 TITLE: Can My Credit Score Affect Renting? CONTENT: How to Pass a Rental Credit Check\n---------------------------------\nA landlord might take a close look at the information in your credit report when deciding whether to approve your application. Plenty of factors typically will be examined. They include:\n*   Ratio of debt to income (you'll likely be asked to report your income on your rental application)\n*   Bankruptcies\n*   Foreclosures\n*   Defaults on loans\n*   Delinquent accounts\n*   Charge-offs, meaning a creditor has written off your debt as unpaid and has closed your account\n*   Auto repossessions\nKeep in mind that items like foreclosures or a bankruptcy might be more important to a landlord than hefty credit card balances or a couple of late credit card payments. Also, you should know that a landlord typically can deny your rental application if you refuse to authorize credit and background checks.\nIt's worth noting that evictions and your history of paying rent don't automatically appear on your credit report. That's because landlords and property management companies don't always report your payment activity to the three major credit reporting bureaus—Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. They also won't submit information to the credit bureaus about evictions, bounced checks, broken leases or property damage. Unpaid rent may show up on your credit report if the debt wound up going to collections, however.\nYour history as a renter can also show up in your rental history report, which is a separate report landlords can request through services like Experian RentBureau. Rental history reports show things like evictions, late payments you've made in the past, broken leases and bad checks.\nTo help ensure you pass a landlord credit check:\n*   Pay all of your bills, including your rent, on time.\n*   Pay off credit cards and loans.\n*   Dispute information on your credit report that you believe to be incorrect, such as accounts reported as late that your records show to be current.\n*   Keep spending well below your credit limits to protect your credit utilization ratio.\n*   Consider signing up for Experian Boost™† , which reports payments on things like cellphone service, utilities and certain streaming services to credit bureaus.\nIf you have a poor credit score, you can improve your odds of your rental application being approved by:\n*   Explaining your circumstances. A landlord may give you some leeway if, for instance, your credit was damaged because of a divorce or you lost a job but now have a new one and are now getting back on your feet financially.\n*   Getting a cosigner for your lease who's got good credit.\n*   Providing concrete proof of your income, such as recent pay stubs. END