In years past, lenders and credit agencies would never see a rent history, but this changed for some people in 2011 when Experian completely merged with RentBureau. Adding a rental history to your credit report has always been possible, but not to the credit agencies used by most lenders. Even if you have a history with consumer reporting firm like RentBureau, you cannot force the national agencies to report it.
Identification
You can add rental history to an alternative credit report, but you must pay a monthly fee to the alternative agency to verify your history. Alternative reports have another downside: lenders are far less likely to accept this as opposed to a report from one of the major credit bureaus.
Experian and RentBureau
As of 2011, only Experian includes rental histories for some borrowers from one of the largest consumer reporting agencies, RentBureau. Experian reported on-time payments in 2011 and plans to add missed rent payments and other negative items from rental histories in 2012, according to Lynnette Khalfani-Cox of Wallet Pop. The major credit bureaus will likely add more rental histories after 2011, because paying rent has a strong correlation to a person's willingness to repay a debt.
Benefits
People without a credit history or a limited amount of data on their profile benefit the most from adding rental history to their report. Thus, you should ask the credit bureaus to add rent payments to your file. However, they are unlikely to do so because the national bureaus probably won't spend the time and resources to verify the data on any account unless they already have the rental history in their database.
Tip
You may not need to add rent history to your report. At least 20 percent of lenders do not use the FICO scoring system and opt for informal underwriting instead, according to financial expert Dave Ramsey. Thus, you could bring in evidence to a lender that shows you are a good renter, such as canceled checks or a history from the landlord.
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