Whether you know it or not, your credit score precedes you to every rental office in America.
And for 47 million consumers with subprime credit, it often knocks on the door and lets the leasing agent know they shouldn’t even bother looking at an application. The median credit score of U.S. renters is 638, compared with 754 for homeowners, Experian found in a recent analysis of more than 5 million rental applications.
Most landlords consider credit scores between 620 and 650 the cutoff point for most applicants, although corporate buildings and high-end landlords in competitive cities like New York and San Francisco will often require scores above 700.
And if your credit score comes in below that threshold, there’s often little the leasing agent can do: The credit-screening software the building uses to process applications will automatically reject you before your paperwork ever makes it to a human reviewer’s desk.
And here’s the part that should infuriate you: Credit scores were developed as a tool to gauge the risk that an applicant would default on a loan. They weren’t created to predict whether someone will pay their rent on time.
“There’s absolutely no evidence that credit scores have value in predicting whether a renter will pay their rent,” says Chi Chi Wu, a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center who has been critical of the practice of using credit scores to evaluate rental applicants.
What Landlords See When They Check Your Credit
It’s important to note that credit scores aren’t the only thing landlords can see when they pull your credit report as part of a rental application.
In addition to your credit score, the report will also show outstanding collections, late payments, charge-offs, and public records, and for many Americans, the negative information that appears on their report has nothing to do with rent payments at all. About a third of Americans with a credit report have at least one debt in collections, according to data from the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group.
Historically, one of the biggest drivers of debt in collections has been medical debt, as of 2024, an estimated 15 million consumers still had $49 billion worth of unpaid medical bills on their credit reports. A single medical bill you didn’t realize you owed, or perhaps never knew was sent to you in the first place, could be dragging down your credit score, and potentially costing you an apartment.
The tide may be turning here, however. Already, 15 states have enacted laws that bar medical debt from appearing on credit reports, and in 2022, the big three credit reporting bureaus began voluntarily removing paid medical debts as well as medical debts under $500 from consumers’ credit reports.
But if you live in a state that doesn’t have laws protecting consumers from medical debt on their credit reports, and you have unpaid medical collections holding you back, you still face an uphill climb as you try to get approved for an apartment.
Tip 1: Apply with Individual Landlords, Not Big Companies
How Small Landlords Think Differently
If you have poor credit, it can be tough to get approved for an apartment, especially when you’re applying to a giant complex managed by a big company.
That’s because most large property management companies run every rental application through automated screening software, which applies the same hard-and-fast credit rules to every applicant. If the software says no, the leasing agent can’t say yes, even if she wants to.
That’s the point: Big property management firms process thousands of applications every month and use software to help ensure their approval standards remain consistent across all the properties in their portfolios.
If you are a small-time landlord, a duplex, a house with an in-law unit, a four-plex, or the like, you can consider the applicant as a person. You can factor in employment history, their attitude, and an offer to pay a bit more down to help mitigate the risk of the bad credit.
In fact, Experian’s consumer advice page on dealing with bad credit and renting says just that: “Try looking at rentals from small property management firms or private owners, as they are more likely to be flexible than a large management company.” Tom Quinn, a vice president at myFICO, told me the same: “Some private or independent landlords might have more flexible rules than a management company.”
Where to Find Them
Of course, the question is how to find such an entity. Listings from the big apartment rental sites, such as Apartments.com or Zillow, are mostly managed properties that use automated screening processes. Instead, individual landlords are more likely to post on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, or the local community bulletin board. Drive around the neighborhood you want to live in and look for handwritten “For rent by owner” signs.
Local real estate investor meetups, church community boards, and neighborhood Facebook groups are also fertile ground to find owners who rent out their own properties. These are people who would prefer to fill a rental through word-of-mouth rather than paying for a listing. You’re competing with fewer applicants, and they’d rather have a human connection than a credit score.
Tip 2: Bring a Co-Signer or Use a Professional Guarantor
What Co-Signers Need to Qualify
Every source I could find within the rental industry, from credit bureaus to housing counselors, listed bringing a co-signer as the best way to deal with bad credit. A co-signer is someone who agrees to be legally responsible for the rent if you can’t pay. They act as a kind of cosigner for a credit card or car loan, but on a lease. The co-signer’s good credit and income act as a stand-in for yours on the application.
Most landlords require a co-signer to have a credit score of at least 670 to 700 and an income of five to seven times the monthly rent. In New York City, the standard is higher: typically an annual income of 80 times the monthly rent. So if you’re renting a $2,000 a month apartment in Manhattan, your co-signer will need to show $160,000 a year in income.
The risk to the co-signer is real, and should be taken seriously. If you can’t make the rent, the landlord will come after your co-signer for the money, and if they fail, the delinquency will appear on their credit report. This is not something to be taken lightly, and treating it casually can ruin relationships and finances on both sides.
The Rise of Institutional Guarantors
If you don’t have a friend or family member willing to co-sign, you might be able to get help from a growing industry of institutional guarantor services. Companies like Insurent and TheGuarantors act as your co-signer for a fee. Insurent, the first institutional lease guarantor, is now accepted in more than 775,000 apartments across 8,000 buildings, predominantly in the New York market but expanding nationally.
The cost is not insignificant. Insurent charges US citizens a one-time fee of 60 to 90 percent of one month’s rent. TheGuarantors charges 4.75 to 7.5 percent of annual rent. Both services typically require applicants to have at least a 630 FICO score and income of roughly 27 times monthly rent, which is a lower bar than most landlords impose directly on applicants with bad credit.
Tip 3: Provide a Larger Security Deposit or Prepaid Rent
How Much Actually Works
Cash speaks louder than a credit score, and offering to pay more as a security deposit can lower your risk in the eyes of a landlord.
