How do I automate my rent payments? What is happening YouTube? It's Matt Faircloth thank
you for watching Mentorship Monday. Today's question comes from Billy. Billy wants to
know about putting tenants on auto-payment services, something like Cozy or Clear Now.
So here's the thing with the auto-payment rent services. For those of you guys that
don't know there are ways that you can... Let's say maybe you have a car payment, maybe
you have other payment services, even mortgages and stuff like that work like this where they'll
just go in and automatically draft money out of your bank account. On a certain date at
a certain time they're going to take this much money and you can set your watch to it
and they're going to just do that.
Tenants can agree to services like that such as Cozy and Clear Now that will just go and
automatic withdraw the money at the tenants' accounts. I believe AppFolio building and
rent manager the platforms out there that manage a lot of rental properties for people
that handle in-house accounting and all that can do those types of services as well. So
I think it's great but there is a big asterisk, there's a big but, the tenant has to agree
to that. And I don't believe and again, we landlord in several states and I'm not seeing
this absolutely being allowed for a landlord to mandate that a tenant has to agree for
their rent to be automatically drawn out of their account on a certain date, on a certain
time.
I've seen lots of landlords say that, "You can pay me by a certain methods," none of
which are cash, saying "You can pay me by credit card. You can pay me by an e-check
or ACH, same thing, or you can pay me through my web portal online whatever it is. But you
can't mail me the rent and you can't pay me in cash." You can mandate those things but
I don't believe that you can mandate that a tenant pay you through an auto pay service
meaning you're guaranteed to get the rent on a certain day or it dings their account
on a certain day. Because it could create a circumstance where their account gets pulled
upside down. There's a lot of laws protecting tenants in this world, needfully rightfully
so in that.
So I don't believe that you can mandate those things. I could be wrong and if I am put it
in the comments. I love to talk to people. I love to hear from you guys. But I've never
seen it being allowed to be mandated that you can draw those types of things but you
can request it, you can recommend it. I believe you can even offer a discount if the tenant
signs up for Cozy or one of those types of services that automatically pulls their run
out of their account.
I love electronic payments for tenants. I mean let them pay any time when they want
to pay between the first and the fifth they can pay electronically. We got away from cash
when we were managing all of our properties. Now we use a property manager. They don't
take cash either. Cash is, I mean for smaller landlords it's great and you can boast have
your ego going that you're running around with all this cash in your car or your tenants
bring you all this cash And you've got thousands of bucks in cash lying around. But I can tell
you number one cash is a liability. Number two, you've got to just schlep it to the bank
to take it there. The novelty of it wears off over time I promise you.
It's nice if you only have a couple of units then you can have that kind of cash laying
around. But once you get more than just a few of those units having that kind of cash
laying around becomes a burden. Like I said the novelty wears off over time in that. Auto
payments are great if your tenants agree to do it. So, that's my thoughts on auto payments.
Thank you, Billy. Thank you guys for watching. Helpme@derosagroup.com is where you guys want
to send your questions. Helpme@derosagroup.com is where you want to send your real estate
questions and I'll answer them right here on the YouTube channel for you and everyone
else to learn from. Thank you guys for watching and have a great profitable week.