Rentec Direct

After a brief delay in taking new merchant applicants, we are now again accepting EasyPay (with merchant account) applications.  We’ve updated our vendor for merchant accounts to a vendor very familiar with the property management industry.  This amounts to lower per-transaction costs, and a more stable platform for property managers.  Along with ACH, you can also accept payments by credit card for both rent and rental application payments.

The cost structure has also been simplified and per-transaction costs reduced.  Here’s a sample of what the cost structure looks like:

Monthly: $19.95
ACH Per Transaction: $0.75
CC Per Transaction: $0.10 + 2.5%

With your own merchant account, ACH payments fund to your account in 4 business days, while CC transactions are even sooner.  Compared to a traditional EasyPay account, this can be as much as 10 business days sooner.

To get setup with your own merchant account, login, then visit Settings, Setup EasyPay.  Download the application, and return all the supporting documents as explained on Page 3.

Sometimes a deposit entry get flubbed and the best way to fix it is to just undo the entire deposit and start from scratch doing it right the first time.

Previously this process was not very intuitive and involved individually modifying each transaction.  Now it’s much easier.  When you are viewing your deposit you’ll now see a link labelled [undo].  Clicking this link will open up a confirmation window and when you click Undo Deposit, all the funds are removed from the deposit and placed back into your Undeposited Funds account where you can then re-do your deposit correctly.

Not currently using Rentec to manage your deposits?  It can save a lot of time and keep your records straight.  See our original feature post on undeposited funds and deposit support.

What is it that seasoned landlords and property management services know about tenant screening that every property owner should?  This guide will show you how to successfully screen a tenant quickly and accurately and to form an informed decision on which prospective tenants to approve and which to decline, like the pros do.

There are two important traits a seasoned landlord looks for in a prospective tenant.  The ability to pay rent on time and the ability to care for the property.  Absent either of these traits and a tenant can cost a landlord thousands of dollars in damage and lost rent.  Follow these steps for the best chances of inheriting a tenant which complies with both of these important traits.

CREDIT: Credit reports are available to both professional property managers as well as private landlords and costs roughly $10 with the score included.  The credit report gives insight into how well the tenant pays their obligations.

• Credit Scores.  Different credit reporting agencies report scores differently, so basing a decision on a score is not always going to provide the same results across all major credit agencies.  When a FICO score is returned, scores can range from 300 – 850 with 850 being impeccable credit.   If the tenant recently lost their home to short sale or foreclosure, their score might be even lower almost entirely based upon the loss of their home and should be factored in accordingly.
• When a score is included and is near or above 650, generally  you can count on the tenant as a good payer.  It’s still a good idea to review the content of the report to make sure there are no current obligations past due.  The most important gauge as to if a tenant will pay their rent is if they are paying their current obligations such as credit cards.  If current obligations are past due, this is a great indication that the tenant is financially strapped and may not be able to afford rent either.
• Late mortgage payments.  Most property managers provide a special exception when a prospective tenant’s credit history shows late mortgage payments, or a mortgage default.  With the current economic climate and housing market there are a lot of previous homeowners either voluntarily or involuntarily losing their homes back to the bank.  Because these previous homeowners tend to be very positive and responsible renters, and provided other obligations are current, most landlords I have interviewed do not reject prospective tenants based on poor credit from the loss of a home.
• Medical bills.  Another component of a poor credit score can be related to medical bills.  An uninsured person with even a short hospital stay can attain tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills in short order.  It’s fairly impractical for most people to pay these bills at the time of visit and as such they can often be turned into collection.   In interviewing numerous landlords, medical bills are often disregarded or lesser regarded when considering a prospective tenant’s credit worthiness.  It is however important to take into consideration the tenant will have a portion of their income going to these bills, likely from garnishment.  This reduces their income to afford rent and could impact your income to rent formula.

CRIMINAL: There are a number of criminal reports available to landlords and property managers.  One of the most popular and easy to obtain is a nationwide criminal history which cost about $9.  This report aggregates criminal data from states nationwide to provide a concise view of the criminal behavior of an applicant nationwide.  Unlike credit data, criminal data is not indexed by social security number.  Instead, criminal data is typically indexed by name and date of birth.  Even still, some jurisdictions have only logged criminal data by name only which makes determining criminal behavior a little more tricky than with credit.  Here are some tips to get the most from your criminal background reports.

• Be certain the name and date of birth (DOB) are correct when ordering your criminal report.  An applicant could accidentally or purposefully mistype their DOB on your application form which could cause a criminal report to appear clean, when it may not be.  The best way to guarantee this information is obtained correctly is to request a copy of a photo id with the application that includes dob.
• Verify address history.  Each criminal record returned will typically list the county or city of the offense.  Many screening vendors will cross-match these entries with an address history report for the applicant, to narrow the results to a manageable list; however, if your vendor provides you a complete list, it can be quite long.  To verify if a criminal record matches your applicant you can order an address history or SSN verification report that includes address history.  If a past address matches a city where the criminal offense took place, it’s a good bet the offense matches the applicant.
• When in doubt, order a more detailed report.  If the national or state-wide report you’ve run is inconclusive, you can order a county report on the applicant which in most cases will be more up to date than a broad report and may include more details to help identify the issue in better detail.

