I figured this belongs in IMHO since it pretty much has to be answered with personal experience, though I could be wrong. I plan on getting an apartment in a few weeks. I forsee myself running into the same problem I did last time I tried, which is that I don’t have good credit and I don’t have a cosigner. My bad credit is from being late on car payments when I had them, but it never got to the point of repossesion and I haven’t been in debt for years, so I don’t think it’s that bad. It was years ago when I tried to get an apartment and I only tried one place. (I was irritated about all those application fees and then they said no, so I rented a house instead.) Anyway, I was wondering, before I go looking again, can these places typically be inticed into letting me stay despite the bad credit? What if I offered them 3 months rent in advance? I know I can only get a sure answer from the apartment owners, but I imagine I’m going to get the run-around. “Well just fill out this application and pay the $15 fee and we’ll see what we can do about your situation.” I don’t want to pay them any money just to be rejected. What do you guys think I should do?
I had less-than-great credit a few years back and I was able to rent a place by offering a bigger security deposit. They seemed happy with that and it worked out fine. Good references from previous landlords also help.
Unless you’re looking at luxury places, most of them are only concerned about your job. Do you have a job? They may also be concerned about past evictions. Many landlords will try to look past everything else. They WANT to approve you.
I have to disagree - I’d say 95% of the places I looked at apartments, they cared very much about credit. I had an excellent job, but that didn’t cut it - even when my income was over 4 times the rent amount.
That said, almost all the places I looked at did credit checks covering the past 2 years. Anything farther back than that - whether negative or positive - didn’t have a lot of bearing on whether they’d accept me or not. I’m not sure what you mean by “years ago”; if it’s longer than 7 years ago, it may not be on your credit record at all.
25 bucks or so for an application fee shouldn’t kill you (if it does, that’s probably going to be a big red flag for the landlord) so I’d say just give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn’t go through, that’s when you can make your offer to pay a larger deposit; that does work with some properties.
I’m a secretary in a property management department. I process the applications to rent.
(We do not, and are not permitted by law, to charge a fee simply to apply to rent. I’m in BC, Canada.)
I check current and past landlord references, and verify income. (If you have a job, I phone your boss and verify position, time there, salary, etc. If you’re a student, I want a copy of your bank statement, of your student loan, or your parent on as a guarantor.) If your references are good, and your income’s been confirmed, and you are still interested in the rental, then we do a credit check through Equifax.
Potential tenants will often tell us up front that their credit is poor, and often the reason why. If the rest of the application is good, but the credit check comes back uneven, the property manager is likely to phone the applicant to discuss the poor credit and get a feel for why it has happened.
Credit checks are part of what we look at, but not all, when screening tenants.
However, once in a while, it does make a difference. The property manager rejected a couple to rent a house through us where he had a very high income (which I verified) and they both had good landlord references. However, both their credit checks came back so poor (ALL R9s or written-off) that the property manager just wasn’t comfortable approving them.
Being up front helps. Explaining that you had financial difficulties a few years back because of ___, but you have taken these ___ steps to correct them, and you’re back on your feet again.
For my very first apartment I had worse than bad credit–I had no credit. Three months rent upfront, plus the security deposit, was enough for them.
Assuming you have verifiable income (I think most places look for you to gross about triple what the monthly rent is) and decent references, iffy credit can usually be overcome with some extra money upfront.
I work in rental property management. Another thing to do is to offer to pay the last two or three months’ rent in advance, or a larger security deposit.
You’ll have better luck at smaller, owner-managed places. You want to work with someone who can make the decision to rent to you on the spot, without having to answer to anyone else. And past references do help, too.
I process applications for a very small property management company (200 units, 3 people in the office). If everything else is really good: your bad credit wasn’t due to housing-related things, you are willing to pay a few months in advance, and you’ve been very responsible about your credit for the last 2 years, you’d have a pretty good chance to get in. We also have the strictest rules in town (I’ve rented from every company in town, so I know).
Come in, tell them your situation, expaining that you’ve learned your lesson, etc, tell them the range that your credit score is in, and ask them if you have a chance. Also ask if they have written criteria.
If you aren’t having any luck with the management cos, try privately-owned apartment complexes. Most of the private owners we deal with have much laxer criteria. They also tend to have a looser grip on the law, so make sure you know your rights.
Here are a few more details. I paid off my car loan a bit over 3 years ago. If the credit check only goes back to 2 or 3 years, that won’t show up. However, I’ve had none or very little credit since then. In fact, I can’t think of anything that would show up on my credit report for the last 3 years. I guess I’m probably going to be in a no-credit situation then, for better or worse.
