How you collect from your rentals

Question

Jake DeBoer · Answer

@Chris Power I was about to ask what made livingroomhq more tenant friendly but then I realized that you're just promoting your own business 🤦

Patrick M. · Answer

I love Cozy and I use them for more than rent collection.

With that being said, I am transitioning my tenants to Zelle. It is instantaneous and secure. I never had a problem with Cozy, but waiting a week for the rent is a tough sell when you have Zelle and Venmo at your disposal. Additionally, to pay an additional $3 per unit to get it in 2 days is a nonstarter.

I have found Cozy to be extremely landlord friendly and many of the issues raised in these threads they address (i.e. automatic late fee). That is a great thing.

I never used Venmo until I had to- someone sent my child a birthday gift- and when I logged in to collect I saw what others have raved about- easy, free and quick.

One thing that I always considered with Cozy, which never arose in my rentals, was that a tenant could pay by credit card, pay the service fee and it would still be less then the late fee.

Best of luck- I am a Zelle landlord now.

Roger S. · Answer

Last time we took a vacation, we just gave everyone deposit slips to our bank.  It was hassle free and we are considering doing it all the time now.

We have 10 houses, and 2 sets of 2 had the same rent amount, so we had one deposit go to savings and the other to checking, so we could log on to our accounts and see who had paid.  We are now making sure that each rent amount is different, so we can know instantly who has and hasn't paid.   No need for receipts or anything like that.

Dick Rosen · Answer

Never accept cash, never go to them! If you don't have the means to collect electronically then I would insist on personal check or money orders by mail. Don't give your home address, use a PO box.

Cody L. · Answer

I know about low income.  That's the bulk of my 1000 units.  I'm talking about LOW income.  Rough stuff.   We still take money orders in our drop box or offices but I've seriously considered getting rid of all in person payments due to the fact we have so many options for paying online / at store.

Dennis M. · Answer

You are correct ..but if  they don’t have a car that pay station ,bank ,or cvs doesn’t help them 7 blocks down the street . Lower income areas have unique challenges other areas don’t have . I agree about scaling and walking around the hood with a wad of cash is stupid but that’s what these people know that’s your clientele and you gotta  know your customer and willingly accept their flaws . If you can get them to actually go to a certified pay station by all means do that. But Just getting some  tenants  up out of bed to answer the door is a challenge at times lol

Ujwal Velagapudi · Answer

I have a business bank account with Chase, and I require (on the lease) all of my tenants to deposit with Chase. There is a Chase branch almost every block near all of my properties. Most of my properties are in a low income neighborhood, and my tenants do not all have checking accounts or credit cards, so this has been the best way. I have never collected cash, I even require security deposits to be submitted via the bank so there is a paper trail of everything (for them and me).

Cody L. · Answer

I use paynearme (for people who don't have checking / CC).  It allows people to take cash to a CVS or Ace Cash Express, pay their rent using a QR code on their phone (or we can print one for them) and boom -- payment shows up on their ledger

Accepting cash is a terrible idea.  The biggest drawback is scale.  Do you want to keep a small # of properties your whole life or grow to 100s or 1000s or 10's of 1000s?Plan for scale day 1.

How you collect from your rentals

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