Collecting rent from tenants is one of the most hectic and stressful jobs for a property owner today. There are some tenants that pay their rent on time, and then there are those tenants that take a long time to pay their rent. They in fact, tend to take as much time as possible to postpone the payment. So, you can actually offer some relief in collecting rent from their tenants by offering to send their tenants periodical reminders for their rent.
You can offer to send upcoming reminders to the tenants stating the date, amount, date due, how to send the money and where to send the money and other matters relating to the payment of the rent in your reminders. This first reminder asks for payment by the due date; when the rent is expected by the proprietor. When you find that the tenant has not paid the rent on time, you can offer to send another reminder on the due date of the payment of the rent.
You can send these reminders either through the mail or by email. However, if you intend to send their reminders by mail, you have to consider the time element involved in this choice. It takes a longer time for mail to reach a person than mail via email. If you send the reminders through email, you can send the reminders a day before the anticipated date. However if it is sent through the mail, then you will have to send the reminder a few days prior to the date it is expected to reach the recipient.
Of course, as this is to be a business and a source of income for you, you will have to charge for these services rendered. There is no point in charging too large a fee; consider $5-$20 per month, per tenant as rather reasonable. If you can manage to handle about 30-40 tenants a month, you can easily earn about $800 a month, for just a single hour of work! So, there is actually no point in charging too high a rate.
To get property owners to approach you, you should let them know about your services. Without knowing about your services and the help you can give them, they will never actually know about the benefit of using your services. You can do this through word of mouth, or by creating a website. Include information on the website about the services you offer, your rates, and conditions. You could also try to mingle with property owners in clubs or functions and mention the difficulty they may face in collecting payments from their tenants. You can then offer to send their tenants reminders if required, to take the burden off them to collect it every month.
Once you send effective reminders that bring payments to the property owner, you are sure to find that the proprietor will appreciate your services, and may in fact, suggest you to their friends and business associates!
Resources:
http://www.rentalsonline.com/landlords/collecting_rent.asp
http://rhol.com/rental/collecting.htm
http://www.1888articles.com/collecting-rent-owed-by-a-tenant-0bme3295t8.html
http://www.mncourts.gov/district/2/?page=1004
July 27, 2008
