Hello all, let me start by saying I am just now trying to rebuild my credit after being destroyed in 2008 recession. I knew very little about how credit actually worked on your reports. Therefore after many collections, judgments, charge-offs, repossessions, and even a foreclosure I thought for sure my credit future was destroyed forever. Fast forward I recently spoke to a few people they told me about the rules of how reporting normally only stays for 7 to 10 years Depending upon if it's a judgment, tax lien, or just collection. With this information I started doing some research and realized my future was brighter than I thought. So I like many others went and searched to find my "Faco" score (vantage 3.0) to find it was in the 500's. I then disputed All the remaining collections on my report. I was able to get all but 2 removed. With the final remaining two collections I went ahead and called and negotiated paying the balance off in full to have those also removed from my report. So here I am sitting at a zero score now with no collections no public records no inquiries but no positive marks either. I like many others signed up for rent reporters and had 24 months of history put on only to find out later that Fico 8 doesn't count rental agreements but Fico 9 does. At this point frustrated but still moving forward I applied and was approved for a capital one platinum secured card and a Discover it secured card plus an open sky secured card. The one good thing about the open sky card is that they don't do a hard inquiry so I only have two inquiries at this point. Now back to the rent reporter the one positive thing that this actually did was give me a four year credit file age and I found out that was very important. It's been two months now and I don't have a score on the Fico 8 model yet but on the Fico 9 I have a 742. I am keeping my balances below 5% on all the credit cards. I'm curious should I just pay them all completely off each month or is it better to leave the 5% balance? I would appreciate any feedback with like experiences and any suggestions of how to improve my credit faster. At this point I am just sitting in the garden
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Thank you
Sounds like you're certainly doing it right!
Could you share additional DP's on the rent reporting service you used? This topic isn't covered much here on MyFico.
How much did it cost and how was it determined? What bank account access was needed, if any? Did the rent report to all 3 credit bureaus and how many days/weeks did it take each bureau to show the updates to your Vantage and FICO 9 scores?
Thanks!
I used rentreporters.com it costs $195 for a years worth of reporting going forward (half of that is a one time set up fee). This also includes showing the actual age of the account plus up to 24 prior months of payments (if you were late they would report that also). This is good for the Fico 9 and Vantage Score 3.0-4.0. Fico 8 does not give you credit for rental agreements as of yet. They offer two ways to continue reporting 1-you can link your account with them so it's automatically updated (they can only see payments nothing else) or 2- they will manually call your landlord/rental agency (this way can make for inaccurate reporting if your landlord/rental agency does not reply in time. It won't show as late rather no report that month at all. They gave a code to me for new signups to give you and myself a discount but I didn't come here for that. If you would like it let me know but in no means am I trying to push anyone there.
Sorry I forgot to say they report to only EQ and TU. It took about 10 days from start of account to finalize and approximately 5 days from then to report. After that it's like clockwork if you link your bank on the 3rd of each month.
Thanks so much for sharing the details...much appreciated and will be beneficial to other members who may find the extra "bump" worth the cost. I am "building again" from a clean slate, and am 21 mos. in already, but with only revolving tradelines reporting, with 730-750'ish FICO's, 700-715'ish Vantage scores. Tough call for me on whether or not the rental history reporting would really be worth the cost. But I have been considering it as more lenders seem to be using FICO 9's, Vantage scores, and customized scoring using trending + alternative data collection in addition to regular 3B credit reports.
I look at it this way, if it improves the chance for even one loan application then it was worth it. It does report to all scoring models and lenders can see the trade line in the report it just doesn't help with the score as Fico 8 and earlier doesn't allow it as part of the score model although like I said it does show as a trade line so if you ever wanna go for a mortgage that is definitely a plus in my opinion as a good rental trade line would be a great reference for you.
Great points you make there! 🤩