Get them into personal conversation to make it diffcult for them to make an excuse for not signing.Also, I think that my property does not have good curb appeal.

Tenant pays February rent and the process repeats.There is no excuse for them to hold it 5-10 days into the new month.

If you don't, you'll find an excuse."-- Jim Rohn

So, I never understand the "I have all these bills due on the first, help me split it up" excuse. 

At a minimum, it punishes the tenant by hurting their credit score and warns other Landlords that this tenant is a problem.No matter what the tenant thinks, you are rewarding bad behavior by excusing their debt and offering them additional funds to give you back what is rightfully yours.

No matter what excuse they use, if they aren't comfortable with you getting a Title Report and using an attorney to close, they are probably simply walking away with your money and you are going to regret meeting them.

Please excuse the long post.My close friend's parents are "buy and hold" small time landlords with a 2 commercial (1 building has three units and the other is one contiguous space) and 4 residential properties they rent out.

Excuse me for thinking outloud, but with this in mind I have been trying to think up some strategy that involves extra payments early on and then stop. 

They did not care about the 2 years of consistent employment history as I technically had an “excuse” being a college student.

It's a shame some make excuses, delay and screw things up for the parties rather than just saying "No thanks" early on.