Topic: Any ideas on how to encourage residents to pay on time?

Any ideas on how to encourage residents to pay on time? We’ve seen an increase in late payments recently

an early bird special. If you pay by this date, you will be entered to win *some cool prize here*. Or small incentives. Everyone that pays by this date gets blah blah blah.

They may be dealing with effects from the Government Shut down. It not only affected people that work directly with the government but those that work for businesses that support the government.

Do a rent contest. Everyone that pays their rent on time for the next 3-6 months gets put in for a drawing for a gift card, prize, money off rent or something like that

Do what we did. We increased late fees and got rid of the grace period. Rent is due on the 1st on the 2nd it’s late and there is a flat $50. On the 6th if it’s still unpaid it then goes to $25/day. On the 10th we file eviction and we charge you for that too. None of our assets do PTP or eviction holdovers. All of that cut down dramatically on our late payments.

I think this method is the most effective...spells out result of late payment and if followed without fail..builds in fee if they "have" to pay late...and they have incentive to NOT do that often if at all

Jersey would never go for it. We cant charge late fees until the 8th of the month. Courts are so backed up it takes almost 2 months to get a court date. By then they are 3 months in the whole. They go to the court, plead some ridiculous claim (last one was we refused to give them a mailbox key, which was not true and they had lived there for 3 years). The judge will then make payment arrangements. The resident wont pay and now we are almost 4 months into the process. Not a dome paid and they skip. Smh....

Debbie Haskell that’s insane. We actually have clauses in our leases (allowed per state law) that allow us to waive the 5 day waiting period for evictions. We get to go through justice of the peace he always sides on us since it’s always “non payment of rent” as cause for eviction. Of course I mean that doesn’t mean we are going to get the money owed to us but at least we can work on finding another tenant. The whole process takes about a week.

Perks to ppl who pay on time just like when you give them a prize for best porch balcony or decorations for festive days. Also I've seen initial late fees go up higher to avoid a tenant from paying late as wel

Raffle, everyone that pays on or before the 1st gets x amount off on next months rent

Early Bird raffles always work!

We find that late payers can be discovered during the screening process by validating and verifying income, and making sure that all applicants meet your income requirements. It’s amazing how many people inflate their income to rent an apartment. Also, be sure to check with their previous landlords, past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior.

Rent due on 1st late on 2nd, $75.00 and $5.00 a day thereafter. And don't comp any! When I move in new residents I explain the strict policy

Reach out to Tricia Ward about her Rent+ program. Rent payments aren’t reported to the credit bureau’s, so they don’t have much incentive to do the right thing. But if they want to improve their credit score, you can offer a program like Rent+ and get them to pay on time while making some extra $ through the revenue share. Basically, the renter pays a small fee, and their “on time” payments are reported, helping boost their credit scores.

A lot of these scream fair housing violations.... ...I’d say stay consistent. Absolutely no exceptions and explain why. Due on 1st, late on 2nd, 10% late fee on the 6th(that’s just our company policy). Eviction proceedings begin on the 20th (Tax Credit Property) and absolutely no exceptions for one but not for all. If you push filing a day back for one resident, then you must do for all. No waiving of any late fees and no accepting partial payments. For EVERYONE . And again, explain why it’s so important, more likely than not, they will level with you and try to make you happy by turning their rent in on time.
I think rewarding people for turning rent in early is not only not going to be effective, but can get you into trouble should a purple person get a prize and a green person should not. No go. Just go by the lease with zero exceptions! Leave it up to the court to decide whether or not the resident should stay or go or fees should be waived or not.

If you do the arly bird conest post the winner each month on your Facebook. Congratulations to .... for winning the March early bird contest and receiving a $ rent credit. Under that put it pays to pay your rent early.

Early bird rent payment competitions have one major flaw: The people that you want to pay early are the ones who cannot afford to do so for whatever life reason. They aren’t a bad idea if you are trying to get people to pay on the first that would ordinarily have paid on the second or third, but they won’t fix consistent late payments from people who are cash strapped, i.e. the same people you eventually file eviction on and then later dismiss.

Early bird drawings; up your late fee a bit and start calling, sending notes really frequently about balances. I wish all of the prop's did, but our most diligent still close out at -0- delinquent. Good luck :-)

As Long as they pay by closeout that’s extra income

Don't get me wrong, I love people that pay their bills on time, but if you want to pay late, I'll take that late fee all day long! Just please pay before I have to file. Lol!

Early bird contest $50 gift card

Show them the money! While they are sitting at your desk explaining why they are late again. Especially if they are late allot. Rent $850x10% late fees = $85.00 × late 6 times= $510. Sometimes this helps. Use whatever your late fee is.

Let them know that continued non-payment of rent is a lease violation for which we can decide to non-renew.

I'm not sure you should provide many incentives here. I would question the screening process

Have you considered Rent Reporting? Not trying to solicit on FB but if you are interested PM me. It encourages timely Rent payments and as an added bonus ancillary income to the property.

We have an early bird special. All residents who submit their payment on or before the 1st is entered into a drawing to win 100 off next months rent.

That eviction notice should be encouragement enough.

Thanks everyone! I loved all the ideas.
My boss did not like the idea of incentivizing rent payments because he doesn’t think people aren’t paying because they don’t want to, rather that they simply can’t. Because of that, we made some adjustments to our income requirements and screening process. We did, however, agree that there should be a thank you gift or something to that effect at renewal because I thought it was important to keep long term residents happy and feeling valued.
I also loved the idea of sitting down with the consistent late payers to see if there is something going on and what we can do to help since it is in both parties benefit.
Thanks again

Try a drawing for them to win something.. like a gift card to dinner, flat screen or tablet .. I did anyone pay there rent from the 1st thru 4th there name will be entered to win a gift card .. it helped .. some people that never paid on time actually paid on time..

Are you collecting late fees? Are they paying before it becomes problematic (as in seriously delinquent and having to file eviction)? If so sounds like just extra income to me..

#1 GET GOOD RESIDENTS
#2 Incentivise paying early. Discount the amount if paid before the due date, full amount on or after that day.
If you can't incentivise....you need late fees that are fairly significant.
...but if it's not in your lease/rental agreement, it's tough to rewrite after the fact.