Real Estate Agent · FL · Member since 2020 · 61 posts · 16 votes
Like the title says. I am looking for insight on what’s working for you guys for collecting rents. I am using Venmo, and want to have a more professional approach. Something like Cozy. I’ve heard good things about Cozy-and it’s free for landlords, which is a bonus.
Real Estate Agent · FL · Member since 2020 · 61 posts · 16 votes
6y
@Marlen Weber
This is my current avenue. Was looking for some other options. I see some that proved reminders and even auto late fees. And apps like Cozy are free**. I am wondering how “free” these apps are. Lol
Rental Property Investor · CT · Member since 2016 · 27 posts · 41 votes
6y
@Daniel Kelley for our properties we use a site called Avail. It's been great. They charge us a flat rate and no fees to the tenants for paying online etc. They send tenants notices each month and take care of adding late fees if the tenant falls behind. They also allow for maintenance requests and lease tracking. It's been a great one stop shop for all our properties.
Rental Property Investor · Member since 2019 · 1 post · 1 vote
6y
@Daniel Kelley - I have used Cozy for the last two years, and it’s been great! Free to me, free to tenants, nice tracking, and reminders to the tenants. One of my tenants mentioned they really appreciate the option to pay by credit card, too.
That said, for my LTR, I’m moving from a “whole house” lease to an “individual room” lease, and it appears Cozy and Zillow don’t allow for multiple rents on one property (unless each tenant sees everyone else’s rent—not my preference). Am planning to use Zelle or Venmo rather than PayPal, given PayPal charges a substantial fee if the tenant uses the “goods/services” option to send the rent payment.
Rental Property Investor · Tucson, AZ · Member since 2020 · 16 posts · 12 votes
6y
@Daniel Kelley I use Avail.co. It is an excellent website that allows you to syndicate your advertising, screen tenants, collect rent, and receive maintenance requests. It’s free or for $5/mo per unit you get expedited transactions and a web portal among some other benefits. I just started land lording and this platform has been a big part of my system.
Investor · Midwest · Member since 2019 · 339 posts · 226 votes
6y
@Daniel Kelley we use Cozy, it's been great. The tenant will pay a fee IF they use a CC to pay but otherwise it's truly "free" in that Cozy holds the money for 3-5 days.
We started using Housters for property management. It's great because it also has an app so we can do everything on the fly. We haven't used their rent collection / screening service yet because we have Cozy.
Housters is $1 per door up to 40 doors then it's a flat rate per month of $40. They have a 3 month trial so worth the look.
Rental Property Investor · Tucson, AZ · Member since 2020 · 16 posts · 12 votes
6y
@Daniel Kelley that’s what I did as well. The obvious pros to Avail over Cozy is the layout, ease of use, lease creator, and syndication. The advantage of Cozy over Avail is the cheaper cost of running all the background checks. I talked to Avail an they are currently developing a phone app too which will be nice.
Investor · Kansas City, MO · Member since 2015 · 74 posts · 27 votes
6y
@Carl Millsap
I've used Cozy and it was great, but it's not free for the tenants. They were being charged 2.5% so I switched to Avail. They charged me $9.95 for the first unit and $6.95 for each unit after. Not terrible, but I kept looking and found Tenant Cloud. They're amazing. I pay $9/ month for all of my units, it's easy to set up (& free for tenants), tracks my leases, allows for document storage, maintenance requests, communication, etc. The only thing I've found that they're not great at is the accounting part so I use Stessa for that and it's free.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anything else.
Like the title says. I am looking for insight on what’s working for you guys for collecting rents. I am using Venmo, and want to have a more professional approach. Something like Cozy. I’ve heard good things about Cozy-and it’s free for landlords, which is a bonus.
Daniel, we use Tenantcloud. They have a free version, however there are a couple of fee versions based on your portfolio size as well. We do the standard package which allows credit card payments, credit/background reports, links in contractors for requests, and generates monthly reports, invoices and it handles marketing the vacant properties, etc.
Vassalboro, ME · Member since 2019 · 30 posts · 9 votes
6y
@Daniel Kelley I just have tenants deposit directly into my bank account. I setup a separate checking account for each building. With my bank's online services it makes everything super easy. Makes accounting easy and no need to wait for the money.