All Forum Posts by: Timmi Ryerson

I did the same thing many years ago. I bought rentals when I sold a business that I had run for about 12 years. Then I moved out of state.  This was back in the day before there was software either boxed or cloud. So when I got the units paid off I decided to hire a property manager to manage so I did not have to travel back and forth to collect rent a state away.  The PM was a crook and used my account to buy bulk items for his own rentals. (My father is an accountant and we did an audit if the books)  I fired him and went back to managing myself.  Now I have a software company that does everything for me.  You can use it too or one like it.. The rent collection and most other jobs are automate.  If you have 3 units, it is under $30 per month for the subscription including rent collection.  That is what I would do. Your tenants will love using software as it is easy and takes no time at all.  If you want more information, contact me.  I will show you what it can do for you.

I use my software for property management. The tenant has a portal. They get a monthly statement automatically.  They log into their portal and pay rent.  The accounting is automated.  So basically I set them up and the software does the work.  I pull reports or see who has paid by looking at my rent roll.  It costs me next to nothing to use this system.  The tenant chooses to pay via ACH or credit card...their choice.

I have served on our HOA as design review. But did go to Board meetings. Are the dues collections up to date or many behind in payments? If behind, get those collected asap. Sounds like you will be the board member soon so I would suggest that you call a special meeting of the assoiation. Send out the budget before hand and be sure to set up that your group will need money and take a vote about how best to handle this. Someone was asleep at the switch. We changed to using property management software where we can pull reports and let our members see what they need to see easily. It may be more effective and certainly less costly for you to go that route in the future.

I use Smart Property Systems.  It has everything I need and the functionality that I prefer.  It is easy to learn and use and affordable.

I use Smart Property Systems.  I does the accounting in the software for me.  The tenant makes the payment and the software records it. They have a record of all payments and account history in their tenant portal...so easy

I recommend that you use a title company to prepare the sale documents.  They will check the title for you and get all of the documents you will need on both sides to secure the loan.  But this may be different in Canada.  I just saw that the property is in Canada in this thread.

@JohnCanty

The problem with stand alone payment processors is that your tenant can do a chargeback at any time against your account.  There is a theme on bigger pockets that talks about Cozy having these kinds of issues because they use Stripe.  Stripe has no way for the landlord to dispute the chargeback.  Most of the others are also that way.  The reason is complicated but suffice it to say, you as an individual are not PCI compliant.  I use software that allows my tenants to log into a portal and pay rent.  It also shows them the statement, charges, history of payments and a running account balance.

The processing takes 3 business days for ACH and 24 hours for Credit Cards.  The best part is that all of the accounting for the charges and payments is automated and goes right into my ledger.  I can print reports from these legers.  It is just an automated way to collect rents and save time.  And I do not have to go after the tenants to make their payments on time.  If they are late a late fees is added automatically.  I love it and my tenants love it. You might want to check it out.  Smart Property Systems.

You should definitely find a software that supports your business and is affordable.  I use Smart Property Systems and it is what I need for my units.  I have both residential and commerical properties.  Software will automate most of your work load and free your time for expanding your business.  And it does everything I need now.  The most beneficial and time saving perk is that rents collection and that accounting is automated.  But when you have vacancies you will be able to market them using the webflyers and use the tenant screening that is built in.  Everything in one place really helps.

@mattsullivan

Ok,then.  Sorry to hear that but am not surprised.  It just does not give them a very good name in terms of owner support. I recommend that you specifically ask them for copies of the spread sheets they have, or if they use software, ask them to download the data for the buildings you are taking over now.  I assume that you have copies of the leases.  So you can use that info to upload to your new software.  Contact the software company you are using and ask them to upload the data from the spreadsheets.  Hopefully they have that ability.  The management company will need to continue to provide you with the financial data on your properties so just start your new ledger with the day 1 of the time you expect to take over and collect rents etc on the new software.  Good luck.  Don't let them make you so frustrated that you get mad.  That never helps.

We do this often for subscribers.  Whereas we service many property management companies, there are those who want to increase the bottom line for their valuable investement and self direct the management.  The change over should be seemless.  I am vaugly familiar with Buildium.  Do they have templates that you can use to transfer your data from the property management spread sheets to the software?  If so, then start with that.  Set your properties up first and then add the leases.  I was confused by the setting up of the accounting. In my software it is set up automatically, but you may have meant set up by adding data.  Hopefully you can upload data and once the leases are activated, all of the accounting for rents and income should be automated.  Since you are doing it one building at a time, it should not be very complicated.  But be sure to contact your tenants first and let them know that you are changing management and send them instructions about how to make their rent payements.