Well to be fair, offering the full term rent up front to avoid a credit check seems sketchy as hell. Did you still let him do a credit check? He could have use this to verify your identity. I know a virtual bank in Canada that use them for that (if you refuse, they simply ask you to go do an identity check in a Canada Post).
Live nowhere?
Because if you won't pass the credit check for one property agency, you won't pass for any of them.
I've been in that situation. I had to pay 14 months rent up front. Crazy thing is I had the money and could pay it fine, but I couldn't pass a credit check to pay exactly the same amount monthly.
Actually the crazier thing is they required 12 months rent up front again, for the second year. You'd think by then I'd have a track record of paying rent.
All because paying rent for many years does not count towards credit rating, even though it's highly regular and the single largest outgoing for most people. (Paying mortgage does count. Annoying.)
Sure I agree that paying rent should count towards credit rating, but that's not an argument against credit rating.
A bad credit rating means that it's a bad idea giving you a unsecured loan... that's all. An apartment is sadly pretty close to a loan, even more so with all the renter protection you get out of it.
Paying the full rent in theses cases make sense then.
My point is that in the lostphilosopher case, it was maybe simply used as an identity check, making sure it wasn't from a criminal. The resulting credit score wouldn't matter because of the full rent.
> You'd think by then I'd have a track record of paying rent.
Well, if they feel safer that way, again make sense. Why won't you personally give me a loan? The same apply to that case.
A place to live is also a basic life necessity.
Something is very wrong in a society where a "bad credit rating", which can arise from many things (some of them having nothing to do with credit - agency malpractice comes to mind), threatens homelessness _even when you can afford to rent_.