Sometimes, Just Looking at the Credit Score Doesn’t Give the Full Picture…

As a landlord, one of your biggest concerns is receiving rent payments on time. So, it’s not surprising that a tenant’s credit score is important to you. However, when screening for new tenants, there are other factors you should also consider.

The reality is that millions of Americans are classified as credit unscorable. In other words, they haven’t participated in ways that help to establish credit history with the three major credit bureaus. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pay their bills, like rent, on time every month, and for some tenants, you may want to dig deeper and look beyond not having a credit score.

For instance, did a prospective tenant recently graduate from school and is on his or her own for the first time? Did a prospective tenant recently return from living abroad? Did a prospective tenant pay off all debt like credit cards, close those accounts, and now pays for everything with cash?

So, when screening for tenants who are credit unscorable, dig deeper and look at other factors, like income, past rental payment history and employment history.  You can also encourage those tenants to make on time rent payments by having them sign up for rent reporting solutions like RentReporters. When they pay their rent on time, we report it to TransUnion – and that means they start building and improving their credit score.

For more information on RentReporters, visit here.