All Forum Posts by: Jeff Gates

@Michael Bowser - From a leasing perspective, here are my thoughts (from an exposure perspective):

1. Craigslist: Hands down, the majority of tenants are still using Craigslist to find rentals. There are other great websites out there, but the best marketing you can do is post on Craigslist (and "repost" each day to go to the top of the list) to get maximum exposure.
2. Zillow Rental Manager (formerly Postlets): Zillow owns Zillow Rentals, Trulia, Hotpads, etc ... --> and it has relationships with a bunch of other listing providers (LiveLovely, etc.). Therefore, their network has the second best traffic, and therefore I'd recommend using them for additional postings.
3. Everything else is very good, but definitely focus your time on the above two resources. I hope that helps!

Good luck with the leasing! And don't forget to screen your tenants properly to avoid the costly expense of a bad tenant. 

Hi, Thanks for your comments.  I just used Cozy and set up both my houses in SmartMove.  Used it to send to a potential renter.  I haven't seen the results yet.   I also signed up for Cozy.  They have a listing service that syndicates their feed to other real estate sites with applications automated through Cozy.  Price now is about $39.95 for all the reports.   I'll try them next and see which I like best.  I am interested in the online deposit feature.   I can setup and e-commerce portal but if someone will do it for me, that works too. 

I don't like Cozy-I did, but then they became too hard to use. It's impossible to de-list a property on there (you have to email them-really?) and the delays are crazy. Yes they make their money on the float, but still. And getting a prompt response to a simple question is difficult-I'd hate to see how long a real screw up would take.  My tenants have been asking me about Chase a lot-that seems to be the next big thing. I have tenants who use a special Bank of America debit card to make deposits too, and always use BofA auto -pays from those who have good accounts. In fact-since I pay every bill onine-I don't see why everyone can't. I'm going to make auto-debit a requirement in my leases-who writes checks these days? And that takes a third party out of the equation. 

I've got 4 places and use Cozy.co for all of them.  I have had great luck with it, and its free for tenants and landlords.  

Bad part about it is that ACH payments take a few days to a week to show up.  I just saved up a cushion so it's no big deal, but usually I don't see rent money until anywhere from the 3rd to the 8th of the month.  

Cozy emails you when they debit the tenant, but then your rent goes into banking ether for a week or so.

It's also nice because the 1 time I had a tenant with NSF in her account, it let me know on the 29th of the previous month so she just drove me over a money order on the 1st.  Forewarned is forearmed....