Credit Reports (pay, judgements, accounts, dollars)

[CountryHeart7]

What is a trustworthy site to get a free credit report to provide possible landlords? Thank you!

[Wittgenstein's Ghost]

Originally Posted by CountryHeart7

What is a trustworthy site to get a free credit report to provide possible landlords? Thank you!

annualcreditreport.com

Each credit burea is required to give you a free copy of your report once each year. The above site is the official mechanism by which they do that. My advice -- rather than pulling all three once per year, you can pull the report from one of three agencies every four months. So, for example, pull Transunion, four months later pull Equifax and four months later pull Experian. That is useful if you are tracking changes in what is going on with your credit. There are sometimes differences between the information each bureau has, however, so your needs may dictate pulling them all at once.

I've also had good luck with creditkarma.com, but don't put too much stock in the actual scores they provide.

[Kim in FL]

Originally Posted by CountryHeart7

What is a trustworthy site to get a free credit report to provide possible landlords? Thank you!

Most landlords will pull their own credit/background checks and won't accept a copy from applicants for obvious reasons. But go ahead and pull one for yourself so you know where you are credit wise and won't be shocked if denied a unit based on credit info

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by CountryHeart7

What is a trustworthy site to get a free credit report to provide possible landlords? Thank you!

You're smart to be doing this.
I am a landlord, and if someone came to me with a credit report they would be given top priority and first choice. (ahem) After checking them out, of course.

[Rabrrita]

If you go to the employment forum, you'll read tons of post from people telling you how to just make fake W-2's or 1099's along with fake tax returns, fake companies, fake references and anything else that can be produced. Any landlord that accepts a credit report provided by the applicant and does not pull their own, probably isn't that smart a landlord so you may want to think twice about renting from them.

If you go to the renting forum, you'll read post by landlords who caught applicants trying to pawn off fake credit reports to hide evictions or judgements. Because it's so easy to just make one up, expect it to be pulled by a responsible landlord regardless of what you offer. You definitely want to pull it so you know whats on it, but no landlord will accept what you provide and not check it themselves.

[galaxyhi]

Don't expect to provide a potential LL with a ready made CR, even if real. That would be suspect. They will run their own credit report and checks.

But, as noted above, you should pull your copy, one from each one of the 3 bureaus ruffly each third of the year. {such as Experian in Jan, TransUnion in April, and Equifax in August/Sept}

You can get them from annualcreditreport.com. That is the official site for such. It WON'T give you a credit score, but will show how your report reads out.

If you notice an misinformation ,you can takes steps to correct it by notifying the bureaus properly.

I also have a credit monitoring system that has been spot on to any loans I have taken out and alerts me of any credit "pulls". For the $8.99/m I think it is worth it.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Here's where it is a good idea to pull your own report when you are hoping to rent.

If your credit is not so wonderful, but not horrible, you can take the report and show it to the landlord before you pay the application fee. The landlord can look at the report and tell you whether or not it is going to cause you to be rejected before you pay the application fee.

No landlord is going to accept a credit report that you provide, but if you haven't doctored the report and the landlord accepts it, and sees exactly the same report when he pulls the report, then you won't be rejected for the credit report.

You might still be rejected for a different reason.

I get a lot of applicants who have been rejected over and over because of bad credit. That costs them $50-$100 every time they apply. It costs them a lot of money that they can't afford. They will tell me that their credit isn't so great, but I don't know what that means until I've seen the credit report. I don't like taking people's money that they can't afford to lose. I also don't like to do all the work of screening an applicant that I can't accept. I'd rather be able to tell them no, so that they save their money and I save my time.

Different landlords have different criteria for credit reports. I might take an applicant that a different landlord would reject. I might reject an applicant that a different landlord would accept. I tend to disregard medical bills, so I might accept an applicant with 20 collections if they are all medical and everything else checks out to my satisfaction. A different landlord might look at 20 collections and reject. The landlord down the road might accept an applicant with two collections and I will reject them if they are recent and frivolous.

You don't know until the landlord looks at the credit report. It normally costs you an application fee to have the landlord look at the credit report.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Another point, and this is a true story. I had an applicant with 14 collections on his credit report and all 14 accounts added together came to about $600. Seriously. Look at your report and pay off those collections. A paid collection is still a negative but it sure looks better than an unpaid one.

Most of the credit reports I look at have a bunch of piddly little chickenpoop unpaid bills. Why ruin your credit over a couple of hundred dollars?

[CountryHeart7]

Thank you everyone for all of your input, it is certainly making some of these steps I'm taking more efficient!