Most rental property owners have a number in their head. 650. 680. 700. Whatever it is, they treat it like a finish line. Score above it, you’re in. Score below it, you’re out.
We get why that happens. It feels clean. Objective. Like a defensible decision. But if you’ve been reading about tenant screening for rental property owners, you already know that a credit score is one data point in a much larger picture. The owners who lose money aren’t usually the ones who ignored credit entirely. They’re often the ones who stopped reading after the score.
Here’s what a credit check actually contains, what those numbers mean in a real Philadelphia rental context, and why the “good enough” score question is a little more complicated than it looks.
In This Guide
The Full Report: More Than a Three-Digit Number
When we run a credit check through AppFolio across our 1,000 managed units, we’re not just seeing a score. The report includes the applicant’s full credit history, current and past accounts, payment history on each one, outstanding balances, collections, public records like judgments and tax liens, and any bankruptcies.
The score itself is generated by weighing all of that together. Think of it like a GPA. The GPA tells you something, but whether someone got a 3.1 by barely passing five hard classes or by acing five easy ones is a different story entirely.
Scores can also vary by bureau. Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion each maintain their own files, and for the same applicant, we sometimes see a spread of 20 to 50 points across the three. That alone is a reason not to treat the headline number as gospel.
What Shows Up in a Credit Report Landlords Actually Care About
Here’s what a full credit report surfaces that actually matters for a rental decision:
- Payment history: How consistently has this person paid their bills? A single 30-day late mark is treated very differently than a pattern of late payments going back three years.
- Collections: Any unpaid debt sent to collections will appear, including medical bills, utility accounts, and credit cards. The type of collection matters.
- Evictions: An eviction judgment is a major red flag. We weight this heavily.
- Bankruptcies: Chapter 7 stays on a report for 10 years. Chapter 13 stays for 7. Both show up on a standard tenant screening pull.
- Public records: Tax liens, civil court judgments, and mortgage defaults all appear here.
- Credit utilization: How much of the available credit limit is being used. High utilization signals financial stress even without a missed payment.
A payment that is 29 days late won’t show as a derogatory mark. The second it hits 30 days, it does. That’s a hard line in how the bureaus report.
One in five consumers had an error corrected by a credit reporting agency after disputing it, according to an FTC study — and about 5% had errors serious enough to result in less favorable credit terms. An owner who auto-rejects based solely on a score may be turning away a qualified applicant whose number is being dragged down by a debt that isn’t even theirs. Always check what’s driving a low score before making a final call.
“One in five consumers had an error corrected by a credit reporting agency after disputing it, according to an FTC study — and about 5% had errors serious enough to result in less favorable credit terms.”
What Score Is “Good Enough” in Philadelphia?
In Philadelphia’s rental market, 620 is roughly the floor most landlords will consider. Our baseline at New Age is 650 or above for properties in our average rent range of $1,200 a month. At that rent, we’re looking for applicants earning around $3,600 a month — and credit score gets evaluated alongside income, not instead of it.
But here’s where it gets interesting locally.
In neighborhoods like Cedar Park, Spruce Hill, and Powelton Village, we regularly see applicants who are Penn Medicine employees, CHOP staff, or Penn graduate students with thin credit files. Not bad credit. Thin credit. No credit cards, no car loans, no student debt in repayment yet. Their scores can land in the 620 to 640 range simply because there isn’t much history to score.
That’s a fundamentally different situation than someone with a 640 who has two collection accounts and a pattern of late payments. Same number, completely different story.
Why a 700 Score Isn’t Always Safer Than a 640
This is something Dimitra, our leasing manager, talks through with owners pretty regularly. A 700 credit score with zero rental history is, in our experience, a riskier placement than a 640 score with five years of documented on-time rent payments.
Credit scores are built on credit products. Car loans. Credit cards. Student debt. They don’t measure whether someone has been a reliable tenant for half a decade.
We had an owner with a multi-family in Cedar Park who approved an applicant with a 710. Clean-looking score. But the full report showed a $6,200 unpaid medical collection that had been sitting open for four years. Six months after move-in, the tenant started prioritizing that debt and fell behind on rent for two consecutive months. The score said 710. The report told a different story.
Anchoring on the number alone leaves that kind of thing completely invisible.
The Score Floor Trap
We see this a lot after an owner has a bad tenant experience. They bump their credit minimum. 620 becomes 680. Sometimes 700. It feels like tightening the filter.
It mostly just shrinks the applicant pool.
The jump from 620 to 680 doesn’t cleanly remove bad actors. It removes applicants with thin files, one-time medical debt, or credit that’s recovering. Someone with a 685 score and a pattern of barely paying minimums on five credit cards can still clear that bar.
One owner we worked with had a townhome in Spruce Hill sitting vacant for three weeks. They agreed to lower their credit minimum from 680 to 630 for one applicant. Within eight months, that tenant had two late rent payments, and the owner absorbed roughly $400 in legal notice costs before the situation stabilized. That’s a real cost. But the answer wasn’t to raise the floor again. It was to look more carefully at what the full report said about that applicant at the time of screening.
