Cozy???
Saco, ME · Member since 2015 · 34 posts · 16 votes
If you use Cozy, what are your thoughts on it? How do you like it? Have you found any setbacks? OR if you use something else other than Cozy what do you like and not like about that platform. I am a new Landlord that is "house hacking" and I am trying to figure out what will work best way to manage everything is.
Thank you
I own and manage 9 rental units. I started using Cozy in January 2016. My decision to use Cozy has been one of the best property management decisions I’ve made. Cozy has completely streamlined my rent collection, property listing and tenant screening process. I have also been extremely impressed with the quality and speed of their customer service. Here are my big 4 for Cozy.
1. I’m collecting all my rents through Cozy. No more going to the post office to pick up rent checks and going back a 2nd or 3rd time to get the one that’s late. No more going to the multiple banks to make deposits. I also haven’t had a single argument with a tenant about why their rent shouldn’t have been late and why they shouldn’t have to pay a late fee. The payment date is all electronically documented. Best of all it’s free!
2. Once you list a property once, it’s permanently stored in Cozy. My pictures, property descriptions and details are all permanently saved. If I want to relist a property, all I have to do is click “activate” on the property listing page and Cozy creates an add on multiple websites. Best of all it’s free!
3. Screening my tenants has never been easier. When a prospective tenant comes out to look at one of my properties, the first thing I do is hand them a sheet of paper with my rental requirements on it. At the bottom of the sheet is the address to the application page in Cozy for my specific property listing. The prospective tenant can go to Cozy, fill out an application and approve and pay for a credit and background check. I get an email when everything is complete and I go to Cozy to review everything and decide if I want to rent to them. Best of all it’s free!
4. One last and very important thing to me is their customer service is a 10 on a scale from 1 to 10. They are quick and thorough with responses to questions. I recently had an issue with an ACH transfer not being processed properly by my bank. Cozy notified me to inform me of the issue before my bank. Cozy also provided me with all the information I need to straighten out the deposit with my bank. Big thumbs up to customer service rep Kayla!
Cozy has more to offer than the items I listed here. But these are the four things most important to me. I tried Buildium prior to Cozy, but found it to be too cumbersome and too pricey for my situation and needs. If you are looking for a property management website I would not hesitate to try Cozy. You really can’t go wrong, it won’t cost you anything and it’s really a user friendly site to use and setup.
Does anyone have any input on how you utilize Cozy while still having the ability to protect yourself against partial payments being made? I understand that a partial payment in the midst of an eviction can derail the eviction process and create a significant setback. Does Cozy allow you to accept/reject each payment or to specifically reject any payment that is not the requested amount?
It seems that most folks out there that use Cozy like it, but I haven't heard anyone mentioning this concern.
Cheers-
Partial payments is dangerous for a landlord. This can get them in legal trouble. There should be a opt out option on partial payments. Even then, does software enable a landlord with less education to become vulnerable?
Going on Josh Jackson's suggestion, I've been using cozy for a couple of months now and things are working out pretty well. In the case of a non-payer or someone who is on their way towards eviction, it does take some manual manipulation to change their contract to not allow digital payments , but hopefully that will be a once in a great while experience. That's been my experience thus far anyway... And yes, anyone with less education is vulnerable in this field, with or without the digital tools that they may lean on.
I am really interested in Cozy. If I understand, Cozy does not allow for internal communication between tenant and landlord? I was hoping it would be a complete landlord/property management product but it seems like in order to process maintenance requests, property announcements etc... a second solution must be utilized? Do those of you using Cozy and self-managing use mail, email, text, phone etc... to communicate with your tenants and for them to communicate with you? If so, i'd love hear some things that have worked and developed. A webpage to submit requests, separate email, google voice phone number? How do tenants connect with you easily and how do you manage that communication?
Email, text and phone seem to work fine. What's so complicated? If you don't want to give your primary cell to tenants, an alternative to Gvoice would be a double sim card phone, they're pretty common.
