Closing on first property

[Kaleb Carsten]

Hey everyone

After about a year of learning and six months of looking for a good deal. My partners and I have had an offer accepted on our first rental property. It is a duplex with a 3br/1ba unit and a 2br/1ba unit. Both need a little work but the large unit is currently rented.

After the papers were signed we realized we didn't ask enough questions about the current tenant.  Here is what we found out.  

The tenant is on a 30 day verbal lease and is currently paying $600 (originally we were told $550) per month and that she has lived there for the past 13 years.  However the rent is under market value  so we planned to raise the rent to $650 to bring it up towards the bottom end of market value because the unit does need some repairs and we don't want to have both units empty while we make repairs.  

The other big issue we were later informed of is the tenant's rent is due at the beginning of the month however the previous owner was very relaxed on that issue. She normally writes a check in the middle of the month and adds a note saying do not cash until the end of the month.  

Any ideas on how I can retrain this tenant to pay at the beginning of the month? Should I raise her rent by the full $50 or do it incrementally?