Unless it reports to FICO scores, it doesn't matter. For all real world applications, credit karma is a "fake" credit score. Nobody uses Vantage score which is the underlying model.
It's been a long time since I rented, but I recall my leases saying something like "One year lease at $12,000 to be paid in monthly $1,000 installments". That would almost make sense.
I know recently some tenant rights groups have been pushing for paying rent on time to be reflected in credit scores.
Did you sign up to have your rent reported to "boost your credit"? I've seen at least one other post where the credit boost action showed as a loan on the user's credit report.
As to the actual why it's being reported as a loan, I don't believe the OP ever got a solid answer.
nkyguy1988 t1_j6o2saw wrote
Unless it reports to FICO scores, it doesn't matter. For all real world applications, credit karma is a "fake" credit score. Nobody uses Vantage score which is the underlying model.