4 Rent Collection Methods To Know About

Renting out your property is usually a very easy way of earning income, since you won’t have to do much work. But if you don’t have an efficient way of collecting the rent, it could become quite cumbersome and challenging. For instance, you might have live in a different province from where your property is located; do you drive up each month to pick up your cheque? What if you live outside the country?

Thanks to technology, this is not a very difficult challenge to solve, but for the rookie landlord who is still scratching their head and wondering how to solve it, here are some very practical solutions to consider:

#1. Mail

You can decide to let tenants send their rental payments by mail. This will aid by saving you the hassle of having to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to collect your cheques in person. However, using this method of payment allows for the old excuse of, “the check got lost in the mail”,  which won’t mean your payment is lost forever (genuinely lost cheques can simply be cancelled), but it might lead to delays in you receiving your payment.

So if you do decide to receive your checks by mail, make sure tenants get a certificate of mailing from the post office, even though it will cost them a little extra.

#2. Drop-Off location

If you use an agency to advertise your home, you could let tenants drop the rent off with them. You will need to have a prior arrangement in place with the agency though.

#3. In Person

You could decide to collect the rent in person. The good news is you will have the money in your hands instantly while the bad news is that this method could be time-wasting and could potentially sour your relationship with tenants who may think of you as being a bit pesky.

#4. Online

Another way to collect the rent is online. There are several online sites that render this service to landlords. Some of them include Rent Merchant, ERentPayment and RentMatic. You could also do an online search to find other sites which might suit you better.

Some of these site are very basic, with easy rent collection being the only serviced rendered, while some other sites offer a little more, with the ability to upload vital forms and documents for your tenants and the ability to send messages to your tenants. These sites are great, as they do not require you to give any personal information about your banking to your tenants.