Do you want to learn how to make trends in the current rental market work in your favor? Despite national rental prices coming down, top Californian cities are still experiencing moderate rent inflation. This can be turned to help your Inland Empire listing rather than to hurt it!
Adopting a new approach to rent collection can make your rental property more attractive (and therefore more competitive) if those methods make tenant's lives easier. Making your rent collection more efficient makes your life easier and decreases operating costs. Learn about three of these methods by reading this brief blog.
1. Hybridising Rent Collection Methods
In California, the cities are experiencing the bulk of the rent inflation. By structuring your rent collection methods to suit your tenant's needs, you may entice people to finally leave a place that makes their lives difficult.
The best way to do this is to collect rent payments in as many ways as possible. Do a drive once a month for tenants who prefer in-person rent collection. The face-to-face contact will also help build trust with tenants.
However, some tenants like using technology, are less social, prefer convenience, and may benefit more from automated payment systems. Accepting transfer payments and working through a tenant portal caters to these tenants.
2. Use Technological Solutions
However, accepting rent payments in multiple forms can be tricky to track. That's why it's a good idea to use a solution that can centralize all the receipts of these transactions.
A centralized accounting solution can go beyond merely organizing your rent collection data. It can add or subtract extra fees incurred by tenants (if they break something, for example) and keep track of security deposit. This gives you peace of mind in all aspects of landlord financial management.
3. Grace Periods and Late Fees
Many circumstances can lead to late rent, and not all are equally severe. Even the best tenants may be thrown off by family emergencies and banking holidays.
If you trust a tenant and want to keep them for as long as possible, consider extending some grace if they're late. Screening tenants is vital if you want to adopt this posture in your rent collection approach.
After three days, you become entitled to charge penalties on late rent. Since it's best to outline your penalty policy in your agreement clearly, this is not something you can be as selective with.
Both of these approaches work well to encourage on-time payment. Consider adopting at least one as a backstop for less-than-ideal situations.
Take Your Rental Business to the Next Level
Rent collection is at the core of a rental investment, which is why you need to use the best rent collection practices to get the most out of your investment. Some of these best practices increase earnings and efficiency. These include accepting various payment methods and using software to consolidate the receipts.
Managing late payments is also crucial. Grace periods and late charges address this from different directions.
At PMI Inland Empire, we have all the expertise and resources you need to boost and streamline your collections! Contact us today to set up a winning rent collection policy.
