Renters can build credit through new method
Mar 17th, 2008 by Afiya
Published on Thursday, Mar 13, 2008
Renting instead of owning your home might seem like flushing money down the drain, but paying that expense and other bills on time can help you build credit if your current score doesn’t qualify you for a mortgage.
Fair Isaac & Co., the company that compiles the FICO credit score, has developed a new method of gathering credit information for an ”Expansion Score.”
Such nontraditional consumer-credit data include deposit-account records, layaway purchases and, whenever possible, utility bills.
Under the new program, Fair Isaac would include information from Pay Rent, Build Credit (http://www.prbc.com), a community development service Web site that collects consumer data on rent and other recurring bill payments. You can enter your information into a Web file, which PRBC charges a fee of $15 to $20 to verify, or set up an automatic bill-payment system through your bank or credit union and have the records sent to PRBC.
Renting instead of owning your home might seem like flushing money down the drain, but paying that expense and other bills on time can help you build credit if your current score doesn’t qualify you for a mortgage.
Fair Isaac & Co., the company that compiles the FICO credit score, has developed a new method of gathering credit information for an ”Expansion Score.”
Such nontraditional consumer-credit data include deposit-account records, layaway purchases and, whenever possible, utility bills.
Under the new program, Fair Isaac would include information from Pay Rent, Build Credit (http://www.prbc.com), a community development service Web site that collects consumer data on rent and other recurring bill payments. You can enter your information into a Web file, which PRBC charges a fee of $15 to $20 to verify, or set up an automatic bill-payment system through your bank or credit union and have the records sent to PRBC.
