What online service to use for background/ credit screening? (apartment, lease agreement, tenant)

[kaktusb]

Hello,

I will rent an apartment. My future landlord asked me if I want to do my credit/ background check/ screening by myself ( he wants to save me some money. So, what online service to use- reliable, fast and not pricey?

Thanks.

[tworent]

I would find a place to rent were the landlord knows what he is doing.*

[round4]

Originally Posted by tworent

I would find a place to rent were the landlord knows what he is doing.*

^^this.

[PacificFlights]

Try
www.makeitupyourselfcauseifthelandlordisntchecking howwouldtheyknowitsnotreal.bs

[CarlitosBala]

You can get a free credit report from the three credit bureaus once per year.

Regardless of that, you should NOT sign a lease agreement with a person who is such an amateur. If the landlord cannot afford the $33.60 it takes to do a criminal, credit and eviction check, he will certainly not be able to afford to replace your water heater when it breaks in the middle of winter, or re-do the roof when it starts leaking during every rain.

Secondly, this landlord is SUCH an amateur, that he hasn't yet figured out to ask the applicant to pay for their own credit/background checks.

Don't walk away from this, RUN instead.

And if you decide to rent from this individual, against all common sense and advice offered here, make sure you keep your login-name and password, as you will surely need it in the future to learn how to deal with your problem landlord.

[snowmountains]

Originally Posted by kaktusb

Hello,

My future landlord asked me if I want to do my credit/ background check/ screening by myself.

That's already answered: you will do the credit/background check/screening by yourself. Just tell him you did it and found everything satisfactory.

[jamies]

Pretty poor advice so far.

First of all as a LL in my market we can't charge an application fee because the big complexes undercut us. So to save MYSELF the cost of running useless apps I request my tenants provide a copy of their credit report - OR they can use my laptop on site and I will help them access it.

www.annualcreditreport.com

This is a FREE service provided BY the reporting agencies by law. You get one free report a year.

You can not "fake" it. Well I guess you could given enough time and graphic design skill but I can't imagine a tenant bothering to go to that extreme.

And LL's can run reports for $10-$24 depending on the site and how thorough.

[sj08054]

Originally Posted by kaktusb

Hello,

I will rent an apartment. My future landlord asked me if I want to do my credit/ background check/ screening by myself ( he wants to save me some money. So, what online service to use- reliable, fast and not pricey?

Thanks.

Probably a bit late to this but you ask the landlord to sign up for Experian Connect. Once he has an established account, he can send you an invite to run your own credit check (you pay your own ~$15). You can then share the result with him for 30 days through the connection.