When you have tenants you have to go to the bank to deposit rent monies, and I do my best to get those rent monies into our accounts ASAP so we can pay the mortgages with rent monies and not with our monies.
So this week, I have stopped by my local Wachovia branch three times in a row (before work, at like 6:30 in the morning). The first time, no issue. Yesterday, a Wednesday, there were no envelopes. This morning, the ATM was out of order.
At 6:30 a.m. I am grumpy, I've had no coffee and I just want to get to work - because that's where I get my coffee. Ugh! Not sure what is going on with my local Wachovia branch.
Have you considered electronic payments that are automatically drafted from your tenants' bank accounts? There are many options out there but I use www.erentpayment.com for my rental property. It is only $3 per transaction which can be paid by either the landlord or tenant or split, depending on how you want to do it. I stipulated in the rental agreement that this is the only payment method I would accept and also that it had to be an automatic draft (no waiting for them to manually submit!) on the same day every month. It is very easy to set up ... landlord has to provide some proof documents which I believe were drivers license copy and void check (or other proof of bank account) ... tenant just had to complete/sign a form or two and provide a void check ... the authorization is good for up to a year (after which time you would need to get a new one signed to re-authorize). My previous tenant had been mailing me checks and it was very inconvenient ... but with this service it is well worth the small fee because I don't have to anxiously await the mail and then run to the bank, etc. What are your thoughts on this?
ReplyDeleteFG, What a super idea, I'm going to look into your suggestion of utilizing a payment processor for rent.
ReplyDelete$3 seems a little steep, but considering the amount of time we spend collecting and depositing rent monies - it is probably worth it.
Thanks for the great idea!