Was it the credit or the rent that got me approved? My 18 month difference story.

I applied for a rental in Austin back in April 2023 with a 580 score and got denied by three landlords. Fast forward to last month, same credit report but I paid a $300 deposit to a credit repair housing program that reported my rent payments. My score jumped to 640 over 18 months and I got approved for a duplex on the east side. Did the rent reporting actually change my score, or did the landlords just start using a different scoring model? Has anyone else seen a big approval gap just from where the report was pulled?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_sean11h agoTop Commenter

I mean honestly, I feel like people put way too much stock in these credit repair rent reporting programs. Like yeah, sure, your score went up 60 points over 18 months, but that could just be time passing and you paying your other bills on time too. I kind of doubt a landlord is pulling a totally different scoring model just because you paid a deposit to some random program. More likely you just had less negative stuff on your report from a year and a half ago and your history looked slightly less sketchy. Maybe it's just me but I think a lot of this stuff is just making people feel like they did something when really the system just randomly decided to be nice that day.

alicer5310h ago

Spent 30 bucks on one of those programs and my score didn't budge a single point in a whole year.

fisher.thomas9h ago

You're preaching to the choir, I wasted forty bucks on one of those programs and saw absolutely nothing change either.