No matter how old you are, building and maintaining a strong credit score can be tricky. But as you know, it’s well worth it, because a good score (700 or better) opens so many financial doors for you.
This leads to the bottom-line truth about credit building: it takes credit to get credit.
While there certainly are ways to establish a credit history when you don’t yet have one or begin to repair a damaged credit history, there’s a great way to build your credit by doing what you’d do anyways WITHOUT taking on debt or parting with your savings:
Making on-time rent payments.
All of the major credit bureaus include positive rent payments on credit reports, which in turn can help increase your credit scores. Unfortunately, rent payments aren’t automatically reported.
This is where CreditPop comes in; we believe that renters should enjoy the same benefit from the money they spend on housing as homeowners do.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible for you to report your rent payments yourself. The law requires that you use rent-reporting service like CreditPop to make sure you get credit for making those on-time monthly payments.
The good news is it’s well worth signing up: it’s been shown that scores can increase as much as 28+ points in two months, and even more the longer you report.
For most, rent is the biggest monthly expense - and when you pay it consistently on-time, you deserve credit for it. But deserving and getting are two different things, so make sure you have a certified rent reporting agency working for you.