EVICTION: Perhaps the single most important factor when renting to a new tenant is if they have previously been forcefully evicted.  Eviction reports cost a landlord about $10.  There are three primary ways a tenant moves out of their rental.  1) They paid their rent on time and choose to move out voluntarily.  These tenants should not have any eviction history on record.  2) They were required to move out by their landlord (often referred to as “eviction”) for non-payment or other reasons, and did so as requested of the landlord.  This type of “eviction” will not show up on an eviction report because it is a voluntary eviction.  3) They were asked to move out by their landlord, and refused to do so leading the landlord to file for a court ordered eviction and forced removal of the tenant from the property.  This class of tenant will show eviction history on an eviction report.

The reason this eviction report is so vital when screening your next prospective tenant is because if a tenant has a tendency to be required to move out by their landlord and fails to do so without the court and sheriff forcefully removing them from the property, you as a landlord could stand to lose a lot of income catering to this type of tenant.  A court ordered eviction can take at best many weeks, and at worst many months.  All this time you cannot move in a new tenant, and are not collecting rent on the previous tenant amounting to a huge loss.

PERSONAL: The final critical step in screening a tenant is to verify the information they have submitted and interview the prospective tenant.  Much of the information provided on your application can be corroborated via the reports above and the remainder by calling the employers, past landlords, and other references.  If the information on the application does not add up or there is any evidence that the tenant provided invalid information on your application, that is an instant sign of trouble and an instant reason to decline the application.

Meeting and performing background screening on all adults that will reside in the household is an important step often forgotten.  It is normal and allowed in most states to charge a reasonable application fee which will cover your costs to run the combination of all reports above.  One final item which more landlords have said provided them an indication of how well a tenant will care for a property than anything else; look inside their car.  The interior of their vehicle is an excellent indication as to the inside of their house.

SUMMING IT UP: The reports listed above tend to be the most popular and in use by most landlords; however, there are many more reports available to landlords also.  Regardless the reports ordered, be sure to comply with all federal and state laws as well as FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) guidelines.  If in doubt, most areas have local associations of landlords which are happy to help instruct in the legal aspect of screening prospective tenants.  The information above is opinions from many landlords nationwide; however, may not be effective in your particular market.  Define your own criteria and seek local legal assistance if necessary.

Learn more about Rentec Direct’s tenant screening products here.

Rentec now provides utility billing and sub-metering integration with all standards based utility billing vendors.  We’ve already tested and completed integration with Ista, one of the nations largest and most wide-spread utility billing service providers; however, it doesn’t end there.  Rentec can tie into most any billing service vendor on demand with technology available right inside Rentec PM.

With added user permissions, Rentec users can now even setup a new user with just the necessary permissions to download and upload the monthly data.  This is especially useful if a single employee handles this task, or even better yet, if the utility billing company will login and handle the task.

This can be a major time saver for larger property managers who bill for utilities.  To learn more and get started today, see our utility billing manual.

To a landlord or property manager, vacancies are generally the worst possible thing since a vacancy is catastrophic to cash flow.  It’s important that when a property becomes vacant the term until the next tenant moving in is as short as possible.

Aggregating information from many landlords, I’ve put together a solid list of tips which works well for most property managers.

Start Early – Some markets handle this better than others; however, when you get your 30 day notice from the existing tenant that is the time to start thinking about marketing your soon to be vacant home.  Write (or refresh) your classified ad, make sure you have up to date pictures, and begin your online marketing efforts.  If you don’t mind getting calls early to create a list or applicants, go ahead and publish your listings as soon as 30 days before it is available.

Get the Word Out – You want as many potential renters seeing your listing as possible.  Be sure to use as many possible advertising methods as you can to get the widest audience.  Here are examples of solutions that always work for landlords and property managers alike:

• Craigslist – It’s free to list and is often one of the most productive places to list rentals available.  Be sure your listing stands out by creating stunning craigslist property listings right from your property management software.
• Rental search sites – Some popular real-estate sites now accept rental listings.  Sites such as Zillow, Trulia, Hotpads, and dozens others.  These sites are often one of the first places tenants will be looking for rentals as they offer comparables, and nice graphical map displays which help tenants find homes faster.  Be sure your listings are up there or you’re losing out.  Rentec Direct will automatically do this for you, read more.
• Conventional Sources – Don’t forget about conventional sources like the newspaper classifieds and putting a For Rent sign in a visible location from the street on the property.  Also be sure to tell your friends and colleagues.

