All Forum Posts by: Jason Heirtzler

The things you mention are spelled out as assumptions in the OP. Ignore that the contract would spell the max time (to avoid people replying to check your contact), and also let's assume the tenant pays on time.

That said, I'm not sure if holding the rent a month is invisible, but it's not immaterial. Let's say you would net $5k / month in rent after management fees. If your PM holds it for an extra month, you're giving them a $5k loan indefinitely. Let's also say a Chase savings account pays you 4.5% compounded annually, that $5k loan is $460 over a two-year rental, and then you multiply that by 50 or 100 doors.

There might be good reasons to hold it a little while like to settle expenses, although with technology-powered platforms savvy PMs could probably often pay the same day as the funds are cleared. There's a counter-incentive to market this, of course.

If you're using a property manager, when do you typically get the rent?

This is my first time using a property manager, so I assumed they send the rent as soon as the funds clear. Let's say the tenant pays on time then no later than 3 business days after that the property manager can transfer the funds. That's maybe 3 to 7 business days in total.

Ultimately, your contract should spell this out, but I'm curious about what's typical.

The real issue you've got is there's just one potential tenant and maybe you should look at marketing or price. If the kitchen is coming up as an issue from other people then yeah maybe just deal with it now. I agree that you don't want to get into price negotiations and you just want to set the price fairly for the market. If no interest then adjust downwards. For example, will they start sending you another rental listing next year and ask for a discount?

If you're a landlord with only a couple of properties, how do you accept electronic payments? I would love to hear what you're doing.

Zelle has the advantage that it's fast and has no transfer fees, and although there are no limits to how much you can receive as a landlord, there are sender limits. Banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America only allow you to send $3,500 per day so you could end up splitting the rent into payments over 2 days. Zelle is also tied to your phone number so doesn't keep the accounts separate. Wire transfer is an option but it typically takes a few days and nothing happens during weekends and bank holidays. I have used wire transfers in the past but if someone pays 2-3 days late it often takes more than a week before the funds are received and cleared. Both require you to keep a manual ledger which might be okay, but only for small landlords.

There are platforms like RentRedi and the like. What do you use?

I'd like to try to avoid any fees for my tenants and make it as frictionless as possible.

The scenario you describe is just a tenant with a guest for a few days, but your lease hopefully explains how long a guest can stay because sometimes guests end up sticking around and moving in. I believe my lease allows guests to stay for 30 days per year otherwise they have to be added to the lease.