Rent Credit Reporting

[Wanderer]

New credit reporting for those who pay rent. Effective January 2011, Experian Credit Bureau is now placing rental payment status reporting on consumer credit reports. Experian's view is that since rent is often times the single largest monthly expense, consumers should get credit for it. Note, landlords would need to report renter's performance inorder to show the results in a consumer credit report.

My thought is more money for Experian and what if your credit isn't the best. One more place to ding consumers. It's enough insurance, employment and housing purchases run through the credit bureaus and now renters. Is this a ploy to increase the number of homeless? Well it could be good for renters to build credit too!

[smcc]

Thing is Wanderer, those owners who rent very few units, they probably won't report. Those who just want to keep their units full at all times (like they all don't) who could care less probably won't do so either.

People who are looking to move into an apartment will probably want to know if the owner is reporting; like you said it will help their overall history by making their rent payments in a timely manner.

[piper]

Hi all,

I'm new here but am very interested in getting credit for my rent. Can anyone tell me if williampaid.com is a legit site to help build your credit score with a good rental history? I usually have good luck researching things but can't seem to find any other info except for the site itself or bloggers that I suspect are paid to praise it. No negative reports from BBB but it still doesn't tell me if it actually helps repair credit. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[piper]

I guess no one knows anything about this service. I think I am going to pass for now. I pay my rent through my bank's billypay system but thought it would be worth the 4.95/mo to have it reported as good credit. I would think more people would be talking about it if it were really that good I suppose.

[piper]

With a little more research I discovered that they report to PRBC and not the major 3. Not sure if that would affect Fico score or not? Anyone know anything about PRBC?

[Wanderer]

piper - patience is a virtue. Sometimes the right person has not crossed the FG website to answer your question.

At this point I will say that in my years on FG, I have never heard or read any comments on Micro Bilt Corp and their credit products. I can go on to say I have not heard of anyone paying a fee to have credit reported. Now based on my own last eleven years of credit rebuilding along with FG comments, credit lenders of all kinds utilize FICO, Vantage (Trans Union), Plus (Experian) or Equifax's Model. As my memory serves me, almost 80% use some form of FICO Score. Now many lenders have their own risk model that runs off of FICO Scores to come up with what level of risk they are willing to offer credit at. Level of risk and the lender's model will vary with market conditions... example is to look at how using the FG "Score Match" for cards you will find the FICO Scores on virtually every card has dropped (suggested minimum to qualify) in the last six months. Today, many FGer's have had hits with Discover Cards and Citi Bank Cards. We all share our findings and then assess our opportunity for a score on a card.

It would only be my educated guess that reporting to the big three is where it is at. However, car dealers have a special reporting from the big three CR's and insurance companies like LexisNexis Consumer Services. So maybe landlords also use other credit suppliers. Utility companies often go to other suppliers of credit information rather than the big three... so who knows for sure. Truth, everyone has their way of doing it so we can generalize about it. Banks openning new checking, savings, certificate of deposits and such products often pull from ChexSystems Reporting so it could be a mix depending on what the lender/employer needs....?