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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 07:43 PM
For the landlords here, I didn't see a thread on this so I thought I'd make one to harness the forum's collective wisdom.
I'll be living abroad and need to find an elegant solution to collecting and depositing rent payments while I'm abroad.
A rental management company isn't something I'm considering for various reasons.
One option is to have a friend sign my name/endorsement on the monthly check/money order deposits and make them in person, like I do. I know that can work fine, as the bank doesn't care, but if there's a better way, I would be open to it, to avoid having to have my friend carry around so many checks, and also, to avoid having to have him sign my name (if there's a better/easy way to get around having him sign my name, that would be good to know).
Another option is Venmo, but although anecdotally it works from abroad, when I messaged their customer support, I was told it must be used while you are physically in the U.S. I could get a VPN and then access Venmo that way, and that's an option I'd consider if anyone has any experience with that.
Another option is paypal, but paypal gives folks the ability to rescind payments easily, and I'm not keen on that.
So far my best option seems to be to have a friend sign my name on the money orders/checks and just have him make the deposits, but if I can avoid that, I'd like to.
What have you guys used to collect and deposit/manage rent payments while abroad without using a management company? As in, are there any pure payment systems out there that you guys like, that are easy to use, like Venmo, and free (or mostly so), but that can be managed from abroad. It has to be super easy to set up and use, Venmo being the standard.
It also can't be some fly-by-night operation, so for example Venmo is backed by PayPal, which is ideal, so you can be reasonably certain your funds won't disappear overnight.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 07:56 PM
Checks for deposit don't need to be signed. You only need to sign them if you are cashing them.
All you need is to write on the back of the check 'For Deposit Only', and write your account number underneath. Most businesses do it with a stamp.
Also I believe there are services available that can deposit your checks for you.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 08:09 PM
One option is creating a bank account for this purpose and having the tennant deposit the money into the account themselves. Then you transfer it into your main account.
Not sure on the specifics but I know people who have rental properties that do it.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 08:15 PM
Ok, saw this elsewhere online:
"I work for a bank. Yes we take deposits from anyone to any account. Even if the check isn't endorsed, you can just write "for deposit only" on the back (or the teller will stamp it "for deposit only"). If you aren't the account holder or can't provide ID, we wouldn't give you cash back from the check though, or allow you to make a withdrawal or give you any account info."
So it looks like the prior suggestion by zoom works great.
I'll do that unless others have found a nice electronic system that's easy to use/setup and works for location independent folks.
Thanks again, zoom!
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 08:20 PM
I have had my tennants deposit their check into my account at my bank which worked well. One of my other renters uses Zelle which is an electronic payment system that wells fargo accepts. Now my question is, how do you get the money overseas without fees?
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 08:42 PM
I use paypal with my tenants. On the rare occasion when tenants insist on using a check (such as first months security deposit) or partial payments for various services (such as cleaning fee) I get my parents to pickup the check and deposit for me.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-30-2018, 10:42 PM
Collect it via credit card with a merchant account (Stripe).
If a tenant rescinds/disputes the payment you move to evict them immediately. They can just as easily put a stop payment on a check, and you also have the agreement to show as proof.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-31-2018, 04:36 AM
Meanwhile, in the developed world (Britain
) everything is done via direct debit...
I bloody hate it when customers try to give me a cheque.
They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety- Benjamin Franklin, as if you didn't know...
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-31-2018, 04:49 AM
You can take a picture of the Check front and back with any modern banking app to deposit it into your account.
You can have your friend do it or he can send you the pics and you can do it.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
03-31-2018, 03:41 PM
For years now I've had my tenants set up a pre-authorized debit (PAD). They sign a form and give me a void check and my bank does the rest. They love it because it's all automated and they don't have to remember to make a payment.
When PAD isn't an option, they send an e-transfer (called INTERAC e-transfer in Canada, probably something equivalent in other places).
For paper checks I have them mail it to my bank and they've deposited into my account.
If you're abroad you should have a mail forwarding service and they can deposit checks for you as well. I can recommend a good one if you need one.
