Best Banks for Real Estate Investors

As a real estate investor, the bank you choose can make or break your ventures. 

And with the complexities of buying, selling, and rehabbing properties, you want a trusted lender with great terms and flexibility. 

Here’s our list of the best banks for real estate investors based on key factors like monthly fees, transaction fees, APY, minimum balance, and overall banking services. 

Best Banks for Real Estate Investors

• Baselane
• Axos Bank
• Stessa Cash Management
• LendingClub Bank
• JP Morgan Chase
• CitiBusiness Bank Accounts
• Wells Fargo

Best Banks for Real Estate Investors Compared

Bank	Monthly Fee	Transaction Fees	APY	Minimum Deposit
Baselane	None	None	4.46%	None
Axos Bank	None	None	None	None
Stessa Cash Management	None	None	up to 5.08%	None
LendingClub Bank	Nothing for account balances over $500. Otherwise, there’s a $10 monthly fee.	None	1.5% APY on balances up to $100,000 and 0.10% APY on the portion of the balance that’s $100,000 and greater	None. However, to avoid a monthly fee, you must maintain a $500 minimum balance
JP Morgan Chase	Free if you maintain a $2,000 daily balance. Otherwise, there’s a $15 monthly fee.	None	None	None. However, to avoid a monthly fee, you must maintain a $2,000 minimum balance
CitiBusiness Bank Accounts	Free if you maintain a $5,000 balance. Otherwise, there’s a $15 monthly fee.	None for up to 250 basic monthly deposits	None	$1
Wells Fargo	Free if you maintain a $500 balance. Otherwise, there’s a $10 monthly fee.	None for up to 100 transactions per month	None	$25

Baselane

Source: Baselane

“Banking, bookkeeping, rent collection, analytics, and more. The all-in-one financial platform to help you save time and increase returns.”

That perfectly summarizes Baselane’s value proposition. 

If you’re looking for absolute simplicity with real estate investing where you manage your money and keep a bird’s-eye view at all times, Baselane should definitely be on your radar. 

For starters, there’s no monthly fee, no transaction fee, and no minimum deposit, which is rare nowadays. 

Next, the hefty 4.46% APY is high-yielding. 

Note that Baselane also offers up to 5% cash back on debit card spending, which is a nice plus. 

So, right off the bat, this bank checks all the important boxes for real estate investors.

Besides that, we like how incredibly easy they make it to manage virtually every aspect of your business. 

Through analytics, for example, you can monitor cash flow, revenue, and expenses.

You can see all of your properties, including monthly rent, active leases, lease statuses, and a rent collection summary. 

There are also portfolio metrics like current market value, historical purchase value, estimated appreciation, and much more. 

Source: Baselane

Along with offering powerful banking, Baselane stops real estate investors from having to deal with numerous logins and old-school spreadsheets.

Instead, you can safely connect everything so that it’s integrated into one simple landlord financial platform. 

You can even automate rent collection so tenants can directly deposit funds into your bank account and you can conveniently keep track of all payments on each rental property.

Source: Baselane

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can get a full overview of Baselane and all of the other helpful features they offer here. 

Try BaseLane

Axos Bank

Source: Axos Bank

First, let us point out that Axos Bank has appeared on several of our top lists, including the best business bank accounts for an LLC, and they’re an all-around great bank/lender. 

Axos Bank has two different types of business checking account options for real estate investors. 

There’s Basic Business Checking, which is the one we’ll focus on here. There’s also Business Interest Checking, which offers up to 1.01% APY. 

While earning interest is nice, the reason we didn’t focus on this business checking account is because there are a lot of extra complexities that don’t make it quite as appealing. 

For instance, there’s a $100 minimum opening deposit compared to no deposit with Basic Business Checking. 

You must maintain at least a $5,000 minimum average daily balance to avoid a $10 monthly maintenance fee and more with the Business Interest Checking account. 

Because we value simplicity, we’re suggesting Basic Business Checking from Axos Bank, which has no monthly fee, no transaction fee, and no minimum deposit. There’s also a $200 welcome bonus. 

However, there is, admittedly, no APY, which may be an issue for some real estate investors. 

Here’s a list of other notable features of this business checking account. 

Source: Axos Bank

While Axos Bank is pretty straightforward and doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of Baselane, it’s solid for managing real estate investment and has a reputation for great customer service. 

Axos Bank is also a trusted lender with numerous other services, such as a savings account, conventional loan, and construction loan. They also offer personal loans, with most having a favorable loan term and interest rate from $7,000 to $50,000 over 3 to 6 years.  

