Rented a credit repair house and my score dropped 40 points anyway

I was sure moving into a place that reported rent payments to the credit bureaus would help my score. The landlord in Austin even bragged about how it boosts tenants' credit. After three months I checked my report and saw my score actually dropped 40 points. Turns out the company they used reported my rent as a monthly installment loan, not as positive rental history. The credit utilization on that line looked like I was carrying new debt every month. I called the reporting company and they said this is normal for their system. Has anyone else had their score go down from one of these rent reporting programs?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_alex3d ago

Wonder if the timing was bad and some other factor caused the drop. Could be a unrelated hard inquiry or a card balance reporting high right when the rent line hit your file.

nina_taylor3d ago

Man that is REALLY frustrating and I've been there. The way these rent reporting setups work can totally backfire if the company reports it wrong. What you need to do is get the landlord to switch to a different rent reporting service like RentTrack or Experian RentBureau those report it as positive rental history not a loan. Also check if the 40 point drop is from the debt to income ratio looking bad on that line because that's what happened to me when a company reported my rent as an installment loan. You can dispute the tradeline directly with the credit bureaus as inaccurate since it's not actually a loan it's rent, and tell the landlord to find a better company or stop reporting altogether.