair. A landlord is basically extending a form of credit to you -- their rental income. A landlord depends on your credit history so they can determine that that you're someone they can risk relying on for steady income. Depending on how competitive your rental market is, credit reports are often secondary considerations to rental and income references. I haven't experienced any property management companies only basing their criteria only on credit scores. However, if you're in a very selective rental market (high rents, high demand, few vacancies, etc.), then some properties may afford to be more choosy.

nojam75

Whether you think it's fair or not, a lot of landlords DO require a credit check. There is a direct relationship between credit history and tenant payment history.

rotflol

I agree that it is not fair - but it is legal. As a property manager I don't see the relevance. In fact we rarely even do a credit check. The only time we do one is if someone has always owned their own home and don't have any verifiable rental history.

Wildcat

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