I was really upset and feel so stuck because I have been trying to find a better place to live here in l.a.( meaning quiet street,pet friendly and room for some plants in a safe neighborhood.)
I found a cute place across the street from where I am now on a side street. I was the first one to look at the apartment and applied and even had my sister who has excellent 800 score credit as a cosigner if necessary. My credit store is 625 now-I have 4 cards with small limits that are maxed out due to Xmas that I plan on paying off by at least half when I get my tax refund along with 2 low collections( under 200 dollars). Anyway, the landlord called me and said I didn't get it because my score was low and he had 6 other applicants who I assume had higher scores?He did not even bother to check my cosigner credit because "there was no need" he said... He used a service called L2L ( landlord2 Landlord) to run the credit.
This happened before also and the landlady said they used a service that had a pass or fail system based on certain criteria but could not remember what the criteria was and I called the company and they said they could not disclose it to me.
I have a small child and I have always paid the rent and never been evicted and everyone need somewhere decent to live. I called him back to ask what score he was looking for and he never called back. I don't think just because a person has maxed out cards or a few small collections that they will be a bad tenant especially when they have no evictions but I guess everyone else does. I'm not looking for another place until I get my refund and pay down the debt/collections to raise my score but in the mean time what score are they looking for? Is there any screening service for landlords I can use to check my own report as it appears to a landlord to see what the criteria is? ( P.S. the place I am in now was only concerned about my income and took my sister as a cosigner but the apartment is very noisy and next to a gas station(toxic to kids I found out)and the place before that asked for more deposit money but it turned out to be a roach motel!) 
Each landlord and management company is going to have their own guidelines. I would focus on paying down the CC's first. When a landlord is looking at a potential tenant obviously ability to pay is the big concern. When the applicant has maxed out credit cards that is going to look very bad as if the credit cards are maxed out it's going to be a giant red flag for cash flow concers. Collections shouldn't be a huge issue as long as they aren't from a rental and are not recent.
Also don't just pay your collections. Take a look into other areas of the forum here and do research on how to get them removed. There are many many methods. It sounds counter intuitive but just paying the collection off can actually lower your scrore.
If you are in a larger city you might want to check into a chain called Extended Stay America. They are a quality clean hotel obviously focused on extended occupancy. I haven't seen their rates in years since I moved from an urban area but at the time they were decent at around $600 a month which includes everything so no utlities.
Good luck!
I've worked with a private investor that has aboout 120 rental properties in Georgia and Florida. For a few years I did a lot of the qualifying on tenants. While score was a factor it wasn't usually the deciding factory. I've put people in places with 490 EX Fico scores. The credit reports pulled had all the same information any other lendor would pull and we would pull all three. Would also check other services that perform eviction/dispossesory searches and did a LOT of cross-checking on applications to real world data. A good way to make sure you don't get a place is to provide false data on the app. Don't list your last address with a friend as the landlord hoping he'll give you a good reference. If his name doesn't match property records or his phone number doesn't match a known property management company big red flags go up.
We basically had three groups of tenants;
60% of the tenants were good tenants. Good intentions. Good jobs, income, payment histories. Generally reliable people.
30% of the tenants were also good tenants. Good intentions. Had a rough spell in life from health or job loss which caused bad payment histories but are trying to fix things and get back in order. They have good jobs now, no recent lates and appear they can and are trying to pay their bills. They just need a clean start and a place to live.
Then the last 10% of tenants are what we called "professional squatters". They'll pay two or three months up front or try to trade repairs in exchange for deposits. Once in they never pay another dime, trash the place and work the system trying to keep from getting booted. If you aren't in that last group you'll probably be OK.
If you are in the 30% and trying to get things back in order there is someone out there that can help. Keep looking.
