All Forum Posts by: Connie Chan

@Reid Kurtenbach I think it depends on what format you want to use. I wanted mobile so I use an app called Tellus. Tenants like the notifications. It covers a ton of extra features like financial reports and free listings and screenings. My mom and husband use it too. Also some platforms don’t work as well if you want to rent out room by room.

@Michael Ciraolo college town properties are great investments! I have 2 main tips. First since they usually don’t have tax forms or previous working stubs, I would ask for college transcripts. If they are freshman you can even ask for high school transcripts. This gives you a sense of how responsible they are. The co-signing is nice for financial security but I would also want to make sure the tenant is responsible and won’t be throwing parties at the rental all the time and consequently wearing down the place quickly. I had some in the past that really wore down my furniture prematurely. The second tip is I find my younger renters like digital payments and messaging. I guess they aren’t used to stamps haha. So I use an app called Tellus to collect rent and also message them. It helps since all the roommates are on a group chat and it’s always backed up to the cloud unlike my iMessages on my iPhone. Tenants like the rent notifications and some even turn on Autopay which I prefer anyways.

@Drew A Roque great question! I think the answer depends on your interest rate for the student debt. And also which real estate deal you start with. There are lots of startups that allow you to buy small stakes in multi family homes or commercial buildings (it’s a long list I’m sure there is another forum topic comparing them), so that might be an option to get into real estate without having to put all of your eggs in one basket so early on. Debt is not always a bad thing if you can use it as leverage to make more money.

Originally posted by @Dahrian Barrett:

@Connie Chan I use Cozy to collect rent, it’s great so far but just curious on what you use?

I use a free app called Tellus. It handles rent collection, expense tracking (just gotta take a photo), and gives me all kinds of reports on each property. I like it, especially because my mom and husband, the three of us co-manage the homes together and Tellus supports multi-user. If I'm out of town, my husband or mom can just reply to the tenant chat for me and vice versa. 

@Tony Crabtree another idea is to ask for their college transcript. It’s not the same as work history but gives you a sense for how responsible they are. I’ve heard that tenants who rent to students ask for that all the time.

@Jane S. I would recommend Tellus, the app is free full featured and my tenants like it as well. Most of them are rarely late ever since I switched. And customer service is good. If you want to mostly use your PC, there are lots of options.

Originally posted by @Nicholas Paros:

@Connie Chan that is interesting, I currently use Cozy which is nice because it is free but I have to manually put in the late fees and the processing time for a payment is pretty long (they say 5 days but I have seen up to 8.) I will have to check them out because it sounds like they have some nice features. Thank you for the tip. 

Yup! this one is also free, but has some more flexibility and it's mobile. the late fees is one part, also you can rent out by room and charge the tenants separately. 

@Jordan Little sorry to hear. What was the reason for the eviction? I think it’s a terrific idea to track them. I track how many months has the tenant been late on rent (well the app I use for rent collection does it for me) and this way end of year I have a sense of if I should renew with this tenant or not. If they’re late the vast majority of time (and they know it’s visible in the app), they’re less annoyed at rent increases and also less likely to try and negotiate existing lease terms. In general I think it’s great to track data.

@Jennifer Morse it’s not illegal to specify a method of payment in the lease. And cash is a time consuming way to collect rent. You have to pick it up (if they drop off then you can’t block partial payments. Which means you can’t evict if necessary down the line). Some landlords use checks instead of cash because they don’t want to accept partial payments ever (they wouldn’t cash a check for a less than full rent amount). Checks are also better than cash because you know whom it came from. I personally use an app that mimics the benefits of checks (but takes away the hassle of having to cash them in). It’s called Tellus and it’s free for rent collection. Basically tenants can autopay or get notifications and pay within the app. Then I get a notification when the money hits the bank.

@Nicholas Paros do you have a good system for collecting rent? One possible solution is to switch to a system that automatically tacks on the late fee for you (so the tenant sees the entire balance of money owed and the piling up of late fees). I use an app called Tellus that lets me turn on or off late fees. It’s nice to not have to be the bad guy haha since the software enforces it for you if you turn the feature on. Then it feels less like me chasing and more transparency for both parties.