Experiment: Do You Need Credit to Rent an Apartment? I Called Several, And The Answer is NO
As a big proponent of not needing credit anymore, I decided to do a little research on whether you need credit to get an apartment. The simple answer is no. But there’s a little more to it.
I live about an hour north of San Francisco, in Sonoma County. If you haven’t heard of it, we’re known for wine and wildfires. The reason I mention my area is because I want to give an idea of just how much apartments cost around here. A decent 1 Bdr. apartment typically goes for about $2k per month. It’s crazy, I know.
This is an experiment that Anthony ONeal from the Dave Ramsey Group did and has a YouTube video of it. They are in Nashville, Tenn. and I wanted to try it out here in my town. As I argue with friends and family about the fake necessity of a credit score the argument of getting an apartment or house usually comes up. I tell them it’s not necessary and I finally decided to conduct and document the experience.
I called various apartment complexes around town and asked them what it takes to qualify to get an apartment with them. Once we started talking, I expressed to them that I don’t have credit cards and no longer care to build my credit, and eventually, it will start to go to zero. These are the common criteria they use:
- They all required a background check. This makes sense. People want to know if there’s any criminal activity they need to worry about.
- They want proof of income. Another reasonable request. Typically, they require you gross 2 1/2 times the rent.
- Work and rental history.
- And Finally, the credit check.
Here then it gets a little more complicated. When we think of “good credit” we think it means everything comes together and reflects in our score. The higher the score the better (meaning I can get what I want without having to pay for it right now). They do run credit checks, but it’s to see if you have any late penalties or outstanding utility bills and other things you owe people that you haven’t paid. Again, no credit and bad credit are different things. What we’re discussing here is having a LOW or NO credit score, not BAD Credit.
I wanted a clear answer from them, and except for 1 call, the rest said that a low credit score would not be an automatic denial. A few of the places mentioned a point system. As explained to me, you get points for the different criteria. For example, you get points for good rental history and income. You would get no points for the low credit score, erratic work history, or owing money to people (collections etc.). They add the points up and decide if you qualify to rent from them.
So, what is all of this to say? I will continue to harp on the idea, that the whole “needing to be approved by some invisible agency” is ridiculous. I didn’t see it before and fell in line with the rest of the nation. It fed into my constant desire to want stuff but not do the work to pay for it. Therefore, the genius idea of payments was invented to trap me! And it worked great.
I asked myself “wouldn’t I rather be receiving payments instead of always making them?” And the answer, of course, is yes.
What is the moral of the story? You don’t need credit to get an apartment or anything else. You just need money. Will it be harder? Yes, it will because we live in a credit world and are the outsiders who aren’t assimilating. But it’s worth it to not be owing people all the time as they drain your accounts.
The one thing most agree with about making payments on is your house, and even that can be approached without credit (it’s called manual underwriting). Outside of that, the mind-shift of wanting to save for things that are out of our reach is what will change our lives.
The feeling of knowing that you don’t owe anybody ANYTHING has far outweighed the feeling of getting something that I was excited about for a couple of months and then was over it.
I hope you join me on this journey of actually keeping our money, and we can begin building a better future for ourselves and our families.