Money definitely isn’t a problem. I’ll be making a minimum of $550 per week before Uncle Sam gets his share and most of the apartments I’m looking at are $350 to 450 per month. It pisses me off to pay someone to tell me I can’t live there though, so that’s why I don’t want to pay the application fee until I know there’s at least a good chance of being accepted. It doesn’t matter how much it is; it’s the principle of the matter. The only problem with the job thing is that I just started this week, so if they expect me to have worked at the same job for several months, I’m out of luck. Surely they won’t care about that though.
How can I find out if an apartment complex is privately owned? There are many apartment complexes in Longview, but I don’t know if a single one is private or corporate. I guess I could just go in and ask, but I’d like to know ahead of time so I can make a list of the most likely places I could live and then check them out. Thanks.
This is what I did a few years ago. I told them in advance that they may see a few blips on my credit from “years ago”. I told them I’ll give them 2 months of extra rent up front to hold onto. They were fine with that. Good luck.
Probably worse. It would definitely be better if you had at least one card still open, just to show that you’ve learned how to handle credit.
Sorry, but they probably will. We require 2 month’s worth of paystubs here. You may be able to skate by that if your boss (or whoever signs your paychecks) is willing to vouch for you, but it’s not a point in your favor.
In a town this size (pop 70,000, 10 property management cos), I would get the yellow pages, find the phone numbers of the companies, and cross out all the newspaper ads that direct you to that phone number. Most companies will put their names in the ad, too, so that may help.
Good luck.
I am confused by this so-called “bad credit”. If the OP is being forthcoming, there hasn’t been a credit ding in years. Credit scores aren’t a simple Good/Bad switch. There is a credit score that changes all the time due to lots of factors. Most credit dings drop off completely after 7 years but you don’t have to wait that long for the effects to be diminished. Something that happened “years” won’t have as much impact now as it did when the OP last had the problem. In addition, more positive things have probably been added to the report making the score higher.
In any case, the OP can just go to FreeCreditScore.com or one of the tons of others like it and find out exactly what is going on.
First off, I’d like to second all the suggestions about offering deals. If you are willing to make that kind of committment it will often overcome poor credit/work history.
Another suggestion: Look for non-traditional apartments. These tend to be owned by individual owners rather than a management company. And they are often more willing to take a chance with the kind of advance committment that has been suggested. Or at least they’re less likely to have set policies.
Of course I prefer smaller scale landlords, myself - they’re the people who are more willing to allow pets.
Apartment managers and owners don’t give a fig about a “score”. Many of them are only concerned about housing-related items, such as no evictions or other suits for back rent and/or damages, no unpaid utilities, etc. The reasoning being that most people pay their housing-related expenses first, then car payments, credit cards, etc., so that if you owe a debt to the electric company you are likely a bad rental risk. Also, as has been mentioned, many of them are only looking for delinquencies in the past few years - because (at least in Texas) their risk is still relatively small since they can legally evict you within a matter of days (3 day notice to vacate, 5 days after that for the JP court date, and 5 days after that and the sheriff’s knocking on your door, so you can be on the street in as little as 13 days) so as long as you’ve been paying your bills lately most of them don’t fret.
I have to disagree with dalej42, also. Some of the crappiest crackerboxes in town don’t want any delinquencies older than 2 years, no evictions or housing-related delinquencies in 7 years, and at least 6 months on the job. The luxury places want no delinquencies and 2 years on the job. Sometimes the rules will relax when the market warrants it, but I haven’t seen an apartment complex in years that has no restrictions whatsoever. Unless you count those weekly motels as “apartments”.
Several years ago I was critically ill for months, and recovering for two years. My credit took a major hit, so I have been through all this. I tell you, it was easier getting a mortgage than renting an apartment.
If I were you, snailboy, I would do what I did when I was in your situation - tell them exactly what you’ve told us as far as the details of your credit, and also offer to pay a larger security deposit and/or the first and last two or three months’ rent. Then if they think you have a shot pay the app fee. They may still turn you down because often the person you’re talking to is not the one making the decision, but they usually do have a good feel for the guidelines. I can tell you, though, being brand new on the job will be a worse deterrant to renting than your credit history. Granted, I live further west than you, and it’s been 6 years since I last looked for rental housing, but back then, around here, most wanted you to have been on your job at least 6 months. Of course, I don’t know what the rental market is like these days, or out there.
Is there any way you can wait 6 months, and in the meantime get a credit card, even if it has to be one of those secured cards? If your situation is such that you can wait six months, that’s what I’d do, in all honesty.