A complete screening criteria that weights eviction history and income verification equally alongside credit is a stronger filter than a higher credit floor alone.
Philadelphia Fair Housing Rules You Can’t Ignore
Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance adds a layer that landlords outside our area don’t always have to think about. The city prohibits rejecting an applicant solely based on source of income. That means if a Section 8 voucher holder applies, you can’t use the voucher itself as grounds for denial.
Your credit criteria still apply. But they have to be applied consistently across all applicants regardless of how they pay rent.
Your screening criteria need to be documented, consistent, and applied the same way every time. In Philadelphia, inconsistent screening decisions create fair housing exposure fast. If you’re curious about your rental license status, the city’s rental license search tool is publicly available online.
When a Low Score Has an Explainable Cause
Context matters in this market more than most people realize.
In zip codes like 19143 and 19139, we see applicants who previously owned homes and went through foreclosure or short sales during Philadelphia’s foreclosure wave. Mortgage defaults and past tax liens can show up on a credit report and look alarming without context. But a former homeowner who lost a property in a financial crisis and has been renting responsibly for four years since is not the same risk profile as someone with active unpaid debt and a recent eviction.
Medical debt is another big one. We ran a screen on an applicant in Point Breeze whose 605 score was dragged down entirely by a single disputed medical bill. Zero evictions. Five years of verified on-time rent. Income well above 3x the rent requirement. The owner rejected without reading past the score. The unit sat vacant an additional 11 days, which at our average rate cost them around $440 in lost rent before a comparable applicant was found.
Reading the report takes ten minutes. Eleven days of vacancy costs real money.
What to Do With an Applicant Who Has Bankruptcy on Their Record
Bankruptcy shows up on a credit report for a long time. Chapter 7 stays for 10 years. Chapter 13 for 7.
That doesn’t automatically disqualify someone. What matters more is what’s happened since the filing. Has the applicant had any evictions post-bankruptcy? Is their current income stable and verifiable? Have they rebuilt any credit history since discharge?
A Chapter 7 filed six years ago with a clean rental record since is a very different conversation than a Chapter 13 still in active repayment with two late rent marks in the past year.
Pennsylvania law also caps security deposits at two months’ rent for the first year of tenancy under 68 P.S. § 250.511a. We’ve seen owners try to stack a higher deposit as a workaround for a borderline credit file. That creates legal exposure. The better move is to have a firm, documented credit floor and apply it consistently rather than improvising deposit amounts.
Don’t Skip the Screening. Seriously.
We had an owner in West Powelton who wanted to place a family member of an existing tenant without running them through AppFolio. The existing relationship felt like enough. The tenant defaulted in month four, and without a documented screening process on file, pursuing a judgment efficiently got a lot harder. The eviction and turnover costs exceeded $2,800 all in.
A proper screening takes a few days and costs somewhere between $25 and $50 per applicant. The math on skipping it rarely works out.
If you’re fielding 20-plus inquiries on a weekend in University City or Point Breeze, which is not unusual for us, having a platform that generates a credit score, criminal history, and eviction report in a single pull is the only way to work through applications without making rushed decisions.
If sorting through credit reports and screening criteria feels like more than you signed up for, we’re always open to a conversation.
FAQ
What does a credit check show a landlord beyond the credit score?
A full report includes payment history on every account, outstanding balances, collections, eviction records, civil judgments, tax liens, and bankruptcies. The score summarizes all of that, but the detail behind it is where the real picture lives.
What credit score do most Philadelphia landlords require?
Most landlords in the Philadelphia area use 620 as an informal floor, though some push to 650 or higher depending on the rent price and neighborhood. At New Age, our baseline is 650 for properties at our average rent of $1,200 a month, but we look at the full report, not just the number.
Can a landlord in Philadelphia reject a Section 8 applicant with a low credit score?
A landlord can apply standard credit criteria to a Section 8 applicant, but they cannot reject the applicant solely because they receive housing assistance. Philadelphia’s Fair Practices Ordinance prohibits source-of-income discrimination. Whatever criteria you use, they must be applied the same way regardless of how the applicant pays rent.
How long do negative items stay on a credit report?
Most negative items, including late payments, collections, and charge-offs, remain on a credit report for 7 years. Chapter 7 bankruptcy stays for 10 years, and Chapter 13 stays for 7. A payment must be at least 30 days late to appear as a derogatory mark.
Should I require a larger security deposit if an applicant has a low credit score?
Pennsylvania caps security deposits at two months’ rent for the first year of tenancy. Using a higher deposit as a substitute for a firm credit policy creates legal liability. If an applicant doesn’t meet your criteria, the right call is to decline them, not to work around your own standards.
What if an applicant’s low credit score is caused by a single medical bill?
Medical debt is common and doesn’t always reflect how someone handles rent obligations. Look at the full report. If there are no evictions, the rental history is clean, and the income is verifiable, a single disputed or unpaid medical bill may not be the disqualifying factor it looks like at first glance.