Been happy with Cozy so far but wish the would put account identifiers on the transactions that get downloaded from the account so they could be easily sorted.
So I just had a pretty bad experience with Cozy. Came here to inform others.
I really like the idea, though I find their application pretty rigid (can't put in my own questions, etc). I've been sending out application pdfs, but would rather have a web form. And as I keep buying things I'd like to automate. I also find the check deposit thing annoying, but its a good annoyance...
So place came available because the tenant is buying a place. (I do high end/yuppy rentals mainly). I show it to a couple who is interested. I have them do a TransUnion Smartmove credit check (been pleased with this). Then I set up the property on Cozy to get the application in there.
Since they already had paid for the credit check, I checked the boxes that was not necessary. When my tenants went to fill in the app, they were misled into paying $80 to cozy for another report.
I called this to Cozy's attention. Their response? Basically boiled down to "your tenants must have wanted to pay to send you another credit report". I'm sure you all find that as believable as I did.
I pointed out that this was clearly unlikely, and that in order to show good faith I hadn't looked at the applications. Rather than refunding this clear error, at no cost to Cozy, they said no, you are stuck.
Basically, I get where they are planning to make money. But tricking my tenants out of application fees makes me look bad.
If this is how their customer service handles a simple, clearcut, provable issue, I have no intention of dealing with them on an actual problem. I'll refund the tenants money myself, and regard it as a lesson learned. I know better than to expect a good product for free, I could kick myself.
So on here to find a good similar service that costs money. Anyone have a rec?
@Charles Frankenhoff I'm the CEO and founder at Cozy. I just sent you a personal email regarding your case.
Note to all - I did in fact receive this email, and commend the CEO for taking the time.
I'm skeptical about products/services that are free, such as most of what Cozy offers. Where do they make their money? I would rather pay for a quality service than get something that's just okay for free. @Charles Frankenhoff I'd love to hear if Cozy resolves the issue for you.
Also Am I reading the comments correctly that Cozy does not put a tenant name when the tenant submits a rent payment?? How are prop managers easily tracking who is making each payment?
I'm currently checking out eRentPayment with one of my tenants, and have used it for one month. This service shows tenant name with their payment, has an option to opt out of partial payments (as someone had asked previously in this thread), and charges $3 per rent payment transaction...Just to summarize what I've seen so far.
So customer service did not resolve it, but the CEO did refund my tenants after my post here. I still think my issue should not have been an issue - tenants were charged for a credit check after they had already paid for one separately, I was just using cozy because they don't want to pay by check.
I want to make clear I have no problem with cozy making money. I think the problem here is that it is all off applications, which skews behaviors a bit. I have no problem paying up to $3 a transaction as long as I get appropriate accounting etc. I doubt I'll ever have more than 30 properties, so a la carte will probably always make more sense.
@Kirsten Ostby and @Charles Frankenhoff Cozy has four revenue streams today: credit reports, background checks, a 2.75% fee for any payments with cards, and Express Payout subscriptions for landlords, which are $2.99/mo per unit. That's why we're able to offer the core tools for free.
Regarding your question around tracking payments, there's a transaction number in Cozy that will match your bank ledger. It's more accurate than a tenant name. We wrote this handy guide (with videos) about collecting rent with Cozy that you might find useful: http://helpdocs.cozy.co/article/263-guide-to-onlin...
For the sake of clarity around Charles' issue, I personally provided proof to him that he was requiring his applicants to provide screening reports. Since he was requiring those reports, his potential tenants paid and provided those reports to him via Cozy. We refunded the tenants' money in good faith, and are happy to have them as customers.
I also use eRentPayment and have for the last 1-2 years. Customer service is really good and responsive to tenants that need help, and their bounced payment fee is only $2 - nice to see a company not overcharge for something like this, as banks have forever.
I have not seen the tenant name appear on the payment, though. In fact, I have had some situations where two payments were made on the same day and the deposit lumps them together into one payment, without either name mentioned. I can figure it out from the payments in erentPayment itself, but I would imagine if I had dozens of units on a single account then it would be impossible to determine by just looking at the bank statement.
