All Forum Posts by: Rich Zellmer

I am closing on my first investment property on Friday, a quad with 3 inherited tenants, house-hacking in one unit. I am a first-time landlord and I'm scared. I appreciate the ideas I've heard so far. My plan: 1) encourage my new tenants to inform me if they are temporarily out of work, 2) in exchange for waiving late fees and quit-notices, I'll require tenant to provide a letter from their employer verifying they are out of work, not being paid, and don't have accrued paid vacation/sick days, and I'll require documentation they've contacted unemployment and housing assistance, and 3) offer solutions. Solutions will include 1) using Security Deposit to cover 1-month rent, then have a signed Lease Addendum that the SD will be repaid over remainder of the Lease as a monthly add-on fee, 2) Accept reduced rent payment and distribute the difference over the remainder of the Lease, and 3) if it continues into several months, I will accept whatever payment I can and I will move forward with the eviction documentation but likely hold off on filing until a nationwide plan becomes evident. 

As a new landlord inheriting a property that could use a little work, what are your thoughts on having any handy tenant work with me on improvements, repairs, and rehab in exchange for a reduced rent? 

What rights do I as a landlord have to require my tenants to look for work? Like someone else suggested, GrubHub, Amazon, and other delivery services are booming. The cleaning industry is seeing it's biggest bump in US history.  

Wow I can't believe people would actually evict people who live in apartments or rent houses, if they cannot find work due to the virus or if they get laid off from the job due to it.  Yes it makes sense to use their security deposit for the month they cannot pay but at the end of the day if people cannot find a job due to the virus. Or if they find a job but still cannot pay rent at the level of living they were before you're going to evict them at a time like this??? That's messed up! Remember it could very easily happen to you I know at the end of the day it's a business and the banks don't care but I believe the government will back landlords up for this if you do not evict your tenants.

@Rich Zellmer, it might not be ideal but using one of the landlord softwares with free ACH might be your best bet if you're looking for cheap transactions.  It'll require more work.  Are these new tenants each week or simply they're on a W2W lease?

The problem you'll run into regardless is the timeframe it takes to connect 2 ACH accounts.

Also, I would make sure Zelle has a limit on sending payments, not collecting.

quickbooks online or enterprise will do an ACH next day funded for 1%

Quickbooks online will even do an auto debit but enterprise will not 

Quickbooks can let them pay by internet check for free but it takes like 2 weeks to fund you

If you're looking for something basic: PayPal, Zelle or even Venmo.  If you wanted to get complicated, create a merchant website on WordPress and have them pay by credit card.