Cozy.co reviews

[Robert Lenfestey]

Hi, I've been looking into automated ways to accept checks. Brandon Turner mentioned Dwolla on a recent podcast. I've also looked at buildium. Another user mentioned cozy.co which seems ideal. It's free and includes ach as well as tenant application and screening. Does anyone have experience with this site is there a catch or might there be one in the future? I have no affiliation with any of these sites Thanks Rob

[Allen Matsumoto]

I bought my first property a year ago (a triplex with 8 total bedrooms). I inherited renters and used Cozy for the first set of leases I created after the legacy tenants left. I'm currently setting up leases for the second time. 

Just wanted to weigh in on Cozy from my limited experience:

1. Overall, I'm very happy with them. Their customer service in particular is among the most responsive and personal of any company I've ever dealt with, and that goes a long ways in making up for any other shortcomings. 
2. They are a young company and like all tech startups, launched with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), meaning that there was lots of stuff they planned that wasn't ready yet, but they wanted to get users and build momentum. 
3. Compared to some ultimate landlord tool you might imagine, their feature set is still kind of basic, but they are continuously building it out.
4. I like the looks of the planned feature roadmap, and I think they'll do a good job on it. 
5. Their usability could be a little better, but I'm a usability guy, so I never saw an app I didn't think I could improve :-) And they are a lot better than some of the others would appear to be on a superficial review. 

On the ACH payments: I shared @Matthew David's perception on the timing, but I recently went back and looked at the calendar for every payment I've received, and the variability was actually due to weekends, holidays, etc. In every case, the deposit was exactly 5 days after tenant payment. 

They've added an express payment feature, which reduces that to 2 days or so, and is the first pay option service that has been offered to landlords. I cocked an eyebrow at their explanation (5 days due to obsolete bank network technology, express uses new tech), but am taking them at their word. 

As a small property owner, the extra 3 days of waiting really isn't making enough difference to justify even the modest fee. I just keep a month's mortgage buffer in the account so it doesn't matter if that payment comes out before rents come in.

But I'm considering signing up for it anyway, just to support their move to a monetized model. I like them and want them to make it. (They make some money now from brokering tenant-paid screening reports, but I think that's it.) The expedited payment would just be a bonus for me. 

So, on balance an endorsement for sure. Just know that some others may have more complete feature sets so you know what to expect. But in my survey of the other ones, they look sort of old school in ways that aren't always great, so I'm putting my money on the startup.