Urbanr is a new service that allows renters to pay their rent with a credit card. They charge a 1.5% fee and accept Visa, Discover & Mastercard. Property managers can also opt to pay a portion or all of this fee if they so choose. You’re also allowed to split your rent into up to three different cards per transaction. Unfortunately it looks like as a renter you can sign up for the service, but you have to invite your landlord to join and they must do this for the transaction to work.
The drawcard to competing services such as Plastiq, RadPad & RoomiPay is that your landlord doesn’t need to sign up. The services simply cut a check to your landlord. Urbanr deposits the rent directly, so if your landlord doesn’t sign up there is no way to process the transaction. Getting your landlord to sign up for a program like this is never easy, there is little added benefit for them (apart from maybe receiving payments on time more often) but maybe this requirement will make this 1.5% rate more sustainable long term.
VFTW has organized a sign up bonus for his readers as well, so head over to his post for more information on that. It’ll be interesting to see how these purchases code, what cards will earn at bonus rates?
anyone succeeded to add an owner/landlord that is not private person, but a property management company (kind of “NNN Realty Group LLC”)? They request specifically a FirstName/LastName…
DP: didn’t code as travel on CIP
What was the coding?
I’m not sure how to find the actual code, I looked on the visa supplier locator and couldn’t find it. Chase just shows it as miscellaneous
typo in 2nd paragraph – “you’re”
“My name is Gabriel. We are so glad to have you as a customer at urbanr.com! I am reaching out from our compliance team and have a quick follow up regarding your request to pay rent online through Urbanr. We noticed that the names of both the tenant and landlord are similar. Could you be so kind as to provide a dated & signed copy of the lease? In cases where the last names of counterparties match we require additional documentation for our Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. We, unfortunately, can only process rent payments on apartment leases. Thanks for understanding and I truly appreciate your time. Sorry for any inconvenience.”
Their website looks totally fly by night and has virtually no details on their policies… One thing I did notice was that they have a co-mingled account – so that if something goes wrong, the landlord may never see their money… As a landlord, I’d stay far away from this.
Even as a tenant it may not be a good idea. If things go south with the landlord, a cancelled check is hard to dispute. With a payment service, what do you do, save a screenshot of the website? What if you paid but landlord claim the payment wasn’t received? What a mess.
Renter- Husband
Landlord- Wife
Easy MSR/MS at 1.5%
but do they send 1099
Only if the landlord makes $20k or 200 transactions or lives in VT or MA.
This will only interest me if they take Amex.
Amex cards (more specifically, MR cards) are the only ones that require 100% organic spending to me. For the rest I’ll just take the same old routes.
Amex not allowed
This thing is dead — they require landlords to ONLY accept payment through their platform if they sign up. “TENANTS MAY NOT PAY THE LANDLORDS BY ANY OTHER MEANS OTHER THAN THE SITE AND LANDLORDS MAY NOT ACCEPT SUCH PAYMENT. ”
Good luck convincing a real landlord
Not to mention that’s illegal at least in California. Landlords have to accept at least two forms of payments, including one cash equivalent (i.e. check or ACH).
Thanks for the info
I couldn’t find that rule on their web site – can you link to where you found it?
WHAT ARE YOU QUOTING? You are just making things up at this point @Frank
its hilarious to see so much of this Pokemon Go type of “Me Too” fad totally saturate the market. everybody wants to be the middle man for CC rent payments and jump on the “travel for free” train. Last time it was the All In One CC where many failed. Then you have Uber of XYZ. Then you have the crypto currency craze where everyone and their stupid dog who didnt understand shit wanted in. Now everyone lost money. Will see where this goes. SMH.
…..wut
“Now everyone lost money”
Not sure what he means since all major cryptos are still up a very large amount since last year. What happened in Q1 2018 was just a normal market correction. Crypto is still very healthy.
Oh….you. You sheople are everywhere. Unapologetically outspoken and deppressingly ignorant at the same time. Me? I’m approacing my seventh year as a professional OTC (and margin) crypto trader. To put it bluntly, I make a substantial living for my family and I and gosh, it’s been just a swell time. From my initial purchase of 100BTC at UNDER $100/per (do the math, Ninjaboy), to owning a “small” crypto business today, good time all around. I’m not going to waste TOO much time with you…I’m actually working right now as it were. But this “craze” or “fad” or (my personal fave) “ponzi scheme” or “bubble”…whatever misnomer you choose to use….it’s not going anywhere. No bubble burst. No passing fad. Ponzi scheme? That one’s particularly funny considering the brilliant individual(s) who gifted the world this burgeoning financial technology has/have access to over $10BILLION worth of the first mined coins. With blockchain the public ledger that it is, we can all see that all of it has remained in the same spot. Untouched. Ten years, not on “satoshi” (think of it like a penny, bruh…it’s Bitcoin’s penny) touched. That’s a helluva way to get rich off a “ponzi scheme”. AMIRITE? I could pick. you. the f. aprart, sheep. But you’re not here to defend yourself and your stupid ilk. So I’ll get back to my “sh1t”. I’ll leave you with a quote from the great thinker, Austin Millbarge: “We mock what we don’t understand.” Perfect. Succint. True.
Do they send 1099s? If not, I’m signing up.
This kind of comment aleays makes me laugh. Just do your taxes and claim it easy. Income and expenses.
Nah, people want to churn. Hubby – landlord, Wifey – tenant. Easy churn at 1.5%. But you don’t want 1099 because you can’t explain this one away easily.
This guy gets it!