The set up for eRentPayment can take a few minutes and offers MANY options such as not allowing partial payments, requiring previous month rent be paid before accepting rent for current or later months, allowing additional payments for items such as utilities or deposits, etc.
Did you do anything special to get the names to appear? I don't remember anything in the set up.
My tenants pay utilities on top of rent. Right now, all utilities are in my name and I bill the tenants monthly (this will improve going forward). It looks like Cozy only allows a fixed monthly rent? Is there any way to have the base rent, plus utilities?
I guess I can just go in every month and change the rental amount based on the net total. I would have to go in and enter the utility amount any way.
@Ryan K. You can add a charge for your tenants through Cozy easily. You don't have to change the rental amount and you can note for your tenant what the charge is for.
@Gino Zahnd May I make a suggestion? For the tenant application process, it would be great if the applicant could not actually pay for/have a background check done until specifically authorized by the landlord. I had a couple of applicants that paid for the screening even though my listing stated that it wasn't required. I felt bad for them because they were not even close to qualifying for my property and they were out $40.
@Jennifer L. You can do that. When you're setting up a property, uncheck the box(es) that require credit and/or background check reports. Then, after folks apply, you can request them on an ad hoc basis. Here's more info: http://helpdocs.cozy.co/article/166-how-do-i-request-a-credit-report-or-background-check
@Gino Zahnd Thanks for the quick response. I did do that and most of my applicants were savvy enough not to pay for the background check until we decided to move forward. But it seems that even if you are not requiring the credit/background check, applicants can still elect to purchase one. It would be nice for a landlord to be able to block this from happening until they want the reports.
Ah! I'll pass that along to the team. Thanks!
That would be very useful for me as well.
Hi @scott bond,
I work at Cozy, but I'm also founder of Landlordology and help thousands of landlords a year with issues. It's been my observation that in most (if not all) counties, the courts want to see proof of notice to terminate - which is typically either a "X day notice to pay or quit" or a "X day notice to remedy or quit". Then, once the X days elapses, the landlord is eligible to file an unlawful detainer action (eviction) with the courts. Essentially, they want the lease to be terminated before they will hear the case.
Plus, if you change your mind in the middle of the eviction case, and both parties agree to a payment after you stopped all future payments in Cozy, you could either take an offline payment, or just setup a new lease in Cozy to pay online. If your state requires 30 days for a lease change, it's only applicable when you are forcing a change on a tenant. It doesn't apply if you've already terminated the lease, or if both parties agree to make a change. I hope that makes sense!
@Lucas Hall,
Lucas, doesn't this seem more convoluted than just building the feature for landlords to, at any point in the lease, check a box that will only allow tenant to pay full amount?
This would be a pretty simple software fix. When selected, payment API only submits transaction if it's for the full amount. Boom done.
You guys have to have thought of this... any reason it hasn't been added yet?
I think not having this is a big barrier to owners allowing an online payment service like this.
@Conor D., I will politely disagree with you. I have done light programming and people seem to think that there is a magic switch to flip in the background to change software. Changing one little piece of code like that can have many unintended consequences.
@Conor D., I will politely disagree with you. I have done light programming and people seem to think that there is a magic switch to flip in the background to change software. Changing one little piece of code like that can have many unintended consequences.
Jeremy is correct. Any change can force hours and hours of testing and bug fixes.
I'm in my third full month, with 5 units. Two new tenants since I started with cozy. The two tenants were the easiest I've experienced. Love the process.
If I had 1 wish, the site was more informative for new tenants. Explaining how it works, how they control their payments, etc etc.
I have a coupe of older tenants that had some fears of using on-line payments.
Cozy makes landlording. Bit easier
Glad I joined
I also have had a good experience with Cozy thus far, screening tenants and collecting rent. I have yet to use Cozy to list my unit online.
