As a rental property owner, collecting rent is one of the most important responsibilities you have.
The average rent in Charlotte is over $1,500 per month these days, which is great news for ROI on your rental property. That said, if you don't have an effective strategy for rent collection, you could run into problems.
Collecting rent can be challenging, but we can help. Today, we're going to give you 5 effective tips for collecting rent. Knowing how to collect rent can help you avoid tenant problems, so keep reading and make sure you're getting your money on time, every time.
1. Be Clear With Tenants
The first step in effective rent collection is being clear with your tenants about what you expect. If you're vague about when and how they pay you each month, you're sure to run into tenant problems.
At the end of the day, you need to have an understanding with your tenants. If they pay you on time every month, everything will be great. If they don't, it's grounds for eviction, so make sure they know this from the get-go.
2. Grace Period
In a perfect world, each of your tenants will pay up on the first of every month. In reality, however, everyone goes through financial hardships from time to time.
To be a good landlord, you have to be understanding. If you have a tenant that can't pay rent on time once in a while, it's in both of your best interests to give them a grace period of a few days.
Have this clearly stated in the rental agreement so they understand the consequences of taking advantage of the grace period.
3. Offer Numerous Options
Make paying rent easy for your tenants by accepting payments in whatever way they're comfortable with. Most young people prefer to pay rent through online money transfer, but older ones may prefer to put a cheque in the mailbox.
Money is money, so you don't need to make someone do something they're not comfortable with.
4. Tenant Screening
The best way to avoid tenant problems is to put a lot of effort into tenant screening. Having tenants fill out applications, give you character and landlord references, and consent to background and credit checks will give you all the information you need to make a decision.
When you look into a tenant, you can figure out which one is most suitable for your vacancy. Failing to do background checks makes you vulnerable to delinquent tenants that may not pay rent on time.
5. Use a Property Manager
Of course, the easiest way to deal with rent collection is to have someone else do it. There are many perks to hiring a property manager, but one of the biggest is rent collection.
Hire us, and you'll be able to enjoy all of the perks of owning a rental property with none of the hardship. We'll take care of rent collection, and you'll simply get your rent each month.
Collecting Rent Can Be Easy
Follow these tips, and collecting rent can be easy. As long as you're clear about your expectations and put the work into being a good landlord, you shouldn't have any issues with late or missed rent payments.
Taking a hands-off approach to property ownership is often the best way to go. If you're a Charlotte property owner that needs a bit of help with rent collection, property maintenance, and tenant screening, contact us at Carolina Property Management.
