Cozy.co reviews

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Cozy.co reviews

Robert Lenfestey
Real Estate Investor · Cary, NC · Member since 2014 · 27 posts · 3 votes
Hi, I've been looking into automated ways to accept checks. Brandon Turner mentioned Dwolla on a recent podcast. I've also looked at buildium. Another user mentioned cozy.co which seems ideal. It's free and includes ach as well as tenant application and screening. Does anyone have experience with this site is there a catch or might there be one in the future? I have no affiliation with any of these sites Thanks Rob
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Allen Matsumoto
Real Estate Investor · Bellingham, WA · Member since 2016 · 4 posts · 8 votes
10y

I bought my first property a year ago (a triplex with 8 total bedrooms). I inherited renters and used Cozy for the first set of leases I created after the legacy tenants left. I'm currently setting up leases for the second time. 

Just wanted to weigh in on Cozy from my limited experience:

  1. Overall, I'm very happy with them. Their customer service in particular is among the most responsive and personal of any company I've ever dealt with, and that goes a long ways in making up for any other shortcomings. 
  2. They are a young company and like all tech startups, launched with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), meaning that there was lots of stuff they planned that wasn't ready yet, but they wanted to get users and build momentum. 
  3. Compared to some ultimate landlord tool you might imagine, their feature set is still kind of basic, but they are continuously building it out.
  4. I like the looks of the planned feature roadmap, and I think they'll do a good job on it. 
  5. Their usability could be a little better, but I'm a usability guy, so I never saw an app I didn't think I could improve :-) And they are a lot better than some of the others would appear to be on a superficial review. 

On the ACH payments: I shared @Matthew David's perception on the timing, but I recently went back and looked at the calendar for every payment I've received, and the variability was actually due to weekends, holidays, etc. In every case, the deposit was exactly 5 days after tenant payment. 

They've added an express payment feature, which reduces that to 2 days or so, and is the first pay option service that has been offered to landlords. I cocked an eyebrow at their explanation (5 days due to obsolete bank network technology, express uses new tech), but am taking them at their word. 

As a small property owner, the extra 3 days of waiting really isn't making enough difference to justify even the modest fee. I just keep a month's mortgage buffer in the account so it doesn't matter if that payment comes out before rents come in.

But I'm considering signing up for it anyway, just to support their move to a monetized model. I like them and want them to make it. (They make some money now from brokering tenant-paid screening reports, but I think that's it.) The expedited payment would just be a bonus for me. 

So, on balance an endorsement for sure. Just know that some others may have more complete feature sets so you know what to expect. But in my survey of the other ones, they look sort of old school in ways that aren't always great, so I'm putting my money on the startup. 

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  • Jennifer L.
    Investor · San Jose, CA · Member since 2015 · 246 posts · 183 votes
    11y
    Kyle J. Yes, they send you an email to let you know that the process has started and they send you an email when it begins depositing. You can also go on the Cozy website to check on the progress. I agree they are slow. I reached out to them this weekend and they are working with Stripe to improve the processing time. They believe next month will be cut by a day next month. I did this for the convenience of my tenants. Maybe next lease I will offer a premium option at their expense that deposits faster.
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  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    Hi everyone, I'm the founder and CEO at Cozy.

    We appreciate the candid discussions here, and listen closely to your feedback (even Rick S., who is using this thread as an opportunity to talk poorly about a competitor). :-)

    To address a few specific questions from folks:

    @Bryan Otteson: Cozy Screening Tools cover all those things (credit, criminal, eviction, terrorist, and more), and unlike SmartMove, it’s all completely integrated into the rental applications and other Cozy tools. Free, integrated, everything in one place.

    @Dawn Aanastasi and others: we’re sorry about that initial payment time you experienced, and have as of last week significantly reduced payment times with our payments partner. Expect to see a significant drop in the next cycle.

    @Rick S: Cozy never touches the money - it goes straight from tenant to landlord. Payment times were a limitation by a new payments partner, but have now, as of last Thursday, are significantly reduced. 

