I have a news flash for you: many apartment managers and landlords conduct credit checks and criminal background checks before they rent to someone. Shocking, huh?

Truthfully, most of us know this by now. Consequently, many people never try to rent at an apartment community because they know they have bad credit.

However, you should know that it is possible for you to get into a good apartment community even with bad credit. In this article we shall examine a strategy to use to get into the apartment complex you want, regardless of your credit record.

First, you need to check out your own credit record ahead of time. Sometimes people are not even aware of negative entries on their reports and get denied for something that they did not even know existed.

That can be disheartening, to say the least/ Fortunately, the law now states that the credit bureaus must give you a free copy of your credit report once every 12 months. Also, anyone denied credit within the past 30 days is entitled to receive a copy of the credit report from the bureau that the place consulted before denying credit.

Your second step is to look for apartment communities that do not conduct credit checks. Yes, believe it or not, they really are out there. However, you have to be a smart searcher to find them.

One place to check is CraigsList, which lists dozens of properties for rent. You will almost certainly find some places there which do not check credit. The same is true of many newspaper classified ads.

Third, make use of apartment finders. These can be some of the best information sources on hard-to-find landlords who don\'t do credit checks.

Because of their very nature, apartment finders or locators rub shoulders with lots of landlords. They can tell you the exact criteria that a landlord uses in approving tenants.

One final good strategy for those with bad credit is to have someone else with good credit and a good reputation to recommend you. Maybe your credit is spotty. If so, you could have many, many apartment communities deny you based on your credit check.

This can get not only frustrating, but costly. After all,many of these places only conduct this check after you\'ve paid your nonrefundable deposit. You could lose a lot of deposit money this way.

However, you can get over the credit obstacle by simply having a person with a good character and good credit recommend you through a written letter.

Maybe after following this strategy guide you still cannot get into an apartment community. That would be unusual, but if true, there are still options for you.

By checking the aforementioned CraigsList or classified ads, there are other places that might rent to you. For instance, more and more people are renting out spaces in their homes. And these people are not as likely to conduct credit checks.
Exercise patience and sooner or later you will get into the home you want despite your past.