I’ve now spent a couple months working with it and have given a full review of the features, along with some analysis below.
For Landlords
Cozy Property Management helps you showcase your rental with photos, lists of amenities and lease terms along with important specifics such as pet policies. You then can share the listing in any social media or email via a link. Cozy will also broadcast your listing with 3rd party sites such as Realtor.com and Doorsteps as an added bonus.
One service that Cozy charges landlords for currently is the rent estimate feature. For $19.99, you’ll get a recommended rent estimate for your rental property based on comparable rentals in the area, along with a confidence score for that estimate. I did not use this feature as I felt comfortable setting my own rent amount, however, it’s a nice feature if you’re not confident what the correct rent amount should be.
Applicants can apply directly with their full Cozy Renter Profile. All the information is in one place. Quickly see employment, salary, residential history, credit report and references.
Cozy offers a credit and background check screening tools that are free for the landlord. They cost the applicant $24.95 each or $39.99 for both. Applicants run their own reports so they don’t have to provide sensitive information to the landlord to run the checks.
Set your rent amount, due dates, move-in charges and deposits, and invite your tenants to pay. Tenants can set up recurring rent payments, pay one-time charges, and never have to worry about mailing you a check again.
Cozy has partnered with Assurant, a national insurance provider, to offer affordable, comprehensive renters insurance. When setting up a lease you can specify whether you require the tenant(s) to have renters insurance. They will then have to link their renters insurance policy to the lease to verify proof of insurance.
Track expenses per property, assign tax categories to them, and attach images or receipts. You can also export your expenses, which are summarized by property and tax category, in CSV and PDF formats.
Tenants can request repairs from any device with detailed information, including photos and videos. You can also create requests to notify tenants about the status of repairs and contractor visits.
For Renters
All your information in one place. When you’re looking for your next place, you can share your Cozy Renter Profile with any landlord. Your profile goes wherever you go. Fill out your profile once, but feel free to update it anytime. Only people you share your profile with will be able to see it.
You can setup automatic monthly payments, which mean you never have to worry about forgetting to send your rent. It’s free when you use your checking account. Multiple tenants can also split up rent payments.
Cozy has partnered with Assurant, a national insurance provider, to offer affordable, comprehensive renters insurance. You can link your renters insurance to the lease to verify proof of insurance.
When you choose to report your Cozy rent payments to Experian RentBureau, you can build your credit history just by paying your rent.
Final Thoughts
The last thing I wanted to stress out about being a long distance landlord, was scheduling and collecting monthly rent checks. The application and screening tools saved me time and made the rental process much more seamless, both for me and my tenants. It takes 3-5 days for rental payments to be processed. Cozy does offer an expedited payment process for a few dollars a month. I don’t really care if I get my rent payments in 5 days instead of 2 or 3 – so it’s not really worth it to me.
I’ve been very impressed with Cozy since I started using it. The one thing you can’t do is any sort of lease management. You still need to create or use another third party software to generate a lease. However, they have been listening to their end users. There has been a lot of requests for lease management features, and Cozy has recently updated their software to allow the ability to upload and attach documents to a property listing. So now I can upload my signed lease agreement and store it along with all other property information for easy access.
My needs as a single property landlord are pretty simple. If you have a lot of properties perhaps you have more robust property management needs beyond what Cozy can offer. But if you’re like me with 1 rental property or just a few, I would not hesitate to recommend Cozy.