Whenever a landlord looks at potential tenants, their first question is, how do I know this person will pay their rent on time? Is there any way to guarentee it, besides a magic eight ball or a genie? You can ask all the questions in the world, and there would still be that lingering itch of what if they’re not going to pay me on time? There is very little that actually makes this worry go away, until your tenant has taken the long run to prove themselves over and over again for an extended period of time. That leaves the question – if you don’t have a perfect tenant, how do you get them to pay their rent on time?
Offer It Online
It’s 2019! If you don’t have the option to pay rent online, then it is time to get started. People pay just about everything online. People can go car shopping on the couch in their pajamas. They can order groceries from their bathrooms and pay their student loans from bed. There are even ways to pay off your credit bills on with a phone app. Paying rent with in-hand, physical paper, is time consuming. It’s another thing they have to schedule into their day.
Just like everything else in this Tron World we live in, it is a lot easier for your tenants to pay up on the spot if they can do it online. Offer your tenants a way to pay their rent without getting up, and those lazy bones will probably be able to pay you much faster, easier, and yes, on time.
To Be Flexible Or Not To Be Flexible
People stick around for landlords they like, and they’re typically the ones who are a bit flexible. If you offer your tenants a bit of wiggle room instead of a stickler, no gray area way of life, they’ll want to stick around. Maybe they’re occasionally late by a day or two, but they’ll work harder to keep you happy in the long run. And what’s better than a good, long term tenant?
On the flip side, you might look at your current policies and realize you’re being too flexible. If your tenants are handing in their rental payments later and later than you’d prefer, you might want to reign it in by enforcing late fees. No one likes fees, and it might just be the key to obtaining consistent, timely rental payments. Sure, it might sour your landlord-tenant relationship, but if your tenants are fully taking advantage of your flexible late policy, are they really good tenants?
Ask About Their Pay Day
Sometimes the simplest solution is the answer. When does your tenant get paid? Many people in America live from paycheck to paycheck, which means the days leading up to pay day are harder to get some things done. If your rent is due leading up to pay day rather than after, it may mean that your tenant is late to pay up for the very simple reason that they haven’t been paid, either.
Try talking to your tenant about this, and be a bit flexible. It could be that by altering Rent Day a little bit, your chronically late tenant could be cured of this awful affliction as easy as one, two, three. You can even avoid this problem entirely in the future: add the question to your tenant applications and you can set your rent days around then so everyone is a little bit more at ease.
When preparing for your property tour, efficiency is key. Small mishaps throughout the day may ruin chances with a prospective renter.
A good real estate agent should be knowledgeable about the surrounding area and what it has to offer prospective tenants. Or better yet, find out what aspects of a neighborhood are important to them beforehand and include that on the tour.
Be sure to have contact information for the landlord or their representative. If there is sincere interest, they’ll need this information once they sign the lease.
Worrying about on-time rent payments is one of the main reasons that landlords go gray. You can’t always know when it’s going to happen, how late the payment will be or how soon it will happen again. Unfortunately, you are stuck knowing it will probably happen at some point. Try these three tips to see if you can offset how often it happens with your tenants.
How do you get your tenants to pay on time?
Let us know in the comments!
