.jpg)
More than 545,823 people live in Chester County, Pa, and they all need a place to stay. This means they are either paying a mortgage or rent each month.
As a property manager in Chester County, one of your jobs is to collect rent each month from your tenants. Their job as your tenants is to ensure they pay their rent on time each month, but unfortunately, in many cases, paying rent late has become the norm.
This leaves property managers and landlords globally frustrated about dealing with it. If you want to reduce the chances of people paying rent late, here are some valuable tips to aid in the rent collection process.
Select Tenants Wisely
The first step that tops all other rental collection strategies is to ensure you select the people who live in your properties carefully. This is done by carefully reviewing and conducting the tenant screening process to ensure there are no red flags in the past of your tenants before you approve their applications.
There are several red flags you want to be aware of, such as a tenant with a criminal background, severe credit issues, and other problems they might not want you to know about. The more time you take to select tenants, the better off you will be because you'll be able to choose the right tenants the majority of the time.
Use An Automated Payment Portal
Gone are the days when people would go to the grocery store for a money order and turn it into the office mailbox. Now, many Chester County landlords are turning to an automated service as one of the most useful ways to collect rent.
With these portals, tenants can select whether they want to pay their rent using their:
- Debit card
- Credit card
- A check
- Linking to their banking account
Of course, there are fees associated with this, but it's much easier than worrying about people stealing your rental check when it's placed in the mailbox in front of the rental office.
The automated service can tell tenants when they are past due and what the charges are that they have to pay for the month. You can add it to the rental collection services you pay for each month.
Enforce the Policy
If you don't enforce the policy you're using for rent collection, it can lead people to not adhere to it. You need to ensure that you follow and enforce it at all times, no matter what.
This makes it less likely for tenants to try to abuse the policy. If you allow for late payments, then they will begin to make that a normal thing, and you don't want that.
The rental payment policy should be included in the contract you provide to tenants when they become your tenants.
Rent Collection Strategies You Need to Know
There are several rental collection strategies you need to know, and we've outlined a few above. Ensure you begin using an automated payment portal and ensure you enforce the payment policy at all times to make rent collection easier.
Schedule a free rental analysis with Key PA Property Management for more insightful real estate resources.
