No Credit History? How to Get Approved for an Apartment Rental

Renting an apartment can be challenging when you're new to the workforce. Here's how to pull it off.

To rent an apartment, you need more than just a steady paycheck. You also need a decent credit score. Your credit score speaks to how consistent and on-time you are when it comes to paying bills, and it's natural for a landlord to want reassurance that you're likely to keep up with your rent payments after you sign a lease.

But what if you've never rented a home, you've never had any credit cards in your name, and you've basically never needed to pay recurring bills? If you're new to the workforce (say, as a recent high school or college graduate), that could easily be the case.

And it could prove problematic, because if you don't have much of a credit history, the reporting bureaus that determine credit scores may not be able to assign you one. And that, in turn, could prevent you from being able to rent a home. If that's your situation, here are a few potential solutions.

1. Get someone to cosign your lease

You may not have a solid enough credit history to get a credit score established, but your parents may each have their own credit score. Or, if you have older siblings, they might have a credit score, too.

Often, a landlord will allow another person with solid credit to cosign or guarantee your lease. That way, if you fall behind on your payments, that other person on your lease will be responsible for them.

Of course, you should really only ask a family member to cosign a lease if you know you'll be capable of paying it yourself. You don't want to reward someone's kindness by sticking that person with the cost of your rent. But assuming you're more than capable of affording your lease and your absent credit history is the only thing holding you back, this could be a good route to take.

2. Offer to put down several months' rent

You may not have someone who's able or willing to cosign your lease. If that's the case, you might be able to get a landlord to give you a chance by putting down several months' rent up front.

Usually, when you sign a new lease, you pay your first month of rent plus a security deposit that's equal to a full month of rent. That security deposit protects your landlord in the event that you cause damage to the place you're renting or don't make a future rent payment. But that deposit alone may not be enough to sway a landlord to rent to you. On the other hand, if you offer to put down, say, three months of rent up front, that buys a landlord extra protection.

3. Show proof of savings

If you have a solid amount of money in a savings account, a landlord might consider that when deciding whether to let you sign a lease without a credit score. Say you're signing a lease for a rental that will cost you $1,000 a month. If you show your landlord that you have $15,000 in savings, that means you have enough money to cover the duration of your lease, even if you were to lose your job immediately after signing it.

Landlords need protection, too

Though you need a steady income to rent a home, you also need to prove that you can be trusted to stick to the terms of your lease. This especially applies nowadays, given the eviction ban that's been in place since the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

During the pandemic, many tenants lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and in turn, many landlords had to sit back and do nothing while their tenants didn't pay rent for months. That was a lose-lose for everyone involved. And that's why right now, a lot of landlords are concerned about getting stuck in a situation where a lease is signed but a tenant doesn't end up paying.

Because of this situation, you may have to jump through some extra hoops to rent an apartment, especially if you don't have enough of a credit history to have a credit score yet. But if you try these tactics, you may be able to overcome that hurdle and snag a place of your own.