All Forum Posts by: Domenick T.

People pay for convenience.  They will swear they don't when you ask them straight up but then they absolutely will when faced with a choice.  I say go ahead and make small changes that will make your tenant's lives easier.  Save the major things like a kitchen redesign for when the renovation is due.

There are several options but most in this forum seem to prefer Cozy.  Free rent collection for you and tenants if you use ACH (4-5 business days to deposit) and Credit/Background checks are $40.  It also tracks expenses and maintenance requests. 

https://www.nj.gov/dca/divisions/codes/forms/pdf_lti/landlord_regs.pdf

You cannot get a judgement for eviction unless you are registered.  First thing the judge will ask.

Cozy.co for years now.  Zero late payments since then.  Zero issues.  Tenants like it.  Only downside is the delay in the deposit (4-5 business days) but that's a fair trade off IMO.

I just saw the message in Zillow Manager - they will start charging $9.99/week in AR, ME, MD, MO, NE, NJ, VT, & WI beginning March 31.

I use Cozy personally.  It should be more than enough for you for now.  

Google "best online rent collection services"  You will get a few comparison articles that should help you decide if it's what you are looking for.  

@Alex Scotte

I think you need to decide if you want to segregate the property into its IRS classes and then track them separately. Appliances, furniture, carpet, etc. for 5 years, the AC is a structural part of the property and is depreciated over the same 27.5 years.

Unless you have a lot of property and assets, this is too much work for the bookkeeping effort.

@Alberto Vazquez

Cozy uses Checkr for its background checks. The delay could be on the tenant end. Maybe they didn’t provide all the info up front or a small discrepancy required a follow up from Checkr.

Also Cozy background checks include county court records which may require more time.

If you go with an instant service they likely aren’t being as thorough and you could risk missing something.

Contact Cozy directly and ask why there is a delay. They can probably put you in touch with their contacts at Checkr to get a better answer. Then you can decide if you want something faster or not.

Zillow is not great from what I can tell.  Not very flexible at all, can't have multiple payers on a lease, etc.

I played with TenantCloud but haven't used it live yet.  It's more complicated than Cozy and it costs $9/mo if you want to use ACH transfers.  Otherwise your tenants have to pay 2.9% to use a credit/debit card.

Google "best free online rent collection" for some articles that compare them.

I can't speak to the legal question in GA but you are correct.  Most online rent collection services require you to shut off the "lease" to avoid accepting a partial payment.  Cozy included.  

There are only two services that I know that allow you to avoid partial payments without shutting off rent collection.  Tenant Cloud has this feature built in and Zillow Rental Manager can only accept full payments.

I use Cozy and I don't think the risk is big enough to use a different rent collection service.  If I were facing an eviction situation, I would simply shut off the lease until they paid by cashier's check.  Then I would decide if I want to turn it back on or if I would continue to require cashier's checks going forward.  Either way, you can go back into Cozy and Manually record the collections so you maintain complete records.