I have had zero luck offering this. They can pay me with paypal, or zelle and use a credit card. Ideas? I literally have never had a single tenant pay with a cc?

we tried that years ago. NO way. Wasn't any interest until tenants started having financial problems-- then they wanted to pay with CC's.

We've found getting away from basics is deflecting from what we are doing-- doing being managing RE. Now we've turned into computer experts and account managers and budget planner for tenants. NAW not gonna do it.

Simple solution which we've been doing for many years. We give pay envelopes-- pre addressed. We also include a map to our PO. in the move in package.

Pay by check-- pay with MO- pay with certified funds-- all OK.

One things I done over the years is to ask the tenant/applicant if they don't have the funds in hand to pay the move-in fee's or rent, why not take the credit card to a local bank and get a "Cash Advance". Most cards offer an easy cash advance up to 20% of the credit card limit, or only 10% at a time.

I avoid credit cards because those charges can be clawed back for up to 6 months. Imagine a pissed off tenant deciding to dispute your last 6 months of rent and all of a sudden "ZIP" it's out of your account.

Oh sure, you can DISPUTE that, and it goes into an escrow account until the dispute is resolved, but who wants to wake up and find thousands of dollars pulled from their account, and maybe you get it back in 2-3 months...or maybe not!

They probably want the cashback or miles or points or whatever for a significant monthly expenditure. Because why not, right?

The biggest obstacle is going to be the fee, which, if they pay it, pretty much obliterates any benefit they get from the card usage, and if you pay it, giving someone a 3-4% chunk for the privilege of collecting your rent is going to add up pretty quickly.

I find that low-end clients only want this when they are in trouble. You don't want that.

I find that higher-end clients want this for the points. And I don't have a problem with that. But, those same people chasing credit card points (like I do, actually) are also smart enough to not pay an extra 2.5-3% to do so since that would remove any benefit from free points. So, they don't do it either.

In other words, no reason to take credit cards. You either get bitten by the low-end ones -- or you'd have to eat the fees for the higher-end ones so that they get their points. That's a lose-lose for the LL.

-John...

I’ve had a few prospects over the years ask about paying via credit card. I respond, “Sure, we can do that for an extra $40 per month to cover the credit card company’s fees.” (Or whatever 3% of the unit is.). I have never, ever, had one person express further interest in that offer.