Cozy.co reviews
Real Estate Investor · Cary, NC · Member since 2014 · 27 posts · 3 votes
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:
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.
Hi @George P.
We have a great support site with FAQs that answer common questions like this. Here's the answer to your specific question: https://support.cozy.co/hc/en-us/articles/20591613...
@Pyrrha Rivers I haven't used Cozy for background/eviction check yet. I've been using this and I get the results instantly. So you've been waiting to receive background checks on Cozy? Is it because of the prospects taking long to complete it or the website?
@Ayodeji Kuponiyi and @Pyrrha Rivers Most Cozy checks are returned quickly, within a few hours. In some cases reports take up to a week because there is literally a human digging through county records. It’s very important to understand that not all counties report this data digitally - so just because you are getting an immediate report back from a service does not mean it is thorough or accurate.
Best,
Gino
CEO and Founder at Cozy
@Ayodeji Kuponiyi I was looking into the program you're using but saw quite a bit of back and forth about their performance so I decided to try Cozy. Like I said, the first report came back right away with both credit and background. Very user friendly in terms of ease of understanding. The second report was the one I contacted customer support about because it had been a couple of days. Now I've been waiting a while and it is on their end because the prospect has already submitted the application. The credit report is coming quickly but the reply from @Gino Zahnd suggests that some may be fast and others may be super slow.
Thank you both for your replies.
Hi @George P.
We have a great support site with FAQs that answer common questions like this. Here's the answer to your specific question: https://support.cozy.co/hc/en-us/articles/20591613...
what was the reason to contact support just to delete a property? it seems like an extra step on everyone's part (landlord and IT) just to do something simple..
Hi @George P.,
Good question. It's really just a precautionary measure. While it does seem simple on the surface, we found that landlords were deleting properties that still had pending incoming rent payments, active leases, and incoming applications. Support is able to run through a checklist to make sure the deletion of a property won't affect incoming payments that a landlord might be counting on. Thanks for being a Cozy user! Keep up the great feedback!
I have been using Cozy for some time now. Can say that the team is very very focused in making Cozy the best rental management platform. Every new release and feature is targeted to making the whole customer experience from both the tenant and the owner perspective. I am yet to make use of any paid feature. But the free features itself are sufficient for me since I am usually not in a rush to get the payment processing completed 2 days earlier for premium vs free.
I just started using Cozy as well. So far, my express payout option hasn't worked in my favor. Payment was sent by tenant on 5/3 and no money is in my account. There have been 4 business days sine the payment was made (it was made before the ACH cutoff time) and according to the advertising should have been in my account Friday.
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:
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.
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 crea.....................
I like the looks of the planned feature roadmap, and I think they'll do a good job on it. ....................
where did you see that? post a link so we can all see it.
you really went through your payments the entire year just to evaluate payment schedules based on one comment? really? this really affected you so much that you took the time to go through all your payments?
me thinks you work for cozy and that's how you got two votes on your post in a hurry.
Hi @George P. -
We post select upcoming features on our Features & Pricing page: https://cozy.co/features-pricing
I'd also like to thank @Allen Matsumoto for that payment times exercise. I can also confirm he does not work for Cozy in any capacity. Appreciate your business, though! :-)
Best,
Gino
CEO & Founder at Cozy
Hi @George P. - I got a smile from being thought of as a corporate plant, but I'm just a first-time landlord.
I didn't do the payment exercise based on a comment here, I did it a couple of weeks ago when Cozy came out with their fee-based expedited payment option. I was pretty sure the deposit dates had been all over the map, and was going to write to Cozy support to, ahem, query them about it because it felt suspicious to me. I was surprised when I found they were all 5 business days, but happy to have one less thing to pursue.
But you don't have to take my word for it, my renter's payments are all due on the 1st of every month. Take a look at a calendar for all the months since October of last year, and you'll see that the 5th business day falls on days of the month like the 6th, 7th, and I seem to recall one might have even been the 9th. Check it out.
I did get thanked by the Cozy support team for the comment about them, in an email about an ongoing topic we're trying to solve regarding how payments show up in my bank statement. So Cozy clearly keeps an eye on this thread and I expect they would be responsible for the votes, but that seems fair.
So, no conspiracy here, but I understand your skepticism. :-)
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.
This reads like a very dubious statement in my mind. I would appreciate if you could link to this claim.
I am a first time landlord considering cozy as a payments processor, based on reviews of the company seen here and elsewhere. However, a statement like that (the obsolete technology) is stretching marketing liberty and bordering on being entirely false. This has me doubting the proclaimed transparency of cozy.
As a daytime software engineer with years experience in the banking industry, some of that time working on ACH products, I would be very interested to know what technical limitations they are claiming prevent faster processing unless you pay $3 / transaction. ACH provides the ability to declare the effective date (first of the month, for example) and the settlement date, 1-2 business days later. Updates to the network in 2015 have even allowed same day settlement transactions. In this context, settlement describes the money actually being moved. It is important to know that ACH processing is a daily overnight process, so even when saying same day settlement and without additional processing done by your institution to process transactions during the day, you will have your funds available on the next banking day.
