All Forum Posts by: Connie Chan

@Colin Sweeney I use online payments via a landlord app called Tellus. It’s free for rent collection and can also handle one off reimbursements. If you’re just looking for rent collection, I think a lot of the options mentioned here are fine. If you want other cool features like expense tracking, downloadable Income statements, rent reminders, documented communication, etc then I would recommend checking out Tellus. I would caution against cash since it’s hard to document. Checks are better than cash for documenting but even then they aren’t great since they can bounce and also some banks don’t let you easily retrieve check records after a period of time. One other benefit of Tellus payments is you can block partial payments and have a different bank account assigned for each property. It’s also completely free for tenants that pay with bank transfer although they do charge a fee if a tenant uses a credit card to pay rent.

@Cody Furman so legally we landlords are not allowed to profit off the application fee and background checks. Of course you can factor in your time and effort in processing it to justify any price difference but def something to keep in mind. That’s why I prefer the free screening service, I just let anyone apply and run background checks on any applicant that’s genuinely interested. This way I feel like I saw the widest breadth of applicants, and also have comprehensive background checks on all of them to make the best most informed decision. It does increase tIme to look at applicants sInce there are more of them but to choose the tenant I’d say thats time well spent? And agree with you, we need identity verification, criminal records, eviction history, income verIfIcatIon, credit check, etc. it has to be more than just a credit score or something basic like that. (Tellus handles all of them for free via their partner). And! We have to run fresh background checks, I know landlords that just let tenants provide copies of credit reports. Hard to know if those are real or not.

@Sean Weichel I believe it’s fine to be linked. The only thing you want to be careful of is if there are state specific rules around your security deposit. Some states actually require you to keep the deposit in a specific type of bank account. I believe Nevada does not have that rule but check it for where your rentals are. I think it’s great to have a separate bank account *per rental address.* This way it’s really easy to keep the accounting in order.

@Jordan Moorhead exactly. That’s why I like the Tellus applicant screening feature. Comprehensive and free. Remember, credit check is just one part of what you want, you also want criminal records, eviction history, etc.

@Nancy DeSocio I love these ideas. I leave some toilet paper, sparkling apple cider (instead of alcohol), and a handwritten welcome note. For one of my tenants I also left a baby gift. They were very grateful and have been great tenants. They probably would be great without the gifts too but it’s such low cost to start the relationship off right.

@Hai Loc agree with Hai completely here. They can’t tell the difference between a remodeled property and an original condition one I think. So much of the algorithm is just in square footage.

@Charlie Moore document everything!! I would advise against phone calls and certainly in person meetings. Handle things by email or by a chat message where it gets automatically backed up to the cloud. You will want to be able to have written proof if ever taken to court. Note tha iMessage doesn’t automatically get backed up. I know a friend who got in a bad situation and luckily his property manager was able to salvage his old text messages in a lawsuit scenario.

@Robert Barbee I’m also a Tellusapp user. It handles all my maintenance tickets, communication with tenants, rental payments, screening, receipt tracking, listing etc (I haven’t used the listing service yet but they offer it for free). So far my tenants like it a lot which to me is really important. My rent gets paid on time and everything is documented. Also my family members pitch in to help me manage when I’m tied up or out of town. Tellus has multi-user support so I can add my spouse or parents as co-owners or managers. I recommend checking it out!

@Rachel Foster I use Tellus too :-) I love the customer service in particular! Venmo is another mobile optIon but they have a maximum transfer to your bank account. There’s both a daily and a weekly cap. Tellus lets me set a diff bank account for each rental and there’s no fee.

@Horacio Gutierrez There is actually an app/ service called Tellus that provides background checks free of charge to both the landlord and the tenant. I like that it does not cost the tenant anything because this way you get more applicants so you have the widest selection possible. I believe they partner with another company for them, the reports are comprehensive and there’s no maximum number of reports. Tellusapp.com