RentTrack Review: Building Your Credit By Paying Rent

– RentTrack –

This RentTrack review focuses on the pros and cons of using Renttrack as a homeowner and how it improves your credit. By signing up to RentTrack, you can possibly save thousands of dollars in interest charges over the long-term on auto loans, credit cards, and mortgages which in turn helps you improve your credit score.

Although homeowners build credit automatically when making timely mortgage payments, renters tend not to receive any benefit because few landlords report rent payments.

RentTrack helps to bridge this divide by reporting rent payments to credit bureaus for a low monthly fee so you can build credit without needing to take on debt or get a credit card.

About RentTrack?

Many people struggle to build credit when starting out. It’s difficult to open up a credit account when you don’t have any credit. It seems like a chicken-and-egg problem, right?

Additionally, a credit account implies you’ll take on debt. In other words, to build credit, you also have to take on debt. But what if you didn’t? That’s where RentTrack comes in. They allow you to build credit by paying your rent.

After you sign up with RentTrack, they will report your rent payments to all three credit bureaus. When you apply for new credit, you’ll already have a credit history.

The upside is that you didn’t even have to take on any debt. This feature is great for anyone building new credit or trying to repair damaged credit.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Without needing to resort to a traditional loan or a credit card to build your credit, you can improve your credit score by making timely rent payments.
•  Unlike some of its rivals, they report rent payments to all three major credit bureaus.
• The monthly cost is $6.95 when you pay via ACH.
• You are not locked into a long-term contract so when you have built your credit score or you are moving to a new home, you can cancel anytime.
• Even if your landlord is not participating on the RentTrack platform already you can still join.
• Your information is encrypted according to RentTrack using bank-level security protocols.
• Unlike some rivals, they accept online payments for your convenience.

Cons

• Unlike Rental Kharma, which reports prior rent payments, RentTrack can only report previous payments if your landlord is already on its platform, otherwise, it cannot do so retrospectively.
• If you already have loans or an established credit score, you may not find RentTrack especially valuable.

How RentTrack Builds Your Credit

Believe it or not, most renters never get credit for paying rent on time. The reason is that most landlords do not report your rent payments to credit bureaus as part of a tradeline, which is an account that shows your purchase and payment activity.

RentTrack is a credit reporting agency designed to help you build credit when you make rent payments on time. And unlike some of its competitors, such as Rental Kharma, RentTrack reports to all three credit bureaus: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion.

The way it works is that you receive a positive mark on your credit report each time you make a payment on time. The longer your history of making timely payments, the better your credit score.

RentTrack will verify your identity using a government-issued ID, such as your driver’s license, and ask you some other questions to confirm you are who you say you are.

It will also verify your landlord to ensure your rent payment is sent to the right place.

Your landlord does not need to sign up to RentTrack for you to benefit from the service, but if they don’t you will need to pay the monthly cost.

An ACH payment can be set up for a monthly fee of $6.95 which we believe is fair considering the value received.

Once you sign up, all you need to do is make a payment on the RentTrack platform. The payments to your landlord are then made on your behalf.