Be Honest – Is it an older house, then don’t list it as a “newer home” or “like new”, and likewise if parking is poor don’t highlight the “great on-street parking”.  The more honest and accurate your ad is the more qualified applicants you are going to receive and you won’t be wasting time processing applications, showing the property, and fielding phone calls for tenants who are turned off by a misleading fact when they visit the property.  Your time is much better spent focused on the tenants who are looking for exactly what you have available.  Lots of current pictures available for tenants to peruse online will help you out a lot.

Provide Your Criteria in the Listing – If you require credit or criminal background checks, put that in the listing.  That alone will eliminate anyone who feels they may not pass a credit or criminal scan thereby saving you time, money, and hassle.  Be sure not to put anything discriminating in the ad however as that can land a landlord in a bucket of trouble.

New for June, 2011!  Rentec Direct helps prospective tenants find your vacancy faster by publishing your listings to the world’s most popular and most frequently used real-estate rental listing websites.  Rentec Direct’s distribution network consists of nearly 20 distribution partners including Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo, Trovit, Oodle and many more.  See the image below to view the entire network.

Automatically when you select to create a rental listing in Rentec Direct your listing is transmitted to this network which all automatically link back to your listing here on Rentec and include basic contact information to reach you to apply for your vacancy.

In the short time we have been beta testing this program managers with listing syndicated to Rentec’s distribution network received double to triple the number of leads they would have through ordinary existing advertising methods.  This means your vacancies could fill 2 to 3 times faster than average.

Because this feature shares property listing information and your contact information with third-party listing sites, we’ve also added an option for you to opt listings out if you wish.  When creating your listing within Rentec Direct, simply click the ‘No Syndication’ option to opt out.

Note:  Rentec Direct helps you make stunning craigslist ads; however, craigslist policy prohibits automatic posting, therefore craigslist postings still have to be copy/pasted into their post interface.  Other sites within the distribution network place listings on a schedule from 24 to 72 hours after the listing is published.  If any details are left out of the listing (description, price, amenities, etc) or any special characters (html or otherwise) the listing may not be accepted by the network.

Not too long ago we added a feature to create stunning craigslist ads which assist landlords and property managers to insert great listings onto craigslist using existing data already entered into the Rentec property management system.  Well, the feedback on the craigslist ads was so positive and the format looked so good we’ve taken the same layout and applied it to your rental listings at rtd4.com.

This update produces as more consistent feel for prospective renters as well as significantly improves on the design.  To learn more about making your own online listing see our property management knowledge-base article.

Here’s an example of what the listings now look like.

We’re introducing two new features today.

OWNER STATEMENT – A property owner statement has been added to the Misc reports section. This statement is ideal for property managers to provide the owner a brief, yet informative, view of their inflows and outflows. An example of the report is shown here with an arrow pointing at our 2nd new feature.

MANAGE AND REPORT RESERVES - It only made sense to incorporate an easy way to track and report on property reserves if we were going to create a useful property owner statement. In an effort to “make sense” today, we’re simultaneously releasing support for tracking and reporting property reserves. Within the same location as you edit your management fees, you can now specify a reserve per-property.

For help on either of these features, please visit our property management knowledge-base article on the topic.

We get asked frequently if we provide forms or agreements for landlords. While we do not, there are many resources on the internet that do. We’ve done some research to find what we feel is the is the best and most reliable source available. ezLandlordForms provides most forms necessary for landlords and property managers to start and operate a business. This includes state specific forms which have been reviewed by landlord peers and attorneys in each state. Click the image below to visit ezLandlordForms.

Other Legal Forms

If you are more in the need for legal forms to start a corporation, LLC or partnership we would recommend LegalZoom who has professional forms and assistance for entities wishing to start an organization.  Other services offered by LegalZoom include: Trademarks, Copyrights, Patents, Wills, Trusts, Divorce, Name Change, Power of Attorney, Real Estate Leases, Bankruptcy, Estate Planning, and other Legal forms.

We get asked frequently if we recommend any particular debt collection agency for delinquent tenants.  Second most on that topic we get asked if there is is any way to report delinquent unpaid tenants to the credit bureaus.  I’m pleased to say that we’ve found both!

We’ve partnered with a OLDDEBTS to provide this service to Rentec users and trusted affiliates.

There’s a ton of benefits to using Olddebts.  The ones that make the most sense to us are:

• The collection process can be handled online, and setup only takes a couple minutes.
• Olddebts is a flat-fee service that costs less than $20
• Olddebts will report the delinquency to the credit bureaus for just $5.  This is the best part because not only are you warning other landlords about this tenant who fails to pay their rent, but with the debt going on their credit you are far more likely to collect on it.  They will most likely need to pay you before they can move into another house, buy a car, etc.
• Olddebts handles all the dirty work.  They send the collection letters and report to the bureaus.  The funds come back directly to you.

We are very impressed with how their program is setup and how effective it is.  To get setup or read more about Old debts, CLICK HERE to visit their site.