How are you guys collecting rents?

[Marvin Bobb]

Hey guys how are you guys collecting rent right now

[Patrick McGrath]

@Marvin Bobb

We have 10 units and use Venmo, works great for us and the tenants.

[Jeff Stein]

@Marvin Bobb

My rent collection is split between cozy.co and physical checks mailed of dropped off at the office.

I invest only in small commercial real estate at this time with mostly small entrepreneurs. I found a very interesting trend where many older established tenant at the property are used to mailing checks and resistant to change into cozy.co, whereas new tenants I have signed I don’t mention physical checks and are typically very happy to do online payments.

I have found cozy.co to be very good. The price is right as it is free to you and your tenant as long as they are not using a credit card. The major downside is the delay of receiving funds, but I have not found the five day delay to be any problem that’s far.

[Clay Rempe]

@Phillip Black

Well, you are correct Cozy does not calculate daily accumulating late fees. My leases previously had a $60 late fee and another $15 per additional day late. Cozy just throws its hands up in despair when faced with calculations like this.

I changed my leases to a flat one time $100 late fee. (Amount varies by property,). Cozy does handle this 100% accurately every time—without me having to message tenants in any way.

It is simpler for tenants to understand also.

Keep your late fees less than 10% of monthly rents to stay on the right side of the lawman—check your state for details.

-Clay

[Peter Tverdov]

Originally posted by @Shea Spinelli:

@Peter T. I’ve started having the same experience with Cozy. I also noticed they are a part of apartments.com. They may start charging. If that’s the case, another PM software may be more advantageous. I hear good things about Appfolio.

I like appfolio. Very user friendly. Their customer service can suck at times but it's a great service. I only use Cozy for my biggest client who refuses to let us get the payments first and 2-3 of my own rental properties but after Cozy has given me so much flack the last month, I asked some of my tenants to start dropping off checks again. Rather do it that way than give Cozy more business. 

[Isabel Lopez]

Cozy.co, Zelle and Bank of America has a Deposit Only Card for business accounts that works great

[Steven Griffith]

We use the Tellus App. Easy to use, maintenance requests can be sent to me through it, etc.

[Peter Mckernan]

@Marvin Bobb We use Google Wallet 

[John Laine]

I use avail.co for 10 rentals and I love it. Used to use Cozy and that was great too, avail just has more features I was looking for.

[David M Trapani]

Electronic payments from NNN QSR commercial tenants. Airbnb electronic payments for STR's. When I had multi family, sfh or condo LTR's we did Zelle, Venmo, PayPal or tenant would deposit directly into my bank account at the branch. A few times had property managers collect and distribute rents in Sacramento area, but mostly self-manged.

[Grey Stone]

The housing authority direct deposits their portion into my bank account and I have a mailbox at a mail store where tenants drop off their portion via money order or cashier's check.

[David Cornett]

@Marvin Bobb

Cozy works great!

[Matthew T.]

@Marvin Bobb we use and love Zego. It fully integrates with rent manager too.

[Kirsten M.]

10 doors - we use PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle. 

[Taylor Davis]

@Marvin Bobb I use Cozy.co it’s a simple easy to use property management site. I have my tenants set up auto draft on it. It has saved me a ton of time. Best of all it’s free.

[Aqil Dharamsey]

@Marvin Bobb

In today’s market - any means possible lol. But like most here, I collect cash, MO, checks, cash app, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, and google pay. A lot

Of work keeping track of it all but atleast they are paying!

[Kurt Kleespies]

Just started using Innago. System is very easy but checked all the boxes for echeck, cc option, online and e-signature leases, ability to have co-signer mobile e-signature, tenant screening with Transunion, auto email reminders sent to tenants, leases and biking can be split between multiple tenants in the same unit, auto late fee, video upload for maintenance requests, maintenance tracking, etc. Free for landlords. There is a $2 fee for ACH payments but landlord can absorb part or all if desired. Standard cc fees for that type of payment. Seems like a very solid system so far. Unlimited number of units and multiple user capable. Customer service has been amazing by email that I have used. Replied to me within minutes on a weekend at midnight, twice!!

[Jimmy Chao]

@Marvin Bobb Run it like a business. You can have your tenants mail you a check, but you might appreciate using an online service like Cozy. Venmo is fine too, you should just run a spreadsheet to keep track. Rent is usually late after the 5th, and your lease should spell out everything.

[Cynthia McGathey]

@Marvin Bobb

Zelle and Venmo

[Payton Pearson]

Automatic bill pay and Venmo.  I also use Airbnb.

[Carolyn Morales]

Direct deposit, Zelle, Cash App and Cash

[Steve Milford]

@Marvin Bobb cozy.co and then pay $3 per month to get money in 3 bus days.

[Dakota Wilde]

@Phillip Black I currently use Tenantcloud.

[Leonard L.]

Originally posted by @Phillip Black:

@Marvin Bobb

"It typically takes about 5 days to receive the ACH transfer from your tenant ... Only downfall is late fees are not automatically calculated but Cozy management stated they are looking into adding this feature in the future."

This is where erentpayment excels. While transaction times are about the same. They have a very dynamic late fee, late payments system. You can do grace periods, fixed fee or %, add additional over time, reject or accept partial payments, force rent pay before utilities, etc. For larger operations you can accept credit cards.

Another great feature is that you can reverse a late fee while it is processing - before it even hits your bank.

I use Erentpayment with Stessa and they complement eachother well for a small operation. For a larger one, I'm not sure these would be quite as smooth.

[Marlen Weber]

I love all the options on here. Great question, @Marvin Bobb

[John Morris]

In a nutshell, the most popular ones if you have up to 20 units are Cozy, Okupied, AppFolio, TenantCloud.  If you need just rent facilitation, then Cozy, as well as Zelle, Venmo or other free tools can work well as they are free.  However, with them, you will still need to manage separate spreadsheets or another app for expenses, lease renewals, etc. 

If you want to not only collect rent but track expenses, generate IRS reports, and get phone reminders for events, then Okupied is your best bet.  We have been using it for a year now and it is very user friendly.  

If you want additional features such as tenant screening, maintenance requests, documents upload and e-signatures, and a bunch of other features, then AppFolio and TenantCloud could work, but they are not user friendly at all.  

So it the end, it all depends what you need accomplished besides rent collection.  I am always on the go, so for me a mobile app works great, but some people like the convenience of desktop applications. My suggestion is create a free account and just test them out to see which one you are most comfortable with and is easier to use.