You are required to submit a credit report with this rental application. If you do not have a copy of your credit report that was generated in the last 2 months, follow the simple steps to access your free credit report. You can access this online or order credit report over the telephone by calling this toll-free number: 1-877-322-8228.
Step 1: Visit www.annualcreditreport.com. You will see a red link that reads: "Request Yours Now!" Click that button and on the next page it will describe the 3 steps to get your credit data. Read those three steps (they’re very simple and brief), and then click the red button that says: "Request your credit reports."
Step 2: Next, you’ll be guided to a page where you enter your personal information: name, date of birth, social security number and address. If you haven’t lived at your current residence for two years, you’ll also have to indicate your previous address. Additionally, at the bottom of this page, you must enter CAPTCHA security characters, which are a series of letters and numbers. (This information is required to make sure a live human being, not a spammer using a bot, is entering information). Click the “next” button to proceed to the following screen.
Step 3: You will now have the option to select 1, 2 or 3 credit reports. To select a specific credit report, simply click the box next to the name of the credit reporting company whose report you want to obtain.
For the rental application, you only need one report per applicant over the age of 18.
Click the “next” button to proceed to the following screen.
At this point, you will be taken to the credit bureau sites. If you have selected to receive all three reports, you’ll start with Equifax
Step 4: For the final part of the process, you need to be prepared to answer several bits of credit information or personal history at each site (i.e. the Equifax, Experian and TransUnion site) in order to verify your identity. They do this as a safety precaution, to make sure you really are who you say you are. They don’t want anyone to fall victim to identity theft.
Each credit bureau will ask questions to confirm your ID. The questions are generally along the lines of: “Your credit files indicate that you took out a mortgage in 2010 with which financial institution?” Then they’ll list about four banks, as well as an option for “none of the above,” and you have to pick the right one.
Upon successfully answering the ID security questions, your credit report will appear on screen. You should save it to your desktop or laptop, note your transaction code or order number, and print it or save it immediately. At some bureaus, you can only print during that initial session when you retrieve your credit report.
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