I am in month two using cozy for (4) units. I've had some resistance from inherited tenants and placed one new tenant. The existing tenants by far have prefered directly going to the bank and depositing their rent. The new/placed/screened tenant is a rock star at cozy.
Cozy helped to find a great tenant and even found an applicant that I called back as another unit is opening up in the next 10 days or so. Looks like the timing is going to work and the application was already completed so, screening was pretty easy.
Two things after having used cozy to find and screen applicants.
1) This has been stated before- there was confusion about the background check and credit check and even though they were not required, a handful of people completed them and paid $80 in cases where there is a couple applying. I thought I had clearly stated it wasn't required, and also clearly listed the unit requirements. The site pushed them toward submitting the checks and I felt bad when it was clear they would not meet the qualifications.
2) I was surprised at how many people were confused about the pet policy. We don't allow pets and had that box checked in cozy/the listing. But it wasn't real clear especially on a mobile device that pets were not allowed. This also connects to the above issue in that I had two individuals submit credit and background checks who would have never done so if they would have understood the pet policy. In the end I had to state "no pets allowed" in the actual description of the unit. Not a big deal but again, I mostly felt bad for the people that spent money on checks they didn't need to run for an apartment they didn't qualify for or would not allow their pets.
Overall- satisfied with Cozy and especially with their customer service. They have answered even "silly" questions pretty quickly and professionally.
Hi @scott bond,
I work at Cozy, but I'm also founder of Landlordology and help thousands of landlords a year with issues. It's been my observation that in most (if not all) counties, the courts want to see proof of notice to terminate - which is typically either a "X day notice to pay or quit" or a "X day notice to remedy or quit". Then, once the X days elapses, the landlord is eligible to file an unlawful detainer action (eviction) with the courts. Essentially, they want the lease to be terminated before they will hear the case.
Plus, if you change your mind in the middle of the eviction case, and both parties agree to a payment after you stopped all future payments in Cozy, you could either take an offline payment, or just setup a new lease in Cozy to pay online. If your state requires 30 days for a lease change, it's only applicable when you are forcing a change on a tenant. It doesn't apply if you've already terminated the lease, or if both parties agree to make a change. I hope that makes sense!
@Lucas Hall,
Lucas, doesn't this seem more convoluted than just building the feature for landlords to, at any point in the lease, check a box that will only allow tenant to pay full amount?
This would be a pretty simple software fix. When selected, payment API only submits transaction if it's for the full amount. Boom done.
You guys have to have thought of this... any reason it hasn't been added yet?
I think not having this is a big barrier to owners allowing an online payment service like this.
Hi @Conor Dockry
Thanks for the response, sorry I'm just seeing this now.
To answer your question, Cozy was actually the only product that allowed a landlord to require payment in full, or nothing at all. It was our payment policy from 2012-2014, and it worked great for small asset landlords - those with 1-5 units. But as we grew (now used by over 115K landlords and 260K tenants) the vast majority of our customers wanted to pay in partial amounts especially in roommate or co-signer situations.
The problem isn't partial vs. full payments - a problem only occurs when the full amount isn't paid on time. If a tenant (or roommates) make partial payments before the due date, then no harm has occurred, and it certainly won't affect your ability to evict if full payment isn't made by the due date. Evictions are only disrupted if the landlord accepts payments after an eviction suit is underway.
The short of it is that a "mandated" pay-in-full, all or nothing policy caused more trouble than it's worth for our customers. Please keep in mind that almost 100% of all rent paid through cozy is paid on time, so accepting partial payments doesn't mean late payments. It just means multiple people are contributing to a total amount.
In fact, partial payments means a better experience for your renters. And we've figured out how to have your cake, and eat it too - partial payments flexibility without late payments. Plus, it doesn't prevent you from making additional requirements in your lease around payments.
I hope that better explains why we, at Cozy, and why other reputable rent collection tools, allow partial payments. I also know that there is a still some landlords would would like to refuse all payments unless it's paid in full, so we may still opt to build that in the future, but right now, it's not on the short-term roadmap.
Thanks again!
- Lucas