Can you all give me some different ways to go about collecting rent from renter other than going place to place collecting it face to face.
Personally, I have the tenants call me during normal business hours on the 1st through the 4th and I pick it up IN CASH.
However, other ways are to:
- have the tenants mail a check to you
- accept credit cards
- give the tenants your bank account number and deposit tickets, and have them deposit the rent
- hire a property management company to collect the rents for you
Good Luck,
Mike
I’ve seen some Investors using PayPal for tenants I personally wouldn’t use paypal or take credit cards what its like 3.5% or something. I have my tenants get M.O.'s and I do my rounds from the 1st to the 5th Some pay one the 1st and some pay on the 5th. Mailing is a whole different game that I put it in the mail yada yada yada. Always know where your money is.
When I lived in town, I had a drop-box at my larger building where tenents could drop money orders. I would knock on doors on the 4th and anyone that didnt have it would be charged late fees.
Now, being 2 hours away, all rent must be received by the 5th in the mail to avoid a late fee. All rent must be payed by money order. Checks bounce, people can “stop order” checks up to 30 days after they have been deposited (found this out the hard way this month)… It’s much easier to accept money orders only. All mail goes to my office and all money orders are in the name of my LLC.
JTT,
Unfortunately, tenants can put a stop payment on money orders also.
Mike
Did not know that either. Thanks.
There are also auto-debit services that will withdraw the money from the tenant’s account and deposit it in yours automatically.
Clearnow is one of those services like BLL is talking about.
www.clearnow.com
I haven’t used them. They charge $14.95/mo for the service and that includes the first tenant deposit. Additional tenants are $2/each. We use a PO Box for our LLC and have it listed in our lease of when the payment must be postmarked. That way there’s never any bickering about how the tenant put the check in the mail by the 3rd, but it didn’t get to us until the 7th and now they owe late fees. Our residents must have the payment postmarked by the 5th of the month or else it’s late and they owe late fees. One of our properties is out of state, so this was the most painless way for us to get payments. We set up our mortgage payments to be due later in the month to allow plenty of time for rent to get mailed to us.
I run my business using one simple philosophy as it pertains to rent collection:
Make it as simple as possible for someone to pay you.
If I have to pay pennies on the dollar for that so be it. I use it as a negotiating tool when asking for lower rates from the bank.
By the way is everyone enjoying 3.25 prime?!?!
we have a PO Box tenants mail rent to.
Having people drop off rent checks at your home is the craziet thing I have saw anyone do!
I wouldnt do paypal, paypal is kind of funny on large payments and I have heard crazy stories about it. If you are going to take credit cards just get a merchant account.
I would not give the tenants a bank account for them to deposit it in. depending on your state and your lease you may not be able to evict if you have accepted a partial payment. if they are depositing it into your account, you really cant refuse a partial payment
but whatever you do make it easy. We have even gave tenants postage paid, addressed evelopes. All they have to do is drop it in the mail!
I am with johnnyMB, we also have a PO Box for checks, money orders. I wouldn’t suggest giving them your address. I have had bad experiences with this in the past.
Joe
Depending on where the money order its not that easy to place a stop payment on. Even if so they still wouldn’t get their money immediately and an “Eviction” would be looming.
I worked at the po for 25 years and you could not stop payment on a mo. I don’t know about conveinent stores, but I wouldn’t think so. jmo
i wouldnt expect a tenant to stop payment on a money order? that wouldnt make sense. I have got back checks before but never had someone stop payment on a check for rent