Would you allow tenants to pay rent via Zelle?

Question

I’ve started allowed one of my tenants to pay rent via Zelle.

It’s basically a direct deposit.

If it matters she is also a section 8 tenant and only pays $150 of the $1200 rent.

Kyle J. · Answer

Zelle works great. I allow my tenants to pay using it and have never had any issues. Venmo is another good option because, like Zelle, the sender can’t cancel/reverse/dispute the payment once they’ve sent it and you’ve accepted it (important when using the service to collect rent). The same is NOT true for PayPal and the main reason I would not recommend using PayPal.

Dan Farber · Answer

For small operations, these money transfer systems may work fine. For scale, I prefer to have tracking and ledger automation. You may want to check out Yardi Breeze. The monthly cost is low and rent payment processing is free when ACH is used. You can always know what is owed. If you scale, you can grow and track.

Mitchlyn D. · Answer

@Collin Bryston Adams Absolutely! We use Cash App, Zelle and direct deposit for 9 tenants. Haven’t had any problems with payment issues either.

Rule of thumb; Don’t over complicate it and have different options to collect rent since every tenant is unique.

Hope this helps!

Jason Krasavage · Answer

@Collin Bryston Adams

Just got rent from one of our units in our house hack 4 flat this morning via Zelle. It is awesome. Immediately available in the account. We both have chase. I am a small time landlord with no LLC so this works well for us.

I framed the conversation to our tenants during the lease signing as a "what is easiest for you" approach. I laid out various options, like cozy, checks, bank to bank, etc. I just wanted to make sure it was as easy as possible for them to pay. I figured it best to remove as many barriers as possible to delivering rent. Since we only have 3 units it's easy to tailor to each tenants needs though.

But man is it nice to just see rent quickpayed directly to our checking account. No waiting.

One thing I did specific is that the payment must come from only ONE of the tenants in the unit and must be the FULL amount. I would not accept each person's individually divvyed up rent speeately. They need to collect from each other then pay us all at once.

John Hessell · Answer

We are thinking to go with Cozy, which is merging with Apartments.com. There are older posts that seem to recomend Cozy more than others. They said it is free for up to 20 tenants, but takes a few days to get the money.

Wale Lawal · Answer

@Collin Bryston Adams

It doesn't matter if you can keep a proper bookkeeping.

Gohar S. · Answer

@Collin Bryston Adams. I love Zelle but my tenant has to pay using 2 transactions due to the $2k limit.

We initially used cozy, and I still do for tracking payments and expenses but didn't like the delay in receiving my money via the free service transfer as others mentioned.

Sandy Gabin · Answer

I accept cash, Cash App, Zelle, Cozy.com. I take it in some many ways because I have local and long distance properties.

Mike Lee · Answer

Cozy and direct transfer is my method. I remember when money orders were the only way I received rent. Times changed, but also the class of property/tenant.

Jesse Frickle · Answer

@Collin Bryston Adams on my first property my tenant has used Zelle to pay rent for two years. What I like about using Zelle is that it will say the tenants name on the deposit. I only have 3 doors now but I find that it will be more helpful when I have more tenants to be able to see their names so I know who has paid rent.

Would you allow tenants to pay rent via Zelle?

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