All Forum Posts by: Allen Matsumoto

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:

 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.

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. :-)

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. 

Just a single rental triplex owner, always looking for info to reduce risk and increase margins, without spending too much time. Joined so I could post a comment on the forum.