The Power of Rental Payment Data to Promote Financial Inclusion
When owners and operators understand the conditions in their competitive set, everyone benefits.
Image courtesy of Multifamily Insiders.
Multifamily owners and operators aren’t strangers to sharing data. For decades, apartment communities have swapped information about occupancy rates and actual rents to compile market surveys of their competitive set.
At first glance, it might appear odd to the outside world that properties would so readily exchange this information. But owners and operators understand that everyone benefits when everyone has a clear-eyed understanding of the conditions in their competitive set and their submarket.
The same could be said for sharing their residents’ positive rental payment histories with credit bureaus. By doing this, they are providing their renters with a powerful avenue for improving their financial well-being.
A strong, positive credit history is essential to securing car loans, credit cards and mortgages—and to doing so at favorable interest rates. Unfortunately, unlike homeowners, apartment residents traditionally have not gotten credit on their credit reports for making their rent payments on time and in full, even though these payments are often quite large and typically make up their largest monthly expense.