    Regarding your recommendation of using a third party background/credit service, in our first hand research, landlords much prefer obtaining that information directly. Cozy is also much safer for the tenant than forwarding or printing something, because we also require the landlord/property manager to verify their identity when viewing the report. It's a win for everyone: landlords don't have the burden of handling sensitive information and get the info directly from the bureau, tenants pay for and have full control over who sees it, and can revoke access. Win/win.

    Lastly, if anyone has any specific questions, you can always reach me at [email protected], or our awesome support team can help with your accounts at [email protected].

    0Reply
  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    One other thing I forgot to address was Rick S's mention of the Better Business Bureau. A couple of things on that point:

    1) if you look at the link Rick provided, you'll also see that the case was closed. The full story is simply this: a tenant had non-sufficient funds, therefore the landlord was having trouble receiving her money. In her frustration, she filed a case with the BBB. I personally provided the proof of what happened (tenant didn't have the money in her account) to the BBB, and that was it. They saw the proof and closed the case.

    2) More importantly, we chose from Day 1 to never become BBB accredited. Why? The BBB has been widely exposed at a national level to be less than virtuous - from TIME, to 20/20, to Consumer Reports. Use Google to easily find any of those sources.

    Here are a few facts you should know about the BBB, all of which drove our decision to never become "accredited": 

    • it is not a government agency.

    • it is not a consumer watchdog.

    • it is funded by the annual dues paid by businesses it anoints with "accreditation" - which, by the way, is the only way to become "accredited."

    The best summary of why the BBB is both irrelevant and deeply flawed is this article by TIME: http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better...

    Cozy is built on transparency, and we do everything we can to live up to that core value. 

    2Reply
  • Dawn AnastasiPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2013 · 6k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    11y

     That would be great!

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  • Edward Jakubiak
    Investor · Nottingham, MD · Member since 2015 · 14 posts · 3 votes
    11y

    I starting using it about 3 months ago for 3 tenants and had issues getting one of them set up to use it.  Generally there are 6-10 calendar days of delay from payment to showing up in my bank.  I just got one initiated on Aug 1 on Aug 10.  It's a nice system if you can handle very long delays.

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  • James W.
    Investor, Entrepreneur · Greenville, WI · Member since 2015 · 138 posts · 27 votes
    11y

    I've signed up for an account at cozy and it seems very user friendly. I don't mind paying for the credit checks or background checks - I think that's more than fair given the other features that seem to be offered.

    My only concern is the delays in payments - why in the world does it take so long? What is the weak link in the payments - does cozy have to manually do them, and that accounts for the extra delay?

    I have some tenants that are on SSI/disability/etc and they have expressed interest in automatic withdrawals from their accounts on the 3rd. Some of them are bad with money and if it's not taken out exactly on the 3rd, they might be coming up NSF. Is it possible to set my tenants up so that their payment is pulled on an exact date every month? (Or at least the first business day after.) 

    1. As long as I can be assured that it comes out of their account on the exact day, I am ok with the long delay in receiving the funds.

    2. I don't want to have to initiate the payments every month. I want automatic recurring transfers.

    @Gino Zahnd I don't blame you for not using the BBB. Thanks in advance for your answers.

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  • Dawn AnastasiPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2013 · 6k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    11y

    I had 2 tenants use Cozy and the first I received on the 10th and the 2nd I received today, the 13th.  So yes, long delays. I'm really looking forward to next month and seeing the improvements on the time to get the money!

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  • Kyle J.
    Rental Property Investor · Northern, CA · Member since 2012 · 5k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    11y
    Originally posted by @Dawn Anastasi:

    I had 2 tenants use Cozy and the first I received on the 10th and the 2nd I received today, the 13th.  So yes, long delays. I'm really looking forward to next month and seeing the improvements on the time to get the money!

    I'm still on the fence about whether to use Cozy or not after hearing about these long delays. Nearly half a month for one of the payments is quite long. (I'm used to 2-3 days.) 

    @Gino Zahnd can you comment on why it takes so long and what you expect the delay to be reduced to starting next month?

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  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    Hi folks. Sorry for the delay - for some reason I don't get notifications when you comment here.

