‘Leveling the playing field’: Could rent reporting pave a path to greater financial inclusion?
- Timely rent payments aren't taken into consideration by credit bureaus, missing an opportunity to score thin- or no-file people.
- Rent reporting could turn out to be a solution.
When tenants sign a lease, they agree to pay a price in addition to their rent.
Renters, unlike homeowners, don’t get points with credit bureaus for paying for their homes. Even if a person is vigilant about paying their rent on time, their credit score, for the most part, won’t reflect that behavior.
Unlike mortgages, rent isn’t a debt, and so it’s not something that has to be reported to any of the major credit bureaus.
“If you are a renter in the United States, and you do not own where you live, the rent payment is traditionally not reported to the credit bureaus, and your payments are not being reflected in the credit report,” said Dara Duguay, CEO of Credit Builder Alliance (CBA), a non-profit association that focuses on helping low and middle-income earners improve their credit scores.
The Credit Builder Alliance consists of almost 600 nonprofits and aims to improve credit and overall wealth for low-income households. One of the things the organization helps with is rent reporting.
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