Hello, I just bought a duplex that I'll be living in one unit and I already have a tenant that rolled over from the previous seller who will continue to rent the other unit until the end of their lease. This is my first property and first time managing a tenant. I'm sending out a letter to introduce myself to the tenant but am trying to figure out the best options to give them for rent collection. I'd like to be professional and sophisticated with rent collection and was wanting to offer options for payments just in case they aren't tech savvy to pay via software. Does anyone accept check, money order or cash payments via apps like Zelle or CashApp? If yes, do you have your tenants make the payments out to your name? Or should I make a business entity to have them address payments to? Also, how do you collect the check or money order payments? Should I knock for it or have them place it in my mailbox? The previous owner was a well-known property management company in the area and I want to be taken seriously as a private landlord. I may be overthinking some of this but any help or advice would be much appreciated.

For one property I recommend using a spreadsheet. I didn't begin looking at alternatives to spreadsheets until we hit 8 properties and my CPA mentioned that I was paying them premium fees to have them do basic bookkeeping. I am trying out stessa and so far I really like it - I have heard that quicken is overkill for most small time landlords.

First Time Landlord- rent collections: Check, money order, cash, or software?

Liam Naughton

Real Estate Agent · Bellevue · Member since 2019 · 80 posts · 71 votes

2y

Hi Chantel,

Have the tenant make their payments, in whatever form, to an LLC. This helps keep everything separate come tax season. It also gives you a layer of protection.

We've taken Zelle payments before as well as checks. We've strayed away from checks because they take a while to process and being able to do everything online makes the account a bit easier. That being said, there are additional costs to using software.

If you want to accept checks you should have them place it in your mailbox. Make sure you are clear on when the deadline is, it's easy to forget to write a check, much harder to forget an automatic payment. This is one of the main reasons we switched to electronic rent payments, people can set it and forget it and they're never late on rent!

If this is your first unit I'd recommend doing whatever option is the easiest and cheapest for you. Zelle to a business account is probably my top recommendation. If you're planning to grow your portfolio fast or have other units you're managing, a software like apartments.com is really helpful.

Congrats on the duplex and happy new year!

1 Reply

Jonah Hartsburg

Real Estate Agent · Marion, IN · Member since 2019 · 134 posts · 67 votes

2y

Congrats, Chantel, on this purchase!

At one point, I lived in a duplex I owned and could see 7 other rental units I was managing on the same street from my porch. I would 100% recommend creating systems where they don't physically pay you or show up at your door.

There are great property management softwares just as easy as Zelle and CashApp. I'd stick to those. For 1 unit, Apartments.com is free and should work well. When there's a tenant who won't use this software, I've set up a system with my local bank where my tenants can pay rent there if needed.

Best of luck to you!

First Time Landlord- rent collections: Check, money order, cash, or software?

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