    With Cozy payments, the money goes straight from the tenant account, into the ACH system, and straight to the landlord/PM account. So for those of you who have asked, Cozy doesn't "do anything" with the money. We aren't floating it, because we never touch it.

    The longer payment times over the past few months were caused by our new payments partner, and what we all agree was an over-cautious approach to risk management as the dust settled on our brand new system. It was a risk management tactic that, while we weren't happy with it because it affected our customers' payment times, we had to go through it. It was painful for everyone.

    Already, since I posted last week, payments that are initiated on Monday are settling on Friday, so the new timelines are in effect and working well.

    In the future, we will also start to implement even finer grained benefits for customers we know well, including things like next day payments, debit-to-debit instant payments, and more.

    1Reply
  • Kyle J.
    Rental Property Investor · Northern, CA · Member since 2012 · 5k+ posts · 5k+ votes
    11y

    Thanks for the response/explanation @Gino Zahnd

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  • James W.
    Investor, Entrepreneur · Greenville, WI · Member since 2015 · 138 posts · 27 votes
    11y

    @Gino Zahnd I have 2 questions.

    1. Who is your "payments partner"? I want to know the names of everyone who has anything to do with my money.

    2. I already asked, but it wasn't answered. I'll ask again: I want to do automatic withdrawals and I need to be assured that the money comes out of the payer's account on a specific date, regardless of when it hits my account. Is that possible with cozy?

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  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    James W:

    1. As stated in #3 in our Terms of Use, Stripe is our payments partner. https://cozy.co/terms

    2. Tenants can currently specify a date between the 1st and 5th of the month. If you prefer a certain date, you'd request that from your tenant.

    We're currently working on the next release of our payments system, which will include a number of enhancements and flexibility around payment dates. 

    1Reply
  • Jeff S.
    Investor · Eugene, OR · Member since 2013 · 30 posts · 15 votes
    11y

    @Gino Zahnd or any other Cozy users here, can I use Cozy if the rent payment is going into a business checking account and the checks go to an LLC and not an individual?

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  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    @Jeff S. Yes, you can use business checking accounts. We require the ID verification of an individual (vs. a business), but business checking accounts can be used to collect rent payments.

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  • Aaron H.
    Nonprofit executive · Chicago, IL · Member since 2014 · 2 posts · 2 votes
    11y

    I've been using Cozy since Sparkrent went under. Here's my quick take:

    Pros:

    • It's free!
    • It's secure
    • My tenants' feedback has been positive. They found it easy to set up their payments.
    • In addition to rent collection, there are many additional features
    • Good customer service responsiveness (and impressive that the CEO is responding to messages here)

    Cons

    • I've experienced the same payment delays as others here mentioned. 
    • If adding tenants manually, the user interface is confusing

    Altogether, I've found it to be a net positive tool, especially considering that it's free. 

    2Reply
  • Dawn AnastasiPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2013 · 6k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    11y

    Unfortunately I do not have a good experience to report about Cozy.  I got an email on August 20th that a rent payment was coming from a tenant. I thought, wow, how cool that they decided to pay September rent early.  I contacted them to thank them and they freaked out, saying they didn't initiate any payment, they just did the verification on their bank account and thought September rent would have been taken out in September.

    Well, what happened is that Cozy was trying to take August rent out, even though it's way past the point that I would have already filed eviction had they not paid.  But they had paid August rent already, outside of Cozy, because they hadn't gotten the Cozy email when it was originally sent.  (I spoke to Cozy support about this and they said the tenant has to check the "Promotions" tab in their Gmail. So once I told them that, they found the email.)

    So now I'm having to make a trip to the bank and meet the tenant on a Sunday, to give them their money back, and pay them $36 for the overdraft fee that Cozy caused.  $36 is basically 13 months of eRentPayment's $3 fee, so it makes me wonder if I should have just used the other service in the first place.

    And I did contact Cozy support about why August rent was debited this late in the month.  They basically blamed it on the tenant for having activity in their account in the month of August.  Or blamed me for setting up August as the start date for their payments, though that's what I originally wanted but the tenant wasn't able to get it set up in time.

