All Forum Posts by: Jennifer L.

Hello @Eli N.

If you don't want to get a lease from a local real estate attorney, you can go to Legal Zoom or Nolo Press to find one specific to your state. To sign electronically, you can use Hello Sign. It is a free digital signature website. 

For background checks, look into Cozy.Co. It is free for landlords and will cost $40 for applicants to have a credit and background check done. They also do online payments, which are again, free.  However, the payments take about 4-6 business days to process -  a little on the slow end. If you are willing to pay $3 per month, erentpayment is a bit faster. There is also Dwolla, which I think is 25 cents per transaction.  I'm not sure on its speed. 

I had to switch utilities into my name between renters. But I had a two week vacancy last time. I imagine if you have zero vacancy days between tenants, you can direct the new tenant to contact the utilities to switch to their name. 

You can advertise you rental on Craiglist and Postlets. Again, both are free. I got plenty of response just from Craigslist last time I listed. But I live in Silicon Valley, so YMMV.

Make sure you have first month's rent and the security deposit before turning over the keys. Go through the rental thoroughly with your new tenant and document the condition of everything in writing and with pictures. Zinspector is a free app that can manage that for you.

Good luck!

Hi @Account Closed  I just found a website called Radpad. From what I read, your tenant can pay with a debit card. Transactions with debit card are free up to $5000 per month. They initiate the transaction 4 days before rent is due and RadPad mails the landlord a check. This would be just for the convenience of the tenant. Credit card transactions are also accepted, but they cost the tenant 2.5% of the rental amount. 

It appears that this service is designed really just for the convenience of the renter, but it appears it could be a good site for check accepting landlords who have tenants that are chronically late paying rent. 

I experience the one day faster deposit also.  Money showed up in my account first thing yesterday morning.  Extrapolating, I'm guessing that October's rent will arrive on the 7th and November's on the 6th.

Hello @Kevin Izquierdo  I use Cozy.co for rent collection. It works and it is free for both landlord and tenant for rent collection. The drawback is that it is slow. There is a recent thread discussing this. However, they have recently announced that payment times would improve to four business days. 

I don't know how you could encourage a non-tech savvy individual to go with this. Your tenant would have to use email and check their bank account for two small deposits before setting up the automatic rent payments.

 Let's put it this way: my dad is a commercial landlord and is in his 80s. When I suggested he set up a way for his tenants to pay automatically online he gave me a blank stare. He doesn't have an email address, he pays all bills with a check, and he has never searched anything on the Internet.  So it just isn't going to happen.

You would still have to screen that tenant to your satisfaction. I would advertise my rental as usual, but encourage him to send people he recommends your way. If it were me, I would talk to the tenant about mitigating losses. Get him to cooperate with facilitating any repairs/painting/ etc that need to be done while he is still there. If it is ready to show, then show the place to prospective tenants while he is still there. I'd charge the penalty, but then return any money that is recovered after it is rented. So for instance, if there is a two week vacancy, he'd get back 1.5 months of the penalty. I'm sure there are people who would take a hard line approach, but I figure the penalty is there to protect your income stream and to dissuade lease breaking.

Hello @Mike H. Erentpayment will report payments to Transunion, so that may be a good option. They do ACH transactions and Each one costs $3- which can be paid by the tenant, the landlord or split.

Hello @Levi K. 

I started using Cozy.co to collect rent in July.  The pros are that it is free, automatic, it works and your tenants cannot submit partial rent.  The con is that it is a bit slow in showing up in your account (4-6 business days and for me it has been 6 business days both months it was 6 business days for me.)   The CEO of the company has been chiming in on another thread and has stated that the speed of the transactions should be a bit faster next month.

Other services that people use are erentpayment and dwolla.  Both of those charge a nominal fee for the transactions.  

I would bill for the utilities. For the last month, I would withhold an estimate from the security deposit based on average past consumption if allowed in Calgary and refund if the bill ends up to be more. And to be clear, I would write into the lease that you will do this, so they understand why and are not surprised at the end of the lease.

@Jen Faulkner The only thing I would add to this discussion is that you and your husband need to figure out what your long term goals are for your real estate investments. Paying down mortgages make sense in some scenarios (I used this approach so that my rental income will fund my kids' college education) but it doesn't make sense in many others.

@Nick Leamon  You should contact your insurance provider to make sure that they would not require additional coverage on your landlord's policy before making a decision.