Credit Card Rewards on Housing Face Cracks in the Foundation
Multiple fintechs over the past few years have launched cards promising "fee-free" rewards on rent and mortgages — but is that model sustainable?
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Managing Editor Whether you own or rent your place, it's probably your biggest monthly expense. Wouldn't it be great to earn credit card rewards on that spending, the same way you can on gas and groceries? That question has driven radical innovation and risk-taking in the credit cards industry over the past few years, as companies tackle what's long been a tricky proposition.
Unless your landlord happens to accept credit cards, it can be difficult to pay rent with one, and even then you may owe a transaction fee that cancels out any rewards. And mortgages? There's a reason why it's hard — and often inadvisable — to pay debt with debt. Third-party payment platforms like Plastiq can facilitate it, but even that long-serving company has been raising its fee for the service, most recently to 2.99% in January 2026.
Still, would-be disruptors have been undeterred. Between November 2024 and January 2026, at least three separate companies launched credit cards promising the ability to earn rewards on housing payments while avoiding transaction fees. The results, though, have been mixed.
One of those products folded in about a year. Shortly afterward, a portfolio of cards from buzzy financial technology company Bilt stumbled out of the gate, unveiling a dual-rewards system and workarounds so complicated that they require tables and lists of exceptions to explain. Since then, the company has also faced mounting criticism over its customer service.
It's still early days for companies promising "fee-free" credit card rewards on housing, but it's unclear how sustainable the model will be.
“A rewards program that rewards rent and mortgage spend is very appealing to users, but you have to make the economics work," says Matthew Goldman, founder of the financial consulting firm Totavi.
'Super-appealing, to a fault'
Cards that earn rewards on housing represent a tiny fraction of a credit card market that's otherwise saturated with cash-back and travel rewards cards. That’s because offering fee-free rewards on housing presents a unique challenge to card-issuing banks.
Rent and mortgage payments are large and recurring, which means they're expensive transactions to reward at scale. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median mortgage payment for people who moved in 2024 was $2,225, while the median monthly rent for an apartment in the U.S. in 2024 was $1,487. (The latter figure includes utility costs.)
Those kinds of payments are in millions of household budgets — and unlike other household costs, they're non-discretionary expenses. You can't simply "cut back" on rent as you might with, say, dining out.
To fund rewards on such transactions, card issuers need to generate income. As Goldman explains, they do that in three big ways: “interchange income from the [payment] network, fees, and interest from lending money to people.” (Interchange fees are paid by merchants in order to accept your card payment and have it processed securely.)
The Mesa Homeowners Card, which debuted in November 2024 but lasted just 13 months, didn't charge an annual fee or transaction fees on housing, despite offering rewards on mortgage payments and nearly $1,000 worth of annual statement credits. And because cardholders' mortgage payments were taken from a linked bank account instead of being put on the Mesa card itself, it's unclear how much interchange the card managed to generate for its issuer.
Bilt, too, has encountered problems in sustaining its rewards system. A previous iteration, the Bilt World Elite Mastercard® Credit Card, offered rewards on rent with no annual fee or transaction fees. It did require holders to make a minimum of five transactions per month to earn significant rewards on rent payments — but whatever that may have generated in interchange or interest apparently wasn't enough for Bilt's then-banking partner, Wells Fargo. According to The Wall Street Journal, the bank was losing $10 million a month on the card.
That card "was created to be super-appealing, to a fault,” Goldman says.
New crop of cards = new fees, new caps, new rules
Bilt and Wells Fargo parted ways in 2025. In early 2026, Bilt teamed up with a new bank to launch three new credit cards. These cards — which the company has dubbed "Bilt 2.0" — also earn rewards on housing, this time including mortgages. But on many other counts, the new cards are different products that hint at a future that’s less lucrative for cardholders than Bilt 1.0, Goldman says.
Two of the three new Bilt cards have annual fees, the most expensive of which is nearly $500. All of them have eliminated the five-transaction minimum (which some users were satisfying with small purchases like bananas) and replaced it with a rewards system that incentivizes larger purchases. To earn the maximum amount of rewards on your rent or mortgage payment, you’ll need to do a lot of non-housing spending with your Bilt card — thus generating income for the company from interchange and potentially interest.
"It is probably not a surprise to any of you," Bilt CEO Ankur Jain wrote to customers in a news release announcing updates to the cards, "but if members only purchase four bananas and earn free rent points, it doesn’t allow us to sustain such a rich value proposition for everyone."
While the new model might make sense for Bilt's bottom line, it's a much more complex system. And at least some Bilt customers have decided that housing rewards are an afterthought now. YouTube content creator Daniel Braun, whose videos focus on personal finance and credit cards, said in an email that while he has one of the new Bilt cards, he’s not using it to earn rewards on his mortgage. “I can't always predict what my everyday non-housing spend is going to be,” Braun wrote.
Even so, if Bilt's new model proves effective, it may pave a path for others. It's similar to the approach that Made Card, another fintech, is taking with its new credit card, unveiled in November 2025. It, too, offers rewards on mortgage payments, with those rewards dependent on how much non-mortgage spending you do with the card. For example, to snag 2,000 points on a $2,000 mortgage, cardholders must spend at least that amount on other expenses every month.
“We have to build a product that makes sense … rather than porting over a model that works for the airline industry,” says Ashin Shah, co-founder and CEO of Made Card.
Reward caps and redemption limitations are other tools that credit card companies can use to swing the math in their favor. Made Card's offering has bonus categories, but also limits how many points you can accrue at those rates annually. One of the new Bilt cards does the same for grocery spending. Plus, reward values for these products can vary depending on how you redeem them, and in some instances expiration dates may apply.
The message to homeowners and renters is clear: You can earn credit card rewards on housing payments, but not without some trade-offs and a little elbow grease.
The new airline card?
Credit cards that earn rewards on housing are still relatively new and rare. it's notable that major credit card players like American Express, Capital One and Chase haven’t entered this particular market.
But if smaller companies like Bilt and Made Card can crack the sustainability code, competition may ramp up. Despite the structural changes to the Bilt cards, Jain maintains that Bilt Points are the most valuable credit card rewards currency. And to help pay for those rewards, Jain has something that Mesa and Made Card have lacked: a robust infrastructure of landlords and merchants — the Bilt Alliance — that provides additional income streams.
“We get paid by property managers and merchants, and Bilt drives engagement to those partners,” Jain explains. “We take that margin and funnel it to our consumers.”
But it's also possible that these companies will continue to reinvent themselves, perhaps multiple times, as they seek to make the math work.
Shah, for one, is optimistic about Made Card and others like it.
“In 20 years, homeowner cards will be as prolific as airline loyalty cards are,” he says.
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