    Until I see Cozy operating in a stable fashion for a few months in a row, I'm not going to be recommending it to any other tenants.

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  • Scott Weaner
    Rental Property Investor · Yardley, PA · Member since 2008 · 1k+ posts · 561 votes
    11y

    @Dawn Anastasi, I fear that this same type of thing would have happened with the other services. that is one of the issues with the electronic payment programs. If August is listed as the first month to collect, the system will oblige, regardless of whether it is already August 31st! I have had good customer service from eRentpayments as I try to get things started, so the 3 bucks/month/unit is a good value for me at this point, with 8 units.

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  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    @Dawn Anastasi, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. 

    While I'm almost certain no person at Cozy is blaming anyone (blame is not an element of great customer support), we always want to make things right.

    I do see that the first rent was specified to go in August rather than September, but we still want to make it right for you and your tenant, and we'll certainly cover that overdraft charge. That's no good, and we're happy to cover it.

    We're super sorry about the inconvenience.

    3Reply
  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    By the way, some of the upcoming payment improvements that I mentioned earlier in this thread will drastically increase payment flexibility options, and will help reduce these kinds of misunderstandings. We're working as fast as possible to get these things rolled out this quarter.

    1Reply
  • Kevin H.
    Property Manager · Santa Cruz, CA · Member since 2012 · 9 posts · 3 votes
    11y

    Just got an email from cozy about the faster transactions. Crossing my fingers to see how quick it is!

    1Reply
  • Gino Zahnd
    Founder/CEO · Portland, OR · Member since 2014 · 45 posts · 93 votes
    11y

    @Kevin H. we launched the new payment times a few weeks ago, and are consistently seeing payments that are initiated on Monday post by Friday (so 4 biz days). Hence, today's announcement!

    Thanks, and let us know your feedback at [email protected].

    0Reply
  • Dawn AnastasiPro Member
    Rental Property Investor · Milwaukee, WI · Member since 2013 · 6k+ posts · 4k+ votes
    11y

    I put in a suggestion on the Cozy website for them to add a downloadable/printable PDF to explain to a renter how to setup Cozy.  They don't have one and when I try to print out the instructions on the website, it cuts off.  So I made my own 4-page PDF and am mailing it out to another batch of tenants to try to setup payments.  Hopefully one day I'll get at least an 80% adoption rate.

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  • Konstantinos Zaferatos
    Appraiser · Durham, NC · Member since 2013 · 48 posts · 20 votes
    11y

    I have used Dwolla for a couple of months now and am looking into how to get it set up for collecting rent checks.  Its set up through one company I do appraisal work for.  It cost me nothing, not sure about the fee they have to pay.  Its the best way I get paid.

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  • Matthew David
    San Jose, CA · Member since 2015 · 2 posts · 1 vote
    11y

    Not so sure about "significantly faster" processing times for Cozy as stated by their CEO.  I too received the August 25, email announcement of faster processing times

    I previously predicted  Sept. 9 or 10, due to the Labor Day bank holiday, as to when I would actually receive rent payment, based on previous 2 months experiences and the money was in bank today September 8, which beat my expectation. However, I made that prediction prior to Cozy.co  Aug 25 email announcing faster processing.

    Tenant initiated Cozy payment initiated Tuesday, Sept. 1, received notice it was "depositing" Friday via an email sent after 7pm from Cozy...which still lists 1-2 business days for posting in their "depositing email" same as before.

    Faster, yes,  Significantly? no......but an improvement of at least a day.

    Since Oct 1 is a Thursday, hoping Cozy will have funds in my bank by the following Thurs 10/8,  5 business days, and prior to Columbus Day bank holiday (10/12) if payment initiated on 10/1.

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  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    11y

    My one tenant that uses Cozy, I also received the actual money today. However, with the Labor Day holiday, I can see it taking this long. I will say that I received several emails that documented where the payment was in the portal - i.e. transfer has been initiated, funds verified, funds received, etc. Still would like to see it faster, so I will report again in October, but all in all I like the service. The dashboard is clean, setup is easy, and my tenant doesn't have to do anything as she is set up for automatic draws just as she wanted.

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