One of the biggest challenges in a landlord’s business is collecting rent. If you haven’t run into a problem with rent collection yet – just wait, it’s bound to happen at some point. The best way of ensuring you get your rent on time is to carefully select the tenants for your rental units.

Can they afford the rent?

Be sure to complete employment checks and ask for pay stubs so you can get an idea of what they are bringing in. You may not know all of their debts but this can help raise red flags if they don’t have near enough income to afford the monthly rent.

Can they pay on time?

Some renters have developed bad habits and are used to paying late. Why? Because a previous landlord has let them get away with it. Be sure you have a rent policy on paper that applies to all your tenants. Have them read and sign off on it. If they have a history of being late, or have pay schedules that don’t line up with the first of the month, work with them over a two month period to re-align them through a series of step payments.

How to deal with late payments.

Late payments are bound to happen from time to time. Even good tenants have family emergencies or payroll problems with their employer from time to time. It’s important to recognize this and understand that it costs money to replace these tenants. It’s usually easier and more cost effective to work with them to get things paid up.

Make sure your tenants know to give you a call if they are having trouble paying rent. If they feel comfortable calling you ahead of time it gives you more time to work out a payment arrangement. Have a late fee policy that is based on how many days late they are. It should a daily fee to ensure the earlier it gets in the less fees they will have to pay. If you issue a one time late fee of $25 when rent is late it wont matter to them if it’s late a few more days. We have a late fee policy of $5/day for the first 5 days late and $10/week after that. Once rent is late by 5 days we issue a termination notice for non-payment of rent. This lets the tenant know that we’re not kidding around. Once rent is paid in full this notice is automatically canceled (based on NB Residential Tenancies Act, check with your local rental laws).

Make it easy!

Above any beyond all else, make it easy for your tenants to pay their rent. We accept post dated cheques that can be dropped off or mailed to our office, in addition we accept money orders, and Interac debit payments (wireless debit at the door for easy collection). The benefit of money orders and debit payments is that they don’t bounce.

Bounced Cheques/NSF Fees

Bouncing cheques cost money for you and your tenant. It’s important that you tell your tenants to call ahead if they think their cheque might bounce. Although they may get stuck with a late fee, they wont have NSF fees on top of that. In addition to the NSF the bank charges, you should have an established NSF Fee to cover the fee charged by your bank (in some cases banks charge upwards of $50 on each end).

Deposits

Here in NB we have two types of deposits. First and foremost the security deposit and second the rental deposit. The security deposit is always held by the Office of the Rentalsman and it’s best to have the tenant deposit it to them directly (they will mail out a receipt). Rental deposit is collected to hold a rental unit for a prospective tenant and is non-refundable if they walk away (make sure you tell them this). Be sure to return this deposit if you decide not to rent the unit to them. Rental deposits are applied to the first month’s rent.

Too busy to collect?

If you find you’re too busy to collect, hire someone to do it before you. We offer stand alone rental collection for a flat fee. Other providers include accounting firms and collection agencies. To request rent collection service from Harrity Real Estate Services just contact us.

As 2009 comes to an end it’s a good idea to review the CMHC Rental Market Report to see what’s happened for the tail end of the year. Here are the highlights.

Vacancy Rate:

• In Ocober 2009 the vacancy rate for the Saint John Area rose to 3.6% from 3.1% last year.
• In Saint John City Proper, three of the four zones had a year over year increase. The uptown core remained the same at 3.3%, West Saint John up to 2.7, North Saint John up to 3.3% and East Saint John with the highest rate up to 6.3%. The outlying areas was up to 1.9%
• Although the vacancy rate rose this year, it’s the second lowest since 2000.
• National vacancy rate increased in October 2009 (Saint John 3.6, Edmonton 4.5, Toronto 3.1, Vancouver 2.1, Calgary 5.3)

Average Rent:

• The average rent was up by 4.2%, with the average rent at $613/month
• The average rent for the popular 2 bedroom apartments was up at 4.5% at $644/month

For full details download the pdf below, or visit www.cmhc.ca and subscribe.

Download (PDF, 2.14MB)

Effective December 30, 2009 Harrity Real Estate Services will be accepting Interac® for regular rent collection and other fees. At this time we will be accepting debit payments for rent at our office on the first and last Saturday of each month, from 9am until 12noon. A convenience fee of $2 applies to all transactions.

Why do we accept debit payments?

Debit payments are often easier for tenants as not all of them have personal cheques as we no longer accept cash for rent. Furthermore this eliminates bounced cheques which end up costing everyone money.

Why do we charge a convenience fee?

The cost of our wireless debit unit cost us some money to purchase. The convenience fee helps subsidize the monthly operating cost of the unit.

Do we take debit at the door?

We only accept debit at the door for disabled tenants or during collections. If a tenant is late on their rent we will visit them to collect it at the door, however a late fee will also be charged.

Do we take credit card payments?

We do not and will not be accepting credit cards for rent paid. In the future we may accept Visa® and MasterCard® payments for management fees.

*Please note that our office will not be open for payments during hours other than listed until further notice. Our office is closed for payments during holidays.

As our company grows and evolves we often sit back and evaluate the way our business runs and the systems that are put in place to ensure things are done correctly. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been taking a look at the past year and identifying our weaknesses and the points of our business where there is an opportunity for things to go wrong.

We have identified some key tasks that require new or updated written procedure. In the next couple of weeks we will be releasing the following new policy:

• Maintenance Policy – This policy will outline how maintenance, renovations and emergency services are carried out by our sub-contractors. It will define a clear policy for payment in regards to regular maintenance, renovations and emergency services.
• Rent Policy – Our current rent policy is being revised and will now include policy related to the remittance of rent, deductions from rent as well as new policy related to our accepted methods of payment.
• Collections Policy (Tenant & Owner) – Will outline late fees and Insufficient Funds charges.

By laying out a clear policy we hope to avoid errors and misunderstandings in our day to day operations. Property owners can review our policy online at any time. Please contact us to request login information.

I recently purchased an iPhone in an attemp to become more productive and hopefully cut back on operating expenses.

Right off the bat there are some things I really like about the iPhone:
- App from Ringcentral allows me to make calls from our toll free number on my cell.
- Skype provides an app which allows me to make phone calls over a wi-fi network. I pay only $2 each month for unlimited calls to anywhere in Canada and the United States.

There are all kinds of apps that help me be productive. In fact I’m using an app on my iPhone right now to write this post.

Here are my two main dislikes with it:
- No LED message indicator.
- No centralized inbox where I can view all my different message types in one spot.

I must admit, overall I’m pretty impressed. I think it’s worth the investment and will be a lasting addition to my collection.

Although Blackberry was designed for business, it certainly has some stiff competition.

Thanks for reading and happy holidays.