Quick Advise! first rental + tenants payment question!!

[Joseph Shevy]

Hi BP,

Quick question.. looking for some good advice!

I just purchased my first duplex on Mar 31, (yay!) and I will be living in the top apt since it is through an FHA loan. The bottom tenants are very nice people and are already a little slow with payment.. They are giving me the rent today that was due on the first.. 7 days late. Not a huge problem, to be honest, but its not a great sign. I texted them today and they want to set up payments due every week instead of every month.. so instead of 750/month, it will be 200/week per the tenant. Thats an extra $50/month. She said it will help her budget her money and enable payments to be timely. Should I do this? My brain says yes.. just want to take the proper precaution. Is there anything I should watch out for, or is there anything I should do beforehand.. (such as making a new payment contract?). I really want to work with these tenants, and definitely don't want to have to evict them!

Friendly advice?

thank you!

Joe

[Jennifer T.]

If you're okay with the every two weeks, I think that sounds like a reasonable compromise.  Just make sure they realize they need to give you at least 30 days notice.  I'd even check back with them around the beginning of July and remind them, if they are still planning to leave on Aug. 31st, to give you at least 30 days notice.

I collected weekly rent once for some temporary tenants I had, who I knew were only going to be staying a few months.  I don't normally do that, but it benefitted me at the time (long story).  From the get-go they wanted to pay by the week, because the husband was paid by the week.

All in all, it didn't turn out too bad.  But the fact that they were obviously "paycheck to paycheck" kind of folks did cause some problems.  Rent was due on Mondays.  They lived there a total of four months.  The first two months, they were great.  A couple times they paid on Tuesday, but would send me a text or tell me it was coming Tuesday.

The last two months were problematic.  EVERY week they were late, paying on Tuesday or Wednesday, with no notice.  And usually then only after I had texted asking for the rent.  Then the husband was injured and couldn't work for a week.  They completely missed their rent that week and made only a partial payment the next week.  I sat down with them to work out a payback plan, which they still ran short on a few times.  By the time they moved out, they still owed me $100 for back rent.  Luckily, they left the place in great shape so I just took the $100 out of the security and returned the rest to them.

I realize hounding tenants for rent is sometimes our job as landlords, but that doesn't mean we like to do it.  And that was what that situation turned into.  It wasn't just ONE rent due date in a month.  It was FOUR.  So I felt like I was constantly sending "reminder" text messages and it was really annoying.