Paying Monthly Rent Digitally......??

Question

Hello BiggerPockets Friends,

As a small property owner (5 properties or less), what is a basic path of least resistance for tenants to pay rent digitally?  Currently, I accept money orders, checks, and cash.  However, I have been questioned on the use of Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, and other digital pay platforms.  What are some thoughts for a small property owner?

Nicholas L. · Answer

@Spencer J.

lots of options

I have used both Zelle and Zillow successfully

Zillow can take several business days after payment to deposit (3-7 in my experience)

Zelle same day

Bill B. · Answer

Simply have your tenant fill out an eft form like they use to pay for the gym or insurance. I get my rent on the first of the month, holiday or not Sunday or not. Then quicken auto-enters all transaction for all properties in and out of your bank and credit cards.

Dan Schwartz · Answer

@Spencer J. you have 5 properties or less.  Even if roommates are paying you separately, this is not a terrible amount of data entry. I bet you don’t even have to factor saws tax out of your rent like we do here in AZ. Don’t overcomplicate your system.  Zelle works great for us.  Completely free of charge for both parties, funds show up instantly, and there is nearly no recourse for tenants to claw back money (like ACH) or issue a chargeback (like CC). I also like to keep as few hands in the process as possible.  If I can’t use Zelle, I turn to Stripe for electronic payments.  ACHs aren’t free, but they are capped at $5 per transaction.  I haven’t explored the platforms mentioned above, but I’d guess that most are built atop Stripe or something similar. All of which adds to the time (and complexity) until the funds hit your account.

I’m team Zelle until they realize they can charge businesses to accept it.  (Shhhhh….)

Jim Rowland · Answer

Do you manually copy your digital revenues from TT into Stessa? Or does Stessa integrate with other platforms like TT, Zillow, Avail, etc?

Joe Martella · Answer

I use TurboTenant.  I used to use Zillow Rental Manager.  both are free.  I switched because TT now offers free credit reporting, and I wanted to offer it since there was no cost.

As for tracking, I use Stessa.

Chris Reichenbach · Answer

I use Avail and that is pretty straight forward for landlord and tenants. Rent Redi was another one I looked into and it's pretty popular with BP users.

Taylor L. · Answer

People are having success with Stessa and RentRedi. There are quite a few options out there.