We’re Not Gonna Pay Rent … By Check

Is there a better alternative than writing a rent-check out by hand every month? Pacific Standard takes a look at the pros and cons of paying by credit card and app:

For many people, rent is their single largest expenditure of the month. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to pay by credit card and accrue whatever type of points you can get? The average price of a studio in Brooklyn is $2,000 a month, which would amount to, if like me you wanted to use a United Airlines card, 24,000 miles per year. (I know, I know.) That’s just about enough for a round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles in January …

70 percent of renters pay by check, but the number of paper checks decreased from 41.9 billion in 2000 to 18.3 billion in 2012. Companies realize there’s an opportunity, and they are flocking into the market to take advantage.

As the writer illustrates, though, every method has its downsides. Have you tried any of the rent-paying apps out there or gotten in on the paying-by-card-to-collect-points game? Do you just pin your dollars to a bulletin board and hope they get where they’re supposed to go? And how many songs from the show “RENT” do you still remember all the words to?

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