One of the most frustrating parts of being a landlord is chasing tenants for the rent each and every month.  It almost becomes a job in itself, and I am sure that is not what we all signed up for.  I discovered a technique that has significantly dropped the number of late rent payments every month; do I have your attention yet?

Offer free basic cable with your rentals with the stipulation that the rent is paid on-time.  If the rent is paid late the cable service is disconnected.  Not only can you charge a late fee you can also charge a cable re-connection fee.  You can negotiate with local cable companies to receive a discount on multiple addresses.  You can absorb the cost of the cable service with a minimal increase in your initial rent offered.  In this tough rental market it may also serve as an incentive to help fill your vacancies.  We all know with today’s economy we do not like to raise the rents in fear we may lose good qualified tenants.  We sometimes feel like we are punishing them for paying their rents on-time.  You can implement this on current rentals by informing the tenants that there will be a rent increase.  I represent myself as an employee of a management company.  So it’s not me raising their rents it is a nameless, faceless, owner (or an LLC).  I am the good guy. I bring them a turkey at Christmas if they have a good payment history that year.  I inform them that the rental increase is out of my control!  What I was able to do to offset this is offer the free basic cable (with the on-time payment stipulation).  I get them to pay for the cable service and now I have that proverbial carrot to dangle over their heads if their rent is late.  It’s not me disconnecting their cable, it’s the fact they are late on the rent.  I sometimes receive calls asking what happened to the cable service.  I act like I don’t know what is going on and simply ask, “Did you pay your rent?” If they say no, I tell them it is out of my control and when the monthly rent, late fee and cable reconnection fee is paid, it will be turned back on.  My late rents have dropped significantly since implementing this about a year ago.

Chris Yatooma, Vice-President