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September 18, 2013

Cozy – Be a Better Landlord

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Although Cozy is best known for providing landlords with a way to collect rent online, the web-based platform actually provides a host of additional tools meant to improve the rental experience for both tenants and property owners.

Improve the quality of tenants at your rental properties by using Cozy’s screening tools before anyone sets a foot in your door. The platform’s renter application form provides landlords with all the most pertinent information at a single glance, and includes key features like email based employment verification and cross-referenced employment histories via an integration with LinkedIn. Once you’ve found the perfect tenants, it’s time to start collecting monthly rent. Create payment schedules, and email tenants through the Cozy platform to request payments each month. From the dashboard screen, you can see an overview of all your transaction activity, along with transaction histories separated by property.

Renters who pay rent through Cozy can say goodbye to paper checks, and pay online instead. They can also pay together with roommates. Cozy helps tenants easily (and evenly) split things like security deposits and prorated rent. Tenants can also set up automatic payments to go out to their landlords on the 1st or 15th of each month, ensuring they never get a ding on their credit reports from a missed or late payment.

Practical Uses:

  • Accept rent from your tenants online
  • Verify your tenants’ work histories via LinkedIn
  • Automatically pay your rent once a month
  • See when potential landlords have viewed your rental applications

Insider Tips:

  • Landlords can set up new tenants before existing tenants move out
  • Tenants have to agree to any rental price changes before they go into effect
  • Landlords can incorporate Cozy profiles into their property listings on sites like Craigslist
  • Payments are handled through the ACH network

What we liked:

  • Cozy streamlines the rent collection process for landlords
  • Potential tenants can see when landlords have viewed their applications
  • Roommates can fill out rental applications together
  • Rental applicants can create “Guest Passes” to share their Cozy profiles with prospective landlords

What we didn’t like:

  • Cozy is currently only available in the US

Alternatives:

Company Info:

  • Launched: 2012
  • Privately Held
  • Headquarters: San Francisco, CA
  • Founded by: Gino Zahnd and John Bragg
  • Web site: https://www.cozy.co

Costs:

  • Landlords pay $9 per unit, per month

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