Switching Tenants to Online Payments

[Luke Jackson]

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently having a hard time switching tenants over to online rent payments.  Right now only about 10% of my tenants pay online.  I've given everyone instruction sheets on how to pay online, but they don't seem interested in making the switch.  How do you guys convince your tenants to pay online? Do you make it mandatory in the lease? 

Thank you! 

[Michele G.]

I would raise rents by a couple of dollars ($5-10) & offer a discount for online payments.

Try to look at it from the WIIFM (What’s in it for me) principle. To a tenant, online paying gets you your money faster & they lose the grace period of waiting for the check to clear. If you offer a discount their benefit is more money in their pocket. You may still have some old fashioned pay by check people, but I bet they will be in the minority.