Landlord Quick Tip

Tip #206: It’s In The Mail!

If you ask experienced landlords what they do to get tenants to send rent checks on time, chances are they’ll point to one simple strategy: the SASE.

The self-addressed, stamped envelope is a long-treasured remedy — like chicken soup for a cold. While it won’t cure late payment fever, it can increase the odds that a tenant will drop the rent check in the mail without getting distracted searching for an envelope, a stamp, or the landlord’s address.

It even works if the tenant is home sick and can’t run out to buy envelopes.

Sometimes landlords offer tenants a stack of SASE’s only to have tenants misplace them. To fine-tune the SASE strategy, consider sending a new SASE along with a tenant invoice each month about ten days before rent is due. It’s a little extra cost, but it pays for itself in headache relief.

The one downside: you won’t get to hear all those interesting excuses for why the rent is late… again.

See last week’s Landlord Quick Tip.

American Apartment Owners Association offers discounts on products and services for landlords related to your rental housing investment, including rental forms, tenant debt collection, tenant background checks, insurance and financing. Find out more at www.joinaaoa.org.