Stripe is an interesting idea. I like the simplicity, but I don't like the idea of tenants running up credit card debt to pay the rent.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-15-2018, 01:27 PM
Check out cozy.co, it's got pretty good reviews. There was a debacle earlier involving a competitor to cozy.co called erentpayment, make sure to read up on that to understand the happenings in the space.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-16-2018, 08:52 AM
I hired a property manager. He gets 10%of the rent that comes in and a hourly rate for repairs.
After a few years he has everything down and my income is completely passive and I am completely location independent. An my life is "completely lit fam" as the kids would say
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-16-2018, 09:55 AM
Jesus Christ that's expensive. Ya'll should just do what I did. Buy a Home Warranty policy (costs about $50/mo.) then add that to the tenant's rent. It's attached to your credit card. Set it to automatic charge. If anything comes up in the house while you're away, tell the tenants to call the warranty service, then they'll handle it from there. You'll have a small charge per usage, usually around $50, which you can also calculate into the tenant's rent, as I did, assuming they may use it 3 times/year, at most. Worked like a charm. My last tenants lived int he house for 4 years and I never met them personally a single time. Don't even know what they look like. We handled everything through phone calls, texts, and emails.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-17-2018, 03:31 PM
Quote: (03-30-2018 07:43 PM)Spaniard88 Wrote:
A rental management company isn't something I'm considering for various reasons.
This is like making a thread saying you want huge muscles but dont want to lift weights
Unless you luck out and land the worlds greatest renters... you are going to need someone to be able to handle some boots on the ground stuff around your property and some kind of property manager is exactly the kind of thing you need.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-18-2018, 11:31 AM
I'll offer a different viewpoint on property managers.
I only have a few units, but I'm hardly ever there. I don't use a property manager, although I have in the past (I didn't find them particularly useful, although they were competent).
If you don't want anything to do with the property, it's money well spent, but they'll never do as good as job as you doing it yourself.
From a money standpoint, let's say I'm paying 10%, that's $600 a month or $7200 a year. For me personally, I have the same peace of mind whether I'm paying someone $7200 a year to collect rent or doing it myself and spending that money on me.
Over the years I've become pretty good at finding the right tenants so I don't lose sleep when I'm abroad. If there's some absolute crisis, then I can fly back from Europe or South America for about $1000 and take care of it and I'm still ahead $6200 for the year.
I'll even fly back when a tenant moves out. An agent charges one month's rent and I can fly back and do it myself for half the cost and I get to catch up with family and friends and do some shopping.
I'm location independent, although the last two years I've had move-outs in the summer, so I've had to leave sexy EE for a few weeks to spend time in a shithole to get new tenants. That's not ideal, but it's a small price to pay for total freedom the rest of the time.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
07-20-2018, 11:34 AM
Quote: (07-18-2018 11:31 AM)edlefou Wrote:
I'm location independent, although the last two years I've had move-outs in the summer, so I've had to leave sexy EE for a few weeks to spend time in a shithole to get new tenants. That's not ideal, but it's a small price to pay for total freedom the rest of the time.
I'm glad its working out for you. But if I am trying to live and enjoy life overseas permanently I dont want to have the threat of having to pack up and fly back to Murica every time something goes wrong looming over my head. I hired a good property manager and the peace of mind I get knowing that everything is handled is worth faaaaar more then I pay him.
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Landlord Collecting & Depositing Rent/Tenant Payments While Living Abroad
04-06-2019, 12:43 AM
^^ I only have one duplex I am currently renting in a student town 2 hours from where I live in Canada.
I have a handyman who will do things such as collect the keys, make sure tenants are out of the place. We've worked together a long time and he doesn't mind doing little things like that as he's an older guy.
I have a young guy (25) who shows the place to new groups of students, does the credit checks and all the hustle. Prices is one months rent/year. Since I am out of town anyway, I am just as happy with him doing this for me.
I am looking into renting out my condo in Toronto as I seem to spend less time there. In which case I will likely select my own tenant, I have contacts in the consulting industry and there are always consultants flying in for long term projects in my industry, so hoping to leverage my connections to get a prime rate. I'm also a little lazy to move all my stuff out, when it suits the condo and doesn't really have another place that I would want. I've also considered using my neighbours who are real estate agents and live across the hall from the Condo.
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