Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2020 · 14 posts · 12 votes
Hey All,
I'm closing soon on a new, and my first, investment property and had planned on using cozy as a means to screen tenants and to collect rents. However, it looks like they've been cannibalized by apartments(dot)com. New accounts must be created on apartments(doc)com now. I'm wondering if anyone has any reviews/recommendations/advice on their ability to screen tenants and collect payments with them. Alternatively, does anyone have any other free rent collection/screening platforms that they can vouch for?
Property Manager · Kansas City · Member since 2020 · 60 posts · 41 votes
5y
@Michael McClearn Zillow can be used for both of those. The screenings will be free to you and charge the prospective residents. I believe there's a free option for rent collection using the rental manager, but I don't personally use that portion so I'm unsure how it works.
Investor · Buffalo, NY · Member since 2016 · 3 posts · 2 votes
5y
I've been trialing Cozy this month, and have been disappointed with my first test run rent collection. When I reached out for help, I got no reply to multiple requests for assistance. I finally got an acknowledgment after my forth attempt, but just saying they'd get back to me. Still no substantive reply.
I will say my first rent collection with Cozy is finally moving through the pipeline, but only after my tenant and I figured out the issue. I'm ok with there being snafus, but not with the lack of response.
I've had commercial listings with Co-Star (parent of apartments.com and now cozy), and I am not a fan of theirs for similar reasons. I hope this merger does not impact Cozy, as I tried them based on the good feedback I read here on BP. I'm now thinking I should try another platform, perhaps Innago, which looks good, but only downside is they don't provide fully free rent collection, as far as I can tell.
As for screening, I have my own process, but am hoping to settle on a rent collection platform that has good resources for this task.
Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2020 · 14 posts · 12 votes
5y
@Brianna Reynolds
Looking into the Zillow Option now. I think they charge a slight listing fee, which is new, but they seem to have their landlord management platform figured out. Thanks for the reccomendation, Brianna!
Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2020 · 14 posts · 12 votes
5y
@Jeff Carballada
Thanks for sharing Jeff. I'm a little bummed to hear about your poor experience, but am also not suprised since they've already taken 3+ days to respond to an inquiry I had them them.
Please let me know if you find a good alternative. I will repost in this thread what I eventually end up using, and post a short snippet of a review as well.
I hope this merger does not impact Cozy, as I tried them based on the good feedback I read here on BP.
It will. Cozy's homepage says, "Most Cozy accounts will be automatically transitioned over to Apartments.com by mid-2021." It's disappointing and I'm not looking forward to finding a new rent collection tool.
Property Manager / Investor · San Jose, CA · Member since 2013 · 779 posts · 301 votes
5y
Apartments.com does not allow you to watermark your pictures for advertising. I think they have this policy so that they own the materials that are uploaded/published on their sites. Happy to be corrected if my understanding is wrong.
I hope this merger does not impact Cozy, as I tried them based on the good feedback I read here on BP.
It will. Cozy's homepage says, "Most Cozy accounts will be automatically transitioned over to Apartments.com by mid-2021." It's disappointing and I'm not looking forward to finding a new rent collection tool.
@Jake DeBoer For what it's worth, I did get a quick reply from apartments.com when I reached out to them, to see if they could assist me (they couldn't), but they were, at least, more responsive.
Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 12 votes
5y
@Michael McClearn any updates on your experience with apartments.com or alternatives? I'm in the same boat as you. FWIW, I've seen some articles on avail.com but it's hard to discern from genuine reviews and paid marketing these days.
Investor · Fontana, CA · Member since 2020 · 128 posts · 94 votes
5y
My biggest complaint/request is to be able to choose the end of lease notification timeline. As of now, it does it about 2 weeks out, I’d prefer something like 3 months so I can get the tenant to resign or give notice.
Rental Property Investor · Finger Lakes, NY · Member since 2018 · 35 posts · 36 votes
5y
I just signed up to use Cozy after reading reviews vs Innago and was surprised I had to sign up with Apartments.com. I test ran Innago too which in comparison to Apartments is so much easier to use & customize right out of the gate. For example I have a tenant that pays bi-weekly and there doesn't seem to be a way to split it on Apartments. With Innago I can also get a live person on a zoom call with no problem. I just launched Apartments.com with 2 of my tenants as a test run and I am regretting my decision right now. I'll give it a month to work out the kinks and get more fluent in it, my back up plan is Innago though. I only have 5 doors but am adding 6 more this month and need to get the business end of things in order ASAP.
