For millions of households, rent is the anchor expense that dictates everything else. PYMNTS Intelligence has estimated that housing absorbs 37% of take-home pay for consumers earning under $50,000 annually, compared with about 13% for households above that income threshold, underscoring how sharply rent constrains lower-income budgets.
That burden has been rising. As a PYMNTS Intelligence survey noted, 49% of renters said they experienced rent hikes, alongside increases across other essentials such as utilities and insurance. Rent, then, sits at the center of today’s affordability debate, and the pressures explain why payment innovation is gravitating toward housing.
When Fixed Due Dates Collide With Variable Paychecks
Rent is traditionally due at the start of the month. Paychecks may not match up with that fixed schedule. The mismatch matters, particularly for the roughly two-thirds of U.S. consumers who live paycheck to paycheck. PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote recently that timing, not total income, often breaks household budgets. Bills land on fixed dates. Earnings do not always synchronize.
Historically, households bridged that gap with overdrafts, late fees or revolving card balances. The evolution of buy now, pay later (BNPL) reframes that equation. Rather than penalizing consumers after they fall short, installment products set repayment terms in advance, offering predictability through fixed amounts and defined end dates. BNPL has moved from checkout feature to everyday working capital, increasingly used for essentials such as utilities, groceries and now housing.
How BNPL Enters the Rent Conversation
That conceptual shift is targeting the necessity of keeping a roof over one’s head. This month, Affirm announced a pilot with FinTech Esusu that allows some renters to split their monthly rent into two installments, with 0% interest and no late fees during the test phase. Esusu’s platform already works with property owners and financial institutions covering roughly 5 million units and reaching about 12 million people, processing an estimated $100 billion in annual gross lease volume. The Affirm option adds an installment layer to Esusu’s existing tools, which include rent payment services and credit-building features.
Affirm, we note, is not a bank. It operates through a network of regulated lending partners spanning several banks which originate loans (and also issue Affirm cards and virtual cards depending on the product). This partnership model is a hallmark of FinTech lending and places Affirm’s rent installments within existing banking frameworks.
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Crucially, Affirm underwrites every transaction in real time. This month, the company expanded its models to incorporate richer signals such as linked account balances and cash-flow trends, alongside purchase data, credit history and prior repayment behavior. Affirm says these enhanced inputs provide a more current view of a consumer’s finances and also notes that real-time context can responsibly extend credit to consumers whose traditional credit histories do not fully reflect their present circumstances.
Affirm is not alone. BNPL provider Zip is pursuing a parallel path, as it offers installment options into property management systems via PayRent (and in this case, with four payments spread out over six weeks), signaling that rent-based BNPL is not a one-off experiment but an emerging category.
What Renters and Landlords Gain
PYMNTS reporting shows that more than half of renters prefer to pay online, and 77% cite speed and ease compared with paper checks. Satisfaction runs at 77% among renters using digital payment methods, versus 35% for those relying on traditional approaches. For landlords, flexible digital payments can stabilize inflows, reduce missed payments and improve operational cash flow.
Installments extend those benefits by smoothing tenant liquidity. For renters, splitting a large obligation across pay periods can reduce reliance on emergency measures such as skipping bills. For property owners, higher on-time payment rates translate into steadier revenue and lower collection costs.
BNPL’s expansion into rent unfolds within an environment of heightened attention to consumer finance. Digital platforms and flexible payment tools aim to improve transparency for landlords while giving tenants more control over timing, a balance that will continue to shape policy discussions as these products scale.
Credit Reporting and the Inclusion Question
One of the most consequential dimensions is data. Esusu already reports on-time rent payments to the major credit bureaus through products such as CreditClimb, allowing renters to add current and historical rent activity to their credit profiles. That matters for the millions of consumers who remain “credit invisible” or thin-file. Landlords and of course lenders assess creditworthiness when opening the doors, so to speak, to apartments or loans, so enhanced visibility due to timely rent payments can help build credit profiles.
There are risks. Any extension of credit carries the possibility of over-extension if repayment obligations stack up. Conversely, rental payment reporting also introduces a positive signal that has long been absent from mainstream credit files, despite rent being many households’ largest recurring expense.
For lenders and property managers, verified rent performance offers a new underwriting input grounded in real behavior: whether tenants meet their most fundamental obligation. Combined with BNPL providers’ real-time cash-flow analytics, that data can sharpen risk assessment beyond static credit scores.
Rent-based BNPL does not eliminate affordability pressures. It does, however, reconfigure how those pressures are managed. By aligning payment schedules with income cadence and by underwriting against current financial conditions rather than stale snapshots, installment models introduce flexibility into a system built around rigid due dates.
