Every landlord I've rented from has pulled my credit. My credit has always been bad. But my landlord references were spotless, and that's what landlords seemed to care about.
Were you trying to rent in a tight housing market? In Vancouver, it's common for landlords to (completely illegally) weed out the tenants they don't want -- in particular, single parents, certain ethnic minorities, and people in low-class occupations -- via the excuse of credit scores (even though they accept childfree white professional-class tenants who have those same scores).
I suspect that maintaining a good credit score is far more useful for people who will encounter landlords which are looking for an excuse to reject them.
What happens when you have 10 valid applications as a landlord? Do they even have to tell you the reason why they chose application 3 over all the others? How does that work?
Yes: twice in San Francisco during the first bubble, with competing applicants in the room with us, first in SOMA and then in Noe Valley. Also once in Santa Clara during the same time period. (Also 4 times in Chicago, and 2 times in Ann Arbor, but those weren't as challenging.)
Were you trying to rent in a tight housing market? In Vancouver, it's common for landlords to (completely illegally) weed out the tenants they don't want -- in particular, single parents, certain ethnic minorities, and people in low-class occupations -- via the excuse of credit scores (even though they accept childfree white professional-class tenants who have those same scores).
I suspect that maintaining a good credit score is far more useful for people who will encounter landlords which are looking for an excuse to reject them.