It has been a few years since I studied the rules closely, but to my recollection you could send a PPD transaction 1 to 5 days in advance of the effective date. Therefor, I'm a little dumbfounded to hear the claim that technology is limiting this period, when it is only limited by the originator batching the files and sending them to their payment processor network.
It is important to state I don't begrudge Cozy the right to differentiate their services and earn some revenue on a faster processing option. However, I do grow concerned when they are offering dubious explanations of technological limitations over owning and stating their need for increased revenue to continue to provide their services.
@Michael Hibay - if they are doing it like every other ACH payment processor, they are just fronting the money a day early instead of waiting for it to clear before forwarding. Even though ACH transactions can transfer money in as little as 1 day, it still can take 48 hours to get rejects on some transactions, so the safe bet is to hold all transactions for 48 hours before forwarding them. If you have a solid agreement to collect from the recipient in the event the sender fails their obligation, it's often safe enough to front the money. It is a risk though and that's probably why they charge extra for it.
@Michael Hibay
Hey Michael, Katie from Cozy here! What Nathan said is basically correct -- with our free ACH processing we wait for an ACH debit to clear (or fail!) before initiating a credit to a landlord. That way, we're not taking on any risk of a failed debit.
With our Express Payouts option, we initiate the credit after 1 business day. Like Nathan said, it does mean Cozy is taking on more risk.
I hope this helps clarify! Please let me know if you have any questions.
@Nathan Miller - Thank you for that information, while I am familiar with ACH technology and functionality, the actual financial use of it is not my bread and butter, so to speak.
If they are fronting the money, essentially giving a short term loan to speed the perceived clearance along, they are most definitely deserving of some recompense for their risk.
The question I still have with that as the full explanation though, 3 days of their expedited service, still can be completed on a 3 day schedule without exposure to much risk. NACHA requires the transactions be final after 48 hours, as long as you send your transaction file with at least 1 banking day lead on the effective date the money would be available on the morning of the 3rd business day after the transaction.
What I believe is going on is the payment processor (Stripe) is not comfortable with the reversal exposure when it has no relationship with the parties its processing payments for, and therefor is refusing to release the funds until the reversal period has ended. After which they will execute another transaction to release the funds into the landlord's account, which can clear in 0-2 banking days depending on the receiving institution's policies.
By charging the fee to accept the additional reversal exposure, they hope to cover their losses through any reversal after they have paid out. It is quite possible they are also charging for an advancement fee, as you described, but I'm not sure why that would be necessary if the expedited target is 3rd business day.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong as I really appreciate the opportunity to learn, it is great to understand some of the in-and-outs of businesses around the investment field to try to avoid future pitfalls!
I am curious if we are both speaking about the same core concern from different angles. Regardless, with the additional knowledge I am still very curious about their old technology explanation, and I'm looking forward to someone from Cozy elaborating before I invite my new tenants to the service.
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.
This reads like a very dubious statement in my mind. I would appreciate if you could link to this claim.
Hey Michael, I think the statement from Cozy below your post is the definitive answer. I found the claim you asked about, which came in their announcement of the Express Payout feature.
I think you can see how it left me with the impression that I passed along, but also fits the real answer:
| We know many of you have been frustrated with the processing time for ACH payments, a lag caused in part by outdated banking technologies. We were frustrated, too. So we built a solution. Today we’re excited to announce a new Cozy feature called Express Payouts that lets you get ACH payments in about half the time of normal ACH payments—three business days. |
So, while the marketing copywriter did imply some technical basis for the processing time problem, they didn't actually claim the solution to it was technical in nature, that was just something I inaccurately inferred.
Clearly the actual solution is just an added business process where they charge to cover risk of reversals. That is something they had to build, but the solution isn't technical per se.
there is an optional *expedited payments* feature that costs $3/mo and is advertised to get you the money within 3 business days.
@George P. Unfortunately, you can't use expedited payments for the first transaction with a new tenant. I tried to expedite on my new tenants who are taking possession on 9/1. I told them to start early as it takes 5 business days. They initiated with exactly 5 days. So I decided to try to expedite just to be safe and it isn't allowed.
@Katie Harlow @Allen Matsumoto Thank you both for the responses. I seemed to have missed the response from Katie while continuing the discussion, and it seems to all boil down perhaps to some bad copy! I appreciate the information you shared and the opportunity to learn more about the payment processing at cozy.
To be fair and informative to anyone else reading this thread, I would like to state that we did in fact go with cozy for our payments processing. With 3 months of payment history the rent clears on the 5th banking day like clockwork. We haven't had a single hiccough and couldn't be happier with the service.
When doing a background check or credit score check, are potential tenant's credit score hit
As a renter, I do not find Cozy to be as helpful to my needs as Paypal was. (My landlord recently switched). It looks like it works well for owners, but Cozy charges the renter a 2.75% service fee for use of credit cards. That is an additional burden on the renter and, in my opinion, a fee the landlord/owner should absorb. Why punish the renter?
When you use your credit card to buy goods in a retail establishment or online, who charges an addtional 2.75% interest to process your credit card?
Sounds like gouging to me.
Hi @Lee Kowal -- Jordann from Cozy Support here! As you mentioned, if you pay with a card, there is a 2.75% transaction fee applied, however regular ACH payments are completely free so you can use that option as well. I hope that helps!