How to collect rent & Minimize Delinquency: 5 Tips

How are your manufactured housing community managers doing collecting residents’ rent? As we begin to close out this calendar year, some of your critical Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are your end-of-month and end-of-year delinquency percentages. We’ve put together this guide for minimizing rent payment delinquencies and improving your ability to get paid on time.

PROVIDE A VARIETY OF PAYMENT OPTIONS

• How many payment methods do you currently offer your residents?

• Do you have a Resident Portal that accepts payment?

• Do you accept electronic payments via credit card, EFT/ACH, Pay by Text, and Check Scanning?

• Are residents able to pay with cash directly or through a third party?

• Do you offer residents tools like Flex - where you get paid by Flex on the first of the month, then the resident repays Flex twice over the course of the month?

• Will you accept partial rent payments? And will your property management software be able to accommodate that sort of complex payment method?

• Of all these options, are you able to track how residents have paid each month?

UPDATE YOUR LATE FEES

• When was the last time you reviewed your late fees?

• Is your late fee encouraging residents to pay on time?

• Is your late fee automated?

CONSIDER PAYMENT AGREEMENTS

• Do you currently allow payment agreements?

• If so, what is your process? Does it need to be formalized?

• Are there verbal or written agreements with residents?

• Do you have clearly defined guidelines like limiting terms to no more than six months and always requiring current rent to be paid?

• Do you have a software tool that tracks your payment agreements?

STREAMLINE THE EVICTION PROCESS

• How quickly are you resolving delinquent residents?

• When residents fail to pay on time, are you tracking all the legal details in their online resident file?

• Can you run a report with all required legal details at the property or company level?

• How long does it take you to evict?

• Are your managers staying on top of the eviction process, moving delinquent residents out as quickly as possible?

IMPROVE YOUR REPORTING

• Can you quickly look up this year’s delinquency percentage versus last year’s percentage?

• How is each property and region doing compared to last month’s percentage?

• Do you see trends this year that impact your budgeting for next year?

There’s a lot to consider, and it’s nearly impossible to track all these details manually. ManageAmerica not only prepares and delivers fully integrated bills (print or electronic) directly to your residents but also offers a wide range of payment modalities for residents, all of which are seamlessly integrated into the resident ledger system so that all payments are recorded and processed with ease.

Whether the payment is made by the resident online or in person, on a one-time or recurring basis, funds are typically received in the owner’s bank account within two business days. The more payment methods you offer, the higher your chances of getting paid on time.

ManageAmerica’s robust system can easily assess late fees, generate payment agreements via our manufactured housing software solutions, automate the monthly payment agreement arrangement, store signed documents, thoroughly track the steps and legal requirements of an eviction process, and easily report end-of-month and end-of-year delinquency percentages.

These are just some of the ways ManageAmerica can streamline your property management. Schedule some time with us to talk about what else we can do for you.