Landlords to Accept Credit Card Payments for Rent

The Mortgage-Pro · Site Admin Joined: 19 Jan 2005 Posts: 2248

By RAY A. SMITH
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Credit-card companies have long pushed to get landlords to accept their cards for rent, and recently they have made it easier for owners and managers to accept cards. Consumer advocates, worried that tenants will dig themselves deeply into debt, have fought against the practice.

Tenants, meanwhile, appear to be ignoring the battle and for the most part are still paying their rent by check. The residents who do charge their rent generally do so once in a while, often during the December holidays when they are tight on cash.

"What we are finding with credit cards more residents are using that for one-time, rather than monthly occurrence, like the security deposit or the application, we're not seeing them use their card every month for rent," says Lyn Lansdale, vice president of strategic business services at AvalonBay Communities Inc., an Alexandria, Va., apartment real-estate investment trust that now accepts MasterCard and Discover throughout its portfolio of 148 properties.

Full article:http://www.realestatejournal.com/columnists_com/buildingvalue/20050512-buildingvalue.html