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Okay, my fiance and I are getting married in May, but want to get an apartment before hand. He knows I have bad credit, but his credit is excellent, in the high 600's. I was wondering, with my credit, and his credit, would we be able to rent an apartment ? I do have closed accounts on my credit history, of unpaid cards. But, am in the process of trying to pay them back. Would it be possible for him to be the one to sign for the apartment and me not have to ? Please help, this is very important ! Thank you.
By the way, not sure if this means much, but I live in Massachusettes, and I am 20 years old, so is my fiance.
I agree, high 600s is marginal, definitely not excellent. I had an applicant today with a score of 803. That is excellent. I consider anything over about 720 to be "very good", but you have to get into the 780+ range to make my "excellent" category. High 600s is "ok"
So, that being said, as a LL, I don't look at scores much at all (unless I get an excellent one that comes in, those stand out, because they are rare). I look at the individual items on the report. Why are your scores what they are?
I rent to about 30 or 40 people right now who have artifically low scores due to a foreclosure or short sale. I've rented to a lot of people who had a medical bankruptcy, and thus had very low scores, even though they were otherwise financially responsible.
As a LL, I'm looking for whether you have any evictions, judgments, garnishments, etc that mean that someone had to take you to court to get what they were owed. And I'm looking for any collections from utility companies that will stop you from being able to get utilities put in your name or mean I might get left holding the bag on your utility payment (we have a few in town who lien the property if the bill isn't paid). Paying back what you owe without a court order makes any other collections less bad, in my opinion, so if you truly are doing that, that counts in your favor.
And finally, in response to your other question, I don't allow any adult occupants to be occupants without being on the lease, unless they are young adult children of the main tenants (ie if I rent to someone who has 18-24 year old children still living at home, those children don't have to sign, but a multigenerational household, with say, a 65 year old, a 35 year old and a 5 year old, both the 65 and 35 year old would have to sign)
I have a credit score of 690 and all I did was pay back 6 months of student loans. Literally that is all that is on my credit. So he really doesn't have good, nor bad credit it seems. I know there are plenty of places you can find I am sure. The place I live at currently didnt even run a credit check. You gotta just figure out what you can afford and in my opinion, you should get your finances in check before you get married!
I agree with LaCerta. Maybe there are some larger management companies that will ask for more security from folks with poor credit scores but few will actually deny you access to a rental unless you have outstanding debts to other landlords and /or court judgements that reduce your wages to the point where you do not meet minium income requirements.
Most smaller landlords will take a look at a rental application and try to verify that they have a job and normal bank accounts and not really fret over a bad credit score NUMBER ...
When I rented out single family homes I also carried more about have all legal matters squared away with regard to custody and criminal type matters than having folks with sterliing credit histories. If somebody was late with their bill payments to credit card companies it might just mean they were absent minded, but when I would see criminal issues or some kind of history or messy custody issues those tend to be the siutations were some aggreived party is going to be visited by police down the road. It is awful hard to rent a place out after the neighbors say "the last tenant was hauled away by cops / coroner"...
Okay, my fiance and I are getting married in May, but want to get an apartment before hand. He knows I have bad credit, but his credit is excellent, in the high 600's. I was wondering, with my credit, and his credit, would we be able to rent an apartment ? I do have closed accounts on my credit history, of unpaid cards. But, am in the process of trying to pay them back. Would it be possible for him to be the one to sign for the apartment and me not have to ? Please help, this is very important ! Thank you.
By the way, not sure if this means much, but I live in Massachusettes, and I am 20 years old, so is my fiance.
How did you manage to screw up your credit in 2 short years?
To answer your question...No. Most, if not all, apt complexes require everyone over the age of 18 to fill out an app, have a background and credit check done. Your bad credit (and his is just OK, NOT excellent) doesn't hide the closest and will always be there, in your face, everyday until you clean it up.
You're young, get a couple of jobs and pay off your debt.
What's the rush for marriage? Get your education and finances in order, then consider the marriage thing, marriage will not all of a sudden turn you into a responsible adult.
Your credit score is awful and his is not great, the combo of the two will most likely make for a no go as you both have to be approved.
I would not accept you until after all those debts have been paid back. You have a history of not paying what you owe, so why would I think that I would be the exception and you would pay me? You have borrowed money knowing that you could not pay it back. Basically, that is theft.
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wow...
