Speaking of Credit Scores -At What Number Does A Score Scare You?

[Account Closed]

I didn't want to derail the other interesting conversation about credit scores, so thought I'd pose this as a separate question.

When I was renting to mainly techies and students, they often had no credit at all.  Often the techies were from other countries.  I'd run what I could, verify that they were students in good standing, and/or had an offer letter and I'd call HR to verify employment, and Google everybody, and run eviction/credit/criminal where I could.  This is partly why we only did M2M agreements, because we weren't always sure things would work out, though they usually did.

For the applicants who did have credit in the U.S., once the score got below 600, I was concerned.  Of course, there are other things we look at.  But, at what number do you get concerned?  And what type of property and tenant pool do you have?

The property I managed was a 26 unit, 2-story single building, no frills, no balconies, showers only, old building, high ceilings, no elevator, with mainly tiny studios (about 250 square feet).  Very clean and well-maintained, in Silicon Valley next to a university.

Anyway, the number that scared me was 599 and below.