Monday, August 17, 2009

Rental Agreements

Landlord must maintain consistency right from commencement of the tenancy. There are situation where landlord find themselves in confusing circumstances while collecting unpaid rent. This happens when landlord is stuck with bad tenants or when there is certain discrepancies involving landlord rights within the tenancy agreement.
Real estate investment is very profitable when compared with other business options available during current economic recession. Before you rent your property it is important that you develop a customized rental agreement. There are various professional organizations that may assist you with building lease agreement forms, also explaining you landlord rights which you can use effectively.
The lease forms usually include necessary information like renter’s social security number, complete legal name, age, and residential address. It is imperative to note that your rent guarantee is inter related to tenant background check. Elite tenant screening agencies like AMERICAN APARTMENT OWNERS ASSOCIATION can perform background checks and credit verification on your potential lessee, you can also consider obtaining insurance from this organization.
Before performing back ground checks and credit check it is important that you obtain signed legal consent from your renter. Usually for tenant screening you need renter’s previous landlord address, current employer address, driving license to verify renters address, and SSN number. These landlord associations will provide you tenant’s criminal record and its fico or credit score. With this information you can qualify or disqualify an applicant.
The next step is to develop a customized rental agreement; you can include any legal clause in it. Some of these clauses are:
• Right to increase rent
• You can ask renter to pay for utility charges
• A landlord have full right to forcefully evict a lessee if there is a breach of contract
• A tenant will have to pay for any damages
• And you have full authority to enter the premises which you have rented
Effective rental agreement will save you from legal problem if it occurs in future.
There have been many cases where tenants having good background and sound credit score cause serious problem for their property owners. To avoid getting in this situation it is advisable to opt for rent guarantee insurance. This is only applicable when you seek assistance from a professional tenant screening company for a particular tenant that was referred as a good tenant but later turns bad, in this case you can claim back your loss of rental income.
Rent guarantee insurance is very important for landlords who have few properties and that two heavily mortgaged, this will avoid unnecessary investment where you start to default on your mortgage payments.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Effective Ways of Rent Collection

It is very important that you should learn some quick and efficient ways of rent collection from your when you have a house or apartment for lease.

When you are opting for a payment type to use for you rent collection, it is always advisable to select a method that is both easy and convenient for your tenants. This is a very crucial part if you want your tenants to pay you promptly, all the time.

If you stay far away from your house that is leased, the mode that will be preferable for your tenants is online method. This will save you a lot of time and effort if you can arrange for your tenants to pay the monthly rent online. Online payments are generally instant and your tenants can pay the rent at the comfort of their house.

If you possess more than one rental properties or a full time rental property manager, creating a merchant credit card account for your payments is not recommended. As merchant accounts have high operational costs and have a lot of complexities involved. When rent transactions are carried online a small percent of your rent payments is paid to PayPal or as credit card charges by both you and your tenants.

The conventional rent collection method of visiting the tenants to collect hard cash when the rent is due. Even though this method has been used since many years now, but has been proved to be the best and effective for collecting your lease.

It is always a good idea of letting your tenant know in advance that you will be visiting for the collection of rent. This can be done with the help of a phone call, so make the call just to remind your tenant about the date and time of your visit.

You can also make it easier if you prefer the tenant paying the rent by mailing you a Bearer's Check every month before the due date. If you are accepting rent by checks then make sure that your tenant sends you a crossed check with the necessary details and your name on it. The tenant should never send the rent in cash as it might get lost in the mail
Usually accepting checks is recommended method only if you have trust in you tenants who pay their rent on time.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Rent collection

Rent collection on time is always a tough task for most of the Landlords. This task is like a corner stone of investing in rental properties. Some landlords can find rent collection a tough task and for some it may be like a nightmare.
Landlords should always be consistent from the beginning of the Lease. They should start out by explaining to their Tenants in complete detail about the payment terms in the Lease and consequences for late payment. Landlords should always send a rent reminder to tenants, before it is late.
American Apartment Owners Association (AAOA) provides different rent collection services to apartment owners and real estate investors. AAOA group helps land owners in collecting the rent without wasting their business time.
AAOA has three different services to make rent collection easy and fast for the apartment owners and real estate investors.
1) Electronic Rent Payment
2) Tenant Invoicing
3) Tenant Collection Agency

1) Electronic Rent Payment: AAOA takes the workout of rent collection from apartment owners and real estate owners. AAOA helps land lords in rent collection through electronic rent payment system. This system helps owners to receive the rent online either by AAOA group or through their own website. AAOA saves time and money using its own secure processing systems.

2) Tenant Invoicing: AAOA provides a fully automated tenant billing application on the Internet. This innovative service provides every owner and management company the opportunity to maintain a consistent and professional line of communication with each and every tenant every month. Invoicing elevates the relationship between the tenant and landlord to a new level of respect and professionalism. Since the rent payment is probably the largest monthly expense for most tenants, it makes sense that the obligation be treated with the same importance as a car payment or credit card bill. The printing and mailing is included, apartment owners just need input rent roll and this application does the rest.

3) Tenant Collection Agency: AAOA helps Landlords to collect unpaid rent with their exclusive electronic surveillance software that can track the financial status of any debtor, every day, anywhere in the country. No other company pursues delinquent tenants as aggressively as AAOA does.