I’m filling out a rental application form for a new apartment. One of the questions is, “I authorize my credit to be checked subject to terms and conditions below:,” the terms of which include, “Owner/owner’s agent is allowed to contract with CBSV to report any rent delinquency or eviction proceedings as well as check my credit from time to time.”
Now, I was told once that having a lot of credit checks actually can give you “bad credit,” even if you’ve never had any problems paying back money. Is this true? Should I be allowing my potential landlord to check my credit willy-nilly? Somehow I hesitate to check the box that would permit this, but I don’t want to hurt my chances of getting a place.
What’s the story with credit checks? Can they ruin your credit?
I’ve heard that multiple credit checks can hurt your credit rating but I don’t have anything to back that up with.
As for your landlord checking many times…I doubt s/he would do that because $$ each time. That’s probably something they just stick in there. It’s up to you on how uncomfortable that makes you.
It is true that a large number of credit checks can be a negative thing. It makes it look like you’re applying for credit to a lot of places, sort of reeks of desparation. (Not quite ruining your credit, but it doesn’t help.)
I would agree that I wouldn’t want my landlord checking my credit as a recreational activity. You might want to check your local tenants’ union or county landlord/tenant office or whatever you might have to see if this is standard in your area.
OTOH just because they include it here doesn’t mean they really do it willy-nilly, they probably just want the ability to do it if you start missing rent payments.
Listen…here is the straight dope from the resident expert:
The types of checks that your current creditors do (call 'watching") is recorded differently from regular inquiries.
For example, if you do biz with American Express, they will probably pop in to check your credit to see if you are falling apart on other obligations…cause if you arem they are going to scale back your credit or cancel you as prevention on their part.
But, these ‘inquiries’ are ‘soft’, as we say in the biz. They are recorded as a separate set of inquiries, different than say an app for a mortgage or car loan, etc (which are ‘hard inquiries’)
In terms of inquiries affecting a score or credit evaluation, only hard inquiries are available for scoring.
You credit score is not impacted by you or your current creditors checking your credit…they are soft inquiries and are not available to any credit scoring models.
That is THE straight dope.
(Regular inquires, btw, aren’t ‘bad’, but they are ‘potential unknown debt’ to other potential lenders. If you just got two car loans and a mortgage, that is unknown debt…until it appears as an acount on your report. Inquiries do affect scores though…just the Hard ones)