You have found the perfect apartment to rent. The rental application gives approval to pull your credit report. Do you know what is on your credit report? How the information is collected? Can the information on it keep you from getting that perfect apartment? It's time to learn what your credit report says and how it can affect you.

By federal law, you're entitled to one free report from the big three agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, each year. The reports aren't sent to you; rather you have to request them.

Credit reports are broken into four sections: identifying information, credit history, public records and inquires.

Identifying Information - This is just what you think it is - data that describing your background including your name, date of birth, social security number, current and past addresses, employers and phone numbers. Verify that this information is correct. Sometimes information may be reported incorrectly and multiple versions of your name or social security number may be listed.

Credit History - You'll find the creditor's name and account number (sometimes this is scrambled or partially hidden for security purposes). For each account you have when it was opened, the kind of credit (car loan, credit card etc.), whose name the account is in, amount of the loan, how much owed, account status (open, inactive, paid etc.), payments (fixed monthly, minimum amount) and how well you paid the account.

Public Records - You would like this part to be blank. This isn't your criminal or driving record. This just relates to financial information like bankruptcies or tax liens.

Inquiries - "Hard" inquiries are ones you initiate like when you fill out your apartment application. "Soft" inquiries are ones from companies that want to send promotional information like those pre-qualified credit cards you receive in the mail. Soft inquiries do not affect your credit report. Hard inquires can lower your credit score but probably won't. Reporting companies have grace periods in place to account for times when multiple hard inquiries may be needed. So hard inquiries made 30 days before home or auto loans count as one and multiple hard inquiries within 14 day periods count as one.

If you find a mistake on one of your credit reports, like an account that isn't yours, you'll have to fill out a form that was included or online. Errors can take time to correct because creditors have 30 days to respond to a dispute. Make sure to keep track of any error that need to be corrected.