Housing counselors suggest you consider offering two or three times the usual deposit, if permitted under state law, to show you have savings and a commitment to your landlord. They even suggest you consider offering to pay three to six months of rent ahead of time if it is a major issue. It’s all about mitigating the risk of a bad credit score for an owner.
If someone with a 720 credit score offers to pay a one-month security deposit, and someone with a 580 credit score offers to pay three months, it’s likely the owner will feel more secure with the latter applicant. After all, this is a business for them.
Would you rather have someone with a good credit score and only one month’s security deposit, or someone with a bad credit score and three months of security deposit? It’s a no-brainer.
What is important is to check what the laws are in your state about security deposits. Several states have implemented laws limiting security deposits to one month’s rent for residential units. California’s AB 12 reduces security deposits to one month’s rent starting in July 2024. New York also limits security deposits to one month’s rent for residential units. Colorado limits security deposits for subsidized tenants.
In states limiting security deposits to one month, you may want to consider pre-paying the lease. For example, California does not prohibit pre-paying at least six months of rent on a six-month or longer lease. The difference between security deposit and pre-paid rent is important here. In addition, several states do not allow landlords to demand different security deposits based on credit score or other protected status. It is one thing to offer voluntarily, another to demand.
Tip 4: Build an Overwhelming Paper Trail
Documents That Shift the Conversation
The documents you need to prove income, employment, or rental history are pretty obvious, but the value of each item, and how they work together, is worth discussing. Again, the rule of thumb here is that the standard three times the rent in income is not enough when a bad credit score is involved. You need to show that you are a better credit risk than that number suggests. That means bringing:
- Two to three months worth of recent pay stubs
- Bank statements that show regular deposits
- Your W-2 or most recent tax return
- A letter from your employer verifying your employment status
- If you have rental history, a letter from your current or former landlord that states that you made timely payments and were a responsible tenant
The key is to leave no doubt. When a landlord sees a low credit score and a stack of financial documents, it shifts the narrative from “this is a risk” to “this is a person who has a real story to tell.” The combination of all these documents is more important than any one of them.
Rent reporting is a tool that far more renters could and should be using. Services like Experian Boost make it possible for your on-time rent payments to count toward your credit score.
A 2021 analysis by TransUnion found that when rent payments were included, scores rose by an average of about 60 points, which alone could get many renters out of the “subprime” and into the “fair” or “good” credit range.
Yet in 2025, just 13 percent of renters had their payments reported to credit bureaus, up from 11 percent the previous year. Meaning that the vast majority of renters are missing out on points every month. If you’ve been making on-time rent payments for years, that’s evidence of the behavior that landlords say they want to reward.
Enrolling in rent reporting is not going to solve your credit issues today or tomorrow, and the extent to which it helps will depend on your broader credit profile. But if you know you’re going to be moving in the next few months, enrolling now could actually impact the credit score a new landlord will see.
Tip 5: Write a Letter of Explanation That Tells the Real Story
What to Include and How to Frame It
A letter of explanation is the document that explains why your credit report looks the way it does. It’s a chance to tell the real story about why your credit score is low, the job loss, the divorce, the medical emergency, the identity theft, and what you are doing about it.
“Landlords want to know about the delinquencies, what caused them and what the person is doing to rectify the situation,” says Bruce McClary, spokesperson for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. “That can be the deciding factor.”
The letter should be one page, factual about what happened, specific about what has changed, and accompanied by whatever documentation supports your claims. If a medical emergency led to the debt, attach records of the illness and the payment arrangement you have made.
If a job loss was the reason, attach your new employment verification letter that shows you are once again earning a steady income. The letter is effective because it turns you from a nameless credit score into a real person with a plausible explanation.
When It Works and When It Does Not
This approach works best with individual landlords who are evaluating applicants on a case-by-case basis.
If you’re dealing with a large corporate property management firm that uses computerized applicant screening, your letter may never even be seen, and even if it is, their protocol probably does not allow for an override based on a sympathetic appeal. Save your letter for situations where an actual human being is involved in the review process.
The letter approach is also most successful when your poor credit is attributable to a discrete event rather than a broad history of missed payments across a multitude of accounts. Any landlord can relate to someone who hit a rough patch. A credit report showing years of chronic late payments across a dozen accounts tells a different story, and no letter is going to rewrite that story completely.
The System Is Broken, But You Can Still Navigate It
Your Credit Report May Be Working Against You in Ways You Do Not Know
Before you waste one more application fee, order your credit reports from all three bureaus and read through them carefully.
Errors on credit reports are staggeringly common, and information reported by debt collectors is among the most commonly disputed. You may have collection accounts on your credit report right now that are inaccurate, duplicated, or not yours at all, and they could be holding your credit score down while simultaneously costing you housing.
Federal regulators have even admitted that the problem is widespread. In 2023 alone, the FTC and CFPB reached a $23 million settlement with TransUnion for errors in tenant screening reports, including double-reporting the same eviction and reporting records that had been sealed. If such a massive entity is making those kinds of mistakes, what might be on your individual credit report?
FightCollections.com Can Help You Clean Up What the Collectors Left Behind
At FightCollections.com, we concentrate our practice on identifying and challenging credit report information that is inaccurate, misleading, or cannot be verified, particularly information that has been reported by debt collectors.
Collection agencies rely on consumers not knowing their rights and not challenging the information that appears on their credit reports. We know exactly how they operate because we have dealt with them from every possible angle, and we fight back by utilizing the legal recourse made available to us through the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
If you are being denied housing because of collection accounts that are on your credit report, do not simply accept that those accounts are valid. And certainly do not accept that there is nothing you can do about it.
Instead, request a free case evaluation today to discover what we may be able to remove from your report. The apartment you want might be only one successful dispute away.
