All Forum Posts by: Carolyn Fuller

Hi,

I have a fully furnished apartment that I rent by the academic term and over the summer. I have many photos online and an 8 1/2 minute detailed walkthrough video for this apartment. The market for such rentals in my quintessential college town is so tight that I am able to rent it for the academic term, often, without the prospective tenant first visiting it in person. But it is quite another story for the summer rentals. There are so many fully furnished apartments on the sublet market over the summer that I'm often showing the apartment to 7 or 8 people over a 2 month period before someone signs a lease. That wouldn't be so bad if the apartment was vacant when I'm showing it but it isn't. I couldn't afford to have it vacant 2 months each year! 

Any ideas on how to screen prospective tenants such that I'm only showing it to people who are seriously considering renting it? 

Hi all,

Since posting this question 2 years ago, I have discovered Transferwise. My tenants who do not have US bank accounts have told me it is the cheapest option they have found for transferring money from aboard to the US and it does not cost me anything!

There is an interesting discussion on "Deposit to Hold in Massachusetts" on the MA Law Forum:

https://www.malawforum.com/content/can-i-recover-d...

In a nutshell, there does not seem to be a specific MA law governing "Deposits to Hold." There ARE specific laws governing collecting "Last Month Rent" and "Security Deposits." If you don't follow the letter of the law (actually in the case of Security Deposits, it is the FONT of the law!), you can land yourself in trouble. I highly recommend reading How to be a Landlord written by a Newton, MA lawyer:

http://www.attorneyross.com/landlord.pdf

I use Lease Runner to create my Massachusetts leases & accompanying documents which are then signed online by me and my tenant. It costs $25 per completed bundled lease  (i.e., the lease and any other accompanying documents, such as Disclosure of Information on Lead-Based Paint) but it is so worth it. I have carefully gone through the documents Lease Runner has created for Massachusetts and been very impressed with their ability to cover the Massachusetts laws in detail. The only issue that isn't perfect is that they allow you to bundle the "MA Security Deposit Disclosure" and "MA Statement of Present Condition" with the lease when both of these documents need to be completed after the lease is signed not at the time the lease is signed. But having the Lease Runner documents available allows me to use them as templates for my own documents that I provide the tenant at the appropriate time. 

And finally, I use Cozy.co to collect Security Deposit, Last Month Rent and monthly rents. I make sure that the Security Deposit and Last Month Rent requests are clearly distinguished. Given what happened with eRentPayment last month, I'm a bit more cautious about such online payment services but for now I'm staying with Cozy.co but monitoring it carefully.

I recommend Cozy.co for collecting rents. PayPal charges you a hefty fee whereas Cozy.co is free for you and for the tenants if they choose to send the money from their bank account. If the tenants choose to charge their rent on a credit card, they are charged the credit card fees not you. 

And I agree that tracking expenses for a small number of units is easily done without purchasing expensive property management software. We have 3 units that are fully furnished including dishes, flatware, etc.  The fact that they are fully furnished means we've got ongoing expenses replacing furnishings. I still find it pretty easy to track income & expenses by unit in my personal financial software (Quicken). 

@Myka Artis I agree that renting on the "extended stay" market (either corporate rentals, academic term / sabbatical rentals, etc) and then filling in the vacancy periods with short term rentals on Airbnb or HomeAway / VRBO is the best of both worlds. 

@Staci Kou Cozy.co has an application. I have just set it up so I haven't actually used it but the sample I read does include prior rental history and references. You can see a sample application on their web site: https://cozy.co/for-landlords/rental-applications. You can see what the applicant sees, https://home.cozy.co/apply/142342 . The applicant has to create a Cozy.co account before they get to the application.

I am in another tech savvy area so my tenants love the ability to sign leases online and use Cozy for their rent payments. 

What I like about Cozy is that they stop the auto deductions at the end of the lease. What I warn my tenants about is that if they sign up for the auto deductions they need to make sure the date for the first deduction is the first month of the lease not Cozy's default date. Since I ofter fully furnished apartment leases by the semester in a heavily academic area, my 2 rentals are in high demand and the leases are signed many months before the lease begins, so the fact that Cozy will default the first deduction to "now," is a significant issue for my tenants but I suspect that is not an issue for most tenants and landlords. 

Also, I think land lording is really all about remembering that a tenant is a customer and that means they are always right. That was the advise we were given when we first became landlords and it has proven to be invaluable to us over the years.

Katie,

Thank you so much. This SNAFU actually ended up being a great way to begin our relationship with the tenant. She very much appreciated how speedy the resolution was.

Thanks for your help. It is a great service that Cozy offers. Our tenants love it!!!!

Carolyn

Never mind. Problem solved. 

My tenant had money in a savings account that they could transfer to checking to cover the payment made in mistake. She was able to edit her recurring payments to start on September 1.

We are mailing them a check to replace in their savings. 

So we are good. But it is a warning to landlords to tell their tenants to be careful about the dates on their recurring payments. Does anyone know if there is an end date that can be placed on the recurring payments?

Hi all,

I know a number of the landlords on this forum use Cozy.co to collect their rents. 

I have 2 fully furnished apartments that I rent by the semester which means my tenant knows exactly when the lease ends. I started using Cozy a few months ago and all has gone smoothly until today. Over the weekend, I set up a new fixed period "lease" that ends one month prior to the end of the real lease and then I added a one-time move-in fee that equals last month rent. So the "lease" dates were 9/1/2017 - 4/30/2018 and the one time fee due today is for the real last month rent May 2018.

The problem occurred when the tenant paid the one-time move-in fee equal to the May 2018 rent and then scheduled monthly rent payments thinking she had scheduled the payments starting September 1. Instead Cozy.co started the recurring payment for today!!!!!! The next scheduled payment is for June, 2017!

I'm trying to reach Cozy.co to stop today's recurring payment and have the schedule changed to September 2017 - April 2018 but I can't reach them. None of the phone numbers I found for them work.  I have filled out 2 of their online forms but I really want to stop this very large payment that I'm sure will cause an overdraft for my tenant! Not a great way to start a new relationship!

Any ideas?