Rental Property Investor · Jersey City, NJ · Member since 2011 · 1k+ posts · 876 votes
5y
Does anyone have actual intel that they will move Cozy customers over to their own interface rather than leave Cozy as-is? It's not like Zillow has shut down Hotpads etc.
Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 12 votes
5y
Hey @Maryanne Cameron thanks for sharing your experience with both platforms. You are the second person to mention Innago to me in the last week so I am going to do more research on it. I hope it works our for you and please post an update if you develop stronger feelings!
I'm sorry @Johann Jells I don't have any behind the scenes info on Cozy, only what they mention on their blog. Here is a relevant quote:
By mid-2021, we’ll be automatically transitioning Cozy payments to Apartments.com. We’ll start transferring accounts in batches later this year and when your rentals are ready to transition, we’ll give you and your renters plenty of advanced notice and we’ll be with you every step of the way.
Hey @Maryanne Cameron thanks for sharing your experience with both platforms. You are the second person to mention Innago to me in the last week so I am going to do more research on it. I hope it works our for you and please post an update if you develop stronger feelings!
I'm sorry @Johann Jells I don't have any behind the scenes info on Cozy, only what they mention on their blog. Here is a relevant quote:
By mid-2021, we’ll be automatically transitioning Cozy payments to Apartments.com. We’ll start transferring accounts in batches later this year and when your rentals are ready to transition, we’ll give you and your renters plenty of advanced notice and we’ll be with you every step of the way.
Thanks, that's pretty clear. So they saw no value in buying Cozy other than eliminating competition. It's hard for someone in our business not to believe in capitalism, but crap like this sure gives me doubts about the American corporate version.
I've seen this for many years, my favorite maker of sports sandal was bought by Teva and they stopped making that type of sandal after some brief lip service. Capitalism should bring us more choices not less! At least in theory...
Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
5y
I’ve been using and loving Cozy for years now. I’m starting to dread the transition to Apartments.com and trying to decide whether to jump ship or not.
Anyone else have good/bad experiences with Apartments.com?
Rental Property Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2019 · 124 posts · 121 votes
5y
I've been using cozy for years and a fellow landlord who decided to use "cozy" last month reached out to me. I worked with them to set up the (now apartments.com) account since cozy pushes/forces any new account registrations to be under their apartments.com site. The apartments.com interface as of now looked basically exactly like cozy, and had the logo for both cozy and apartments.com at the top of the page. This below quote from Cozy's website seems to indicate everything will remain status quo until the transition middle of this year, which would explain why everything looks similar now between cozy / apartments.com for rent collection specifically. Would be nice if they could give us a sneak peak of the post-transition view we should expect to see
"While we won’t be releasing any new features in Cozy, you can continue to use all of our services uninterrupted until your account is ready on Apartments.com. Landlord and renter accounts will still look and function the same on Cozy.co until your accounts have moved to Apartments.com." Source: https://cozy.co/blog/the-brigh...
Fort Worth, TX · Member since 2017 · 25 posts · 12 votes
5y
Hey @Dave Spooner I'm glad to see you actively being involved on the site! It does make your platform more attractive. I've sent you a connection request and will reach out directly if I have any questions.
Rental Property Investor · DFW · Member since 2019 · 30 posts · 14 votes
5y
One issue with Cozy is that you cannot control whether to disable the credit card payment option. With the right tenant, which means the wrong one, that can go bad quickly.
Investor · Bowling Green, KY · Member since 2014 · 16 posts · 3 votes
5y
I am not excited about the transition to Apartments.com. I'm a HUGE fan of Cozy and liked that it was marked as always being free for landlords. Now they will charge you if you have more than 20. This transition to Apartments.com means that they are not keeping their word. I understand the Apartments.com will be more "powerful" but Cozy works just fine for me. If I want to use new features we should be allowed to choose to use them by paying for them separately, not forced out because we don't like it.