Tenant payment options- anyone use PayLease or similar?

Question

Hello, BP folks. We just purchased a 4-plex & will take possession soon. I'm trying to figure out alternatives to having tenants mail checks for rent, mostly because it's come to my attention that a couple of them currently pay by bringing cash or a money order to the owner who lives nearby. I suspect they don't have checking accounts (which seems odd, but I know it can be a religious thing so I don't judge). I don't want them bringing payments to my home & don't think they could anyway because it's 40 miles away & at least one of them doesn't drive. I need an alternative to paying by check for these folks & would also prefer to have everyone use it to eliminate the "checks in the mail" business.

I really liked the look of PayLease because it has the option to pay in cash at places like Safeway, but they have a minimum of 50 units ("unless referred by an existing PayLease partner" so if you're one of those please send me a message!). Does anyone know of a similar service to accept cash or something other than ACH or eChecks for smaller fries like me?

I really liked the look of PayLease because it has the option to pay in cash at places like Safeway, but they have a minimum of 50 units ("unless referred by an existing PayLease partner" so if you're one of those please send me a message!).  Does anyone know of a similar service to accept cash or something other than ACH or eChecks for smaller fries like me?

Account Closed · Answer

I just signed up my first new tenant with cozy.  I’ll have to wait until the first of November to see how it works out.  They were receptive to using the system so it works for me.

Zareth Gray · Answer

I just signed up with Cozy.co. I am excited to see how it works.

Ryan Canfield · Answer

@KARLA V.  Hi Karla, I currently have 4 of my 5 units setup on Cozy.co.  Cozy is a free website for landlords as well as tenants.  They make their money off of tenant screening.  I have also used them for all of the prospective tenant screenings that I've done and I've been happy with them across the board.  I have also not had any tenants complaints since I started using Cozy in July'15.  Our tenants have their rent setup through I believe ACH which I know it seemed that you did not want to use.  There is an option to pay by credit or debit card which one of my tenants uses.  I think it is about $3/transaction that the tenant pays.I have another tenant who still pays in check.  The property is a 7 minute drive from my house so it does not bother me that much.  I did however ask this tenant about electronic payment last month when I collected the rent.  She told me that she doesn't understand new technology and did not want to do the electronic payments. (She has never been late on rent and does not trash the apartment so this did not bother me).  An option that I've heard of others doing that this tenant was OK with is opening a bank account at the tenants bank (or bank of your choice) and having them deposit the rent into this account.  I know there are ways to do this so the tenant cannot obtain the exact information about this bank account.We recently had a tenant overpay us and we mutually agreed to return the overage via Google Wallet.  That was the first time I've used Google Wallet and it was an easy process to use.  I would be interested to hear of anyone else that uses Google Wallet to collect rent.