A rental history report is a significant aspect of the rental process when looking for a condominium, apartment, home, or townhouse to rent.
The report helps determine whether you’ll face rejection or acceptance on your next rental and may affect your credit rating and score as well.
Furthermore, the report is becoming a major criterion for granting new leases. Here’s what you should know about this report.
What is a Rental History Report?
The report is essentially information that comprises your previous rental arrangements, for instance previous addresses, evictions, late payments, criminal history and other data to help a prospective landlord establish whether you are a good fit as a renter.
How Apartments Check Your History
Most property owners have contracts with software providers, allowing them to access and pull your relevant information to determine whether to approve you as a tenant or not. These programs further allow for a quick decision and fast analysis.
Why You Need a History Report as a Renter
Demonstrates Your Character as a Renter
When applying for a new rental, management companies and landlords may access your credit bureau reports. This gives proprietors a means of determining whether your history comprises any evictions, bankruptcies, collections, or lawsuits with creditors.
However, numerous rent bureaus also provide history reports, allowing your prospective landlord to identify your previous residential area, establish whether you paid rent to former landlords and your general performance with tenancy grantors in comparison with your history with credit grantors.
Remove Negative Remarks
A history will reveal whether you have a negative report, which could affect the likelihood of securing an apartment.
Obtaining a report gives you the opportunity to adopt various measures that will allow you to eliminate the negative remarks. For instance, you may have been a reliable tenant who simply made a few late payments.
Consider contacting your former landlord beforehand and inquire whether you could make an extra payment to resolve the situation. It’s important to be proactive and ensure that your former landlords have no reason to issue a negative review.
Have Old Evictions Eliminated
With a history report, you can petition to have a former eviction eliminated by the reporting company if you have since reimbursed the community or landlord.
In this case, you should look into the possibility of an eviction expungement in your area. You stand a chance of having your request granted if you can prove that you’ve since paid the debt or that the eviction was unfair.
Why Landlords Need a History Report
Reputation
Checking out a history report will help you establish the renter’s reputation. Bad renters typically have a poor history from the properties they’ve previously lived in. On the other hand, a reliable renter will have a positive review from various landlords.
Criminal History
You can exclude tenants with a poor rental history during screening. Furthermore, you’ll eliminate persons with a known criminal history.
Bear in mind that some criminals typically commit crimes in rentals and shift from one place to the next to avoid suspicion. Therefore, proper investigation allows you to spot criminal backgrounds from previous reports.
Identify Honest Tenants
Nearly every person will face economic difficulties at some point in his or her life. A sincere tenant will disclose any previous evictions or periods during which he or she couldn’t pay rent.
However, a history of numerous evictions or unpaid rental charges from varied properties could imply that the tenant will be problematic.
The advantages of obtaining rental reports are enormous compared to the associated costs and time involved. Moreover, most states permit property managers or landlords to charge potential tenants a segment of the total screening process. Therefore, you won’t have the burden of paying the costs single-handedly.
For more information on a rental history report, contact us at Apartment Agents or leave a comment.
