Photo courtesy of Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae is adding another year to a pilot program that can help landlords boost tenants’ credit scores by reporting on-time rental payments, and making it free for more landlords to join.

The Multifamily Positive Rent Payment Pilot will now run through December 2024, the government-owned mortgage-buyer announced in a blog post last week.

Over its first year, which a spokesperson called “successful,” the program helped around 23,000 renters establish credit scores and helped others who already had credit profiles boost their scores by an average of 40 points. Around 435,000 rental units in 2,170 Fannie Mae-financed properties owned by over 100 people and companies have been part of the program so far.

Historically, credit reporting agencies have not had insight into how regularly a tenant pays their rent on time. This creates a barrier to home ownership and unfair obstacles to accessing other forms of credit for tens of millions of Americans, Fannie Mae and housing advocates have argued, a burden that falls particularly hard on poorer renters and renters of color.

Fannie Mae has also argued that taking part in the rental payment reporting program “can help property owner/operators by reducing tenant turnover and lowering eviction rates.”

In its announcement, Fannie Mae also said it had commissioned a poll in September that it claimed showed over 80 percent of renters would like credit reporting agencies to factor their on-time rent payments into their credit scores.