All Forum Posts by: Jason Hartley

Hi John,

I also use Forte with Rentec Direct and I've used other merchant providers in the past.  It's entirely normal (for all of them) to take a few days to let you know if a payment bounces.  That's just the nature of checks (both electronic and paper).  If you want instant notification of NSF, you have to require payments via credit card, but nobody ever wants to pay the credit card fees for that benefit (myself included).

So to answer your question, Forte has the same time-frame on NSF notifications as every other ACH solution.  4 days is common, but if there's a weekend or holiday, those add to the days since it's generally 3-4 business days to get NSF notification.

Hey Roland,

I also like Rentec Direct.  For our size portfolios they have the perfect application/features for us.  

Hey Keith,

Yes, renters insurance is a really good thing to require.  I recommend writing it into your lease.  It's cheap too, like $10-15/month and it covers all their belongings and provides them liability insurance, which benefits you.

Well worth it!

They can get the insurance from the same place they get their car insurance.

@Grant Shipman - I've used Rentec for many years.  Also I've tried some of the others, Buildium/Appfolio, etc.  The latter tend to cater to the larger property managers who have thousands of properties.  They really don't care much about us small guys with a couple hundred or less units.  After experiencing too many customer service nightmares from the others, I've stuck with Rentec Direct.  They have the same features, but they focus specifically on guys our size and their support is spectacular.

My advice, spend a day trying them all out and go with whichever one works best for you.  Try out their support too, give them each a call and see what happens.

It actually sounds like your landlord is doing exactly the right thing by repairing the issues and also offering you funds when you can't be in the house.  The landlord is probably dealing with a $60,000+ bill to handle this issue as the insurance company probably isn't paying for everything.  10 days is *extremely* fast to get a contractor on the job in my experience, so he's also hustling to handle this for you too it looks like.

That said, if you aren't in a lease, you have every right to move.  Which is exactly what I'd want, as a landlord, you to do if you were complaining on forums about me doing the right thing. :)

Trust me, this is a much bigger issue for the landlord than it is for you.  It's good you have a place to stay and can pocket that 63/day rather than having to spend it on a motel.

Also, the landlord likely has zero obligation to cover your damaged property.  If he is doing that, it's out of the kindness of his own heart.  Your renters insurance is actually responsible for your own property, not your landlord.

@Stephanie Hardy - I'm a Rentec Direct user and always wanted multiple deposit accounts too.  I've traditionally always received funds into a single account and then transferred them to where they need to go.

Low an behold though, I just read on the Rentec Direct blog that they released multiple deposit accounts very recently.  Might check back into it.  They are an awesome company and really do listen to their customers.

Personally I don't like any apps for either ios or android.  I use Rentec Direct, it's a full web based solution which I do access routinely from my phone.  It's not an app, but the website works great on all my mobile devices.

+1 to what Mark said.  As I recall, their data is super expensive.

@Joseh Orobello - I use a product called Rentec Direct for this.  It provides much better accounting than the free solutions, and they also have tenant screening and ACH online payments built into the platform.  Very reasonably priced IMO as well.

We also use Rentec Direct.  Tenants get a login to their portal where they make maintenance requests there.  It notifies our team, and we dispatch to a vendor or fix it ourselves.  Tenants can also make online payments via the portal, it's pretty convenient.