Tenant real estate management with Cozy

In episode #626, Jason Hartman is joined by Gino Zahnd, the founder and CEO of Cozy Tenant Screening, Rent Collection & Self-Management. Zahnd discusses how Cozy can help both landlords and tenants.

 

The world’s stock market takes a dive

Jason opens the show with a discussion about the world’s stock markets and how they have loses approaching eight trillion dollars in just one month. Nervous investors have rushed out of the stock market and put money into government bond funds. It begs the question of how engineered these crisis’ are. Lets just toy with the conspiracy theory of one group running the world. This group wants to shift wealth from one group of people to another, run the world’s stock market and then sell all their stock at high prices to unload to the middle class investor. Sell it off and the market starts to tank. You’ve already moved your loses off, then that money pours into government bond funds. The money pours in there then the rationale is the market is down and we need to do something to fix it. You can control the flow of money—the supply and demand. The outcome is the rich get richer. They change the monetary and fiscal policy, so they print more money. Money creation, and what does that do? It creates inflation. There is no limit whatsoever to the amount of money creation and thus the amount of resulting inflation that can be created.

Save the date and educate

Don’t forget to save the date for Jason Hartman University to be held March 12 and 13 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Not only will it be an educational event, attendees may find some good skiing with not-so-cold temperatures.

For slides about the investment matrix, visit Jasonhartman.com/matrix. There you can get the slides that show you visually the way different investment vehicles act in the basic economic scenarios—inflation, deflation and stagnation.

Taking a deep dive into Cozy

Guest Gino Zahnd explains what Cozy actually is. It’s a very simple to use service for landlords, property managers and their tenants to do everything from paying and collecting rent, rental applications, tenant screening , background. It’s the one-stop shop for running rental business.

He and a business partner launched Cozy in July 2013 and it’s now used in 4,000 cities across the US.The idea was born from a lot of miserable experiences. It started in 2009 when Zahnd experienced frustration upon moving several times. When in 2011 he was moving again, a landlord accidentally ran his credit score six times, negatively impacting his credit report. That made him angry enough to think he could do something about it. He and a business partner launched Cozy in July 2013 and it’s now used in 4,000 cities across the US.

 Cozy for tenants

Tenants can go to Cozy when they want to find a new place, and can fill out an application. The beauty of cozy is as a tenant you never have to give someone your social security number. The tenant runs his or her own credit report and shares it as part of the application process.

Jason asked if it a prospective tenant can ask a real estate agent or property manager to use Cozy. Zahnd said absolutely; a lot of listing agents use only Cozy’s screening tools.

Cozy for landlords

Landlords use Cozy in two big ways. It’s both a screening tool and can be used for rent payments and collections. There area number of ways people use Cozy. A landlord can go to Cozy and get a unique URL. That link can be placed in any ad, such as Craigslist, and tenants can apply from that link. There is no application fee for the tenant and none for the landlord. The tenant pays for a credit report and background check.It costs $34.95 for the bundle and the tenant controls that information so it can neverbe used for identity theft.

The tenants who really want a place are going to pay for their credit report and background check, and that makes good tenants bubble up to the top, Zahn said.

How does Cozy make money?

Jason was curious as to how Cozy makes money if neither the landlord or tenant is charged a fee. Zahnd said his company makes money by moving money directly from one bank to another. He added that the company moves about a quarter billion a year. Volume is how he is able to make a profit. Cozy doesn’t need to charge a fee to transfer the funds because the transfer fee is minimal.

Collecting rent through Cozy

For new tenants a landlord can easily set up so have payments made though Cozy. Landlords can also switch current tenants to Cozy. It’s a simple process to set up in either situation. It runs automatically each month and will send out a reminder in advance that the rent is due. The system also lets the landlord know when the rent in on the way to their bank account.

Thegoal is to build the best one-stop service to run a rental business. The exit is really not relevant at this point. We’re growing fast, we’re making money.

The future of Cozy

Zahnd said Cozy is growing and there are many plans in the future to help both real estate investors and tenants. Among the company’s goals are the offering of renters’ and liability insurance. Zahnd said it’s an opportunity for the company to make a positive impact.

For now, Cozy has just launched a new app for landlords. Those interested can visit Cozy.co for more information on the app and all of the services they offer.

More from Jason Hartman:

Joshua Crumb- Inflation, Deflation or Stagnation. BitGold and GoldMoney

Nationwide Property Insurance Made Easy

The Jason Hartman Team

Creating-Wealth-Show-logo-itunes-150x150-20151