All Forum Posts by: Glen E

Steve, thanks for the suggestion. But from what I can see on their website, Zelle doesn't do rent payments per se - it's a general online payment service. So you can't do things that would be associated specifically with rent payments, like set the rent amount that is due or add a late fee that kicks in on a certain date; rather, the sender (tenant) can pay any amount they want. It also appears to be dependent on the sender & receiver's banks being tied into the Zelle service - some banks offer it but others don't. On the whole, Zelle is not what I'm looking for, to get automated rent payments. 

I'm replying to my own thread. I don't think there is anything out there with the level of detail I'm looking for. Here is what I have found, with my comments on what it does and doesn't do.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/rei/pay-rent-online-...

   This is a list of 17 online rent services. On the surface you would think that would be a big enough list to include al the major vendors. But the list doesn't list cozy, which seems to be a favorite elsewhere in the biggerpockets forums, so I wouldn't be surprised if others are missing as well - which goes to show how many of these services exist now! It only gives one or two sentences of description for each service, so if you want particular details like I do, you're going to have to visit and dig through each vendor's site.

https://www.landlordology.com/getting-started-onli...

   This is someone's article which gives an overview of online rent services. It gives a couple of comparison charts but the charts only show 4 vendors and it shows cost but not things like processing time of each service. So, a nice introduction but not much detail here.

https://www.capterra.com/rental-property-managemen...

   This is a list of property management software. It shows some 64 choices. But this isn't focusing on online rent payments per se, so some of the choices listed don't even do that. This list also leaves out cozy, which shows it isn't complete. I think the biggerpockets list of 17 is a better starting point, but one might want to browse through this list if one is trying to compare all possible services.

https://thehardinlawfirm.com/real-estate/landlord-...

   This list only shows 7 tools/sites, but the list does include cozy, and the summary of each site is more detailed than any of the other comparisons I have found so far. However, it doesn't list details like processing time. So in the end, one still has to visit and dig through the details of each site.

In conclusion, I think I need to manually go through the biggerpockets list of 17 sites and the thehardinlawfirm list of 7 sites and find my own answers. Which is going to take a while!

I'm a landlord with a small number of units, interested in starting to accept online rent payments. These days, there seems to be a plethora of vendors handling online payments. I'm primarily concerned with the vendor fee amounts (per transaction or per month), and the processing time it takes to get the tenant's payment into my account, but I'm interested in a comparison of other features too.

I'm looking for some website that has reviewed the online payment vendors and has posted comparison information so that I don't have to go look through a dozen different vendor sites to find the information. Here's an example of the type of chart I'm looking for:

   http://accidentalrental.com/online-rent-collection...

This is theoretically a great chart. Unfortunately, this chart only lists 4 online payment vendors out of what I think must be at least a dozen (or more) these days. Plus, the chart is apparently out of date. Turbotenant shows up on the chart as the fastest vendor for deposit time; but when I went onto their website, they seem to have stopped handling online rent payments and only do other functions like screening now.  (Side note: It seems hard to find a vendor which has both low fees and fast processing. E.g., in the chart mentioned above, cozy has the lowest transaction fee - zero - but the longest deposit time.)

So I'm looking for charts like this, but hopefully a lot more complete (in terms of different vendors) than this one and ideally more up-to-date. So far, googling for online rent payment reviews is mostly taking me to the online rent payment vendors themselves, not to 3rd party sites that review and compare the vendors. 

Has anyone found any 3rd party sites that do comparisons of the rent payment vendors and hopefully give charts like I'm looking for?

Nice to see everyone agree on the advice - makes the decisions easier. Everyone, thanks for taking the time to answer!

FYI, the house in question is a 3/2 and would be priced in 160-180k range. Located  in Savannah, Georgia.

I am looking to sell a house soon and would like to get advice on the following two things:

1) The house currently has a rental tenant. We have an ongoing lease and I can give the tenant 45 days to move out at any time. I like the fact that I'm getting monthly rent from the tenant of course. I have a mortgage to pay; I could absorb the hit and pay the mortgage without rent for a few months if I have to, but it's not my first choice. My worst case would be that I make the tenant move out before even putting the house on market, then it takes months for the house to sell with no rent coming in. But I get the impression that 2017 Georgia is a sellers market so maybe having the house take a long time to sell will not be a problem.

On the other hand, I could let the tenant stay during the selling process. The tenant is already aware I am wanting to sell and is okay with this, but once I put a "for sale" sign up, I expect the tenant to start looking for another place. But it might take a month or two for tenant to move on their own. If the tenant is still living there, I'm wondering if having the tenant still in the house might itself discourage prospects from buying - e.g. if I have not given tenant their notice yet, then the prospect would have to wait 45 days to move in. I could wait until I have a contract on the house and then give tenant their 45 day notice. It often takes 30 days to close from the time a contract is offered anyway, so then buyer would only have to wait 15 more days to move in. So I have all these choices, not sure what is best.

2) The house has a lot of old things. Everything works and the tenant is not complaining about anything, but... Roof is at least 25 years old. No leaks but I'm sure a house inspector will tell buyers that they will need to replace the roof sooner rather than later. Water heater is at least 20 yrs old - working fine but again, it's not going to last forever. HVAC is also working fine but fairly old. I'm wondering, generally speaking, how to net the most money from selling this house? I think the roof is going to be the worst thing - should I replace the roof before I even put house on market? Maybe replace water heater too? Or should I sell the house just as it is, knowing the I will probably get lower offers and/or some negotiating and possibly the deal falling through after a house inspection? If I offer to pay for a home warranty for one year for the buyers, will this help?

What are realtors' thoughts if they have had these situations before?

I understand the $8000 tax credit must be repaid if the owner sells the property within 3 years. I have an older relative who just bought a house and got the credit. He plans to occupy the house as his primary residence, but for estate planning purposes, he wants to put his house into a land trust with himself as the beneficiary so he can designate a successor benefiary and avoid probate if/when he dies.

My question is, if he transfers the property title into the land trust now, is this title transfer considered a sale so as to invoke repayment of the tax credit?

I'm a relatively new landlord and I just had a shock about eviction. I had filed a dispossessory warrant, no reply from tenant, then went to file for the writ of possession (i.e. the actual eviction). I live in metro Atlanta, and the county I'm in has a 2 + 1/2 month backlog on evictions!!!

The clerk said I can call her every day to see if there have been any cancellations and if so move mine up to take an open spot. Of course, I'm not the only one who may be calling her, and there is no "waiting list" - I just have to hope that I'm the first one to call after someone has cancelled.

In the meantime, the only other thing I can think of to do is to contact my tenant and try to get them to leave without the actual eviction. I could say something like, I really don't want to have to evict you, and I'm sure you don't want your stuff moved out into the street one day. I'll make you a deal where if you will move out voluntarily within a month from now, I'll hold off on the eviction happening, and perhaps even not go after you agressively (lawsuit) for what you owe. That way both you (the tenant) and I can have a relatively smooth transition without the mess of an actual eviction. In other words, I try to make concessions (while trying not to come across as desperate) in an effort to get them to leave sooner. What I won't be telling them, of course, is that if they don't move out voluntarily I'm stuck with them for almost 3 months (unless I can get it moved up due to a cancellation).

If anyone out there with more experience has advice in negotiating with my tenant, feel free to share. Basically my tenant was laid off and can no longer pay, so for me it's just a matter of trying to get them out ASAP to get a paying tenant.