So if you’re looking for a wide variety of financing to fuel your real estate investment, Axos is a great option to consider.

Try Axos

Stessa Cash Management

Source: Stessa

Although Stessa Cash Management is not technically a bank, as they are a financial technology company, they offer all the banking features you could want. 

And we chose them as a top contender for real estate investors for two main reasons.

One is the absence of a monthly fee or transaction fee and no minimum deposit. The other is earning up to a 5.08% APY. 

Besides that, Stessa Cash Management offers 1.1% cash back, making them an even more appealing bank for real estate investors. 

Here are some core features you should know about. 

First, you can set up unlimited free accounts with Stessa to optimize your business banking for each rental property or commercial real estate property with no additional cost or headaches. 

Source: Stessa

Next, you have access to real-time insights and financial reports for better real estate investment decision-making. 

And finally, there’s built-in expense management, which allows you to “speed up accounting by being able to tie purchases directly to a property when you use your Cash Management card.”

When you combine the lack of fees with excellent APY and other features, Stessa is an excellent choice for real estate banking.

We also like the simplicity of getting set up (it only takes a few minutes) and their selection of helpful resources like a blog, forum, and podcast for improving your knowledge of wealth management and enabling you to become a better real estate investor. 

Try Stessa

LendingClub Bank

Source: LendingClub 

LendingClub Bank offers a wide array of banking services for real estate investors, including high-yield savings accounts, lending, business credit cards, and financing.

But the primary service we’ll focus on here is their Business Banking account. 

To be fully transparent, their offer isn’t quite as enticing as other banks on this list, like Baselane and Stessa Cash Management, because the APY is significantly lower at 1.5% up to $100,000.

And while there’s no monthly fee if you maintain a minimum balance of $500, LendingClub Bank charges $10 a month if your balance is less than that.

With that said, we still consider LendingClub to be one of the best banks for real estate investors for a few reasons. 

One, the monthly fee can easily be avoided as long as you keep $500 in your account, there’s no transaction fee, and they still offer an APY, which not all banks do. 

Two, you can conveniently sync LendingClub with other finance/accounting software like Mint®, QuickBooks®, and Quicken®. 

Three, it lets you create and send digital invoices for quick online payments with Autobooks. 

Four, you “earn unlimited 1% cash back on qualified purchases made with your tailored checking debit card after meeting eligibility requirements.”

And finally, LendingClub Bank offers other great services like personal and business loans to ensure you have access to the cash flow you need to grow your real estate small business without having to jump from lender to lender. 

Try Lending Club

JP Morgan Chase

Source: JP Morgan Chase

Let us start by saying there is no interest on a JP Morgan Chase business checking account. 

And there’s also a $15 monthly fee if you fail to maintain a balance of at least $2,000.

While neither of these is ideal, there are several benefits of using this lender for banking and financing. 

First, the $15 monthly fee can easily be waived through one of the following. 

Source: JP Morgan Chase

As long as you meet any of these criteria each statement period, you don’t have to deal with any monthly fee or transaction fee. 

Next, you automatically earn $300 for opening a Business Complete Checking account with JP Morgan Chase with qualifying activities. 

This is, no doubt, an enticing offer that persuades many real estate investors to choose this for a business bank account over other lenders. 

Another nice perk is that they have Chase QuickAccept℠, which allows you to accept credit card payments for an investment property with no monthly contract or hidden fees. They even offer same day deposits at no extra charge.

That way you can quickly get paid by credit card, whereas many other banks don’t have this option.

Not only does this streamline payments on your end, it also makes it more convenient for tenants as well. 

Besides that, JP Morgan Chase has additional banking services that can help grow your real estate small business, including owning financing, a business credit card, a savings account, a commercial property loan, and more. 

Not to mention, they can connect you with a financial advisor to gain valuable advice on how to choose the right types of financing and optimize your real estate investing. 

Try JP Morgan

CitiBusiness Bank Accounts

Source: Citi

Like JP Morgan Chase, CitiBusiness bank accounts won’t overwhelm you with fees or a high APY.

CitiBusiness® Streamlined Checking, the particular account we’re focusing on here, has a $15 monthly fee if you fail to maintain a $5,000 balance, and there’s no APY. 

But we still chose it as one of the best banks for real estate investors because of the robust features for landlords and property owners. 

For starters, CitiBusiness makes it simple to collect and deposit rental property payments into a dedicated business operating account.

You can easily manage your daily transactions and set alerts to conveniently receive notifications through email or text. 

You can also use CitiBusiness to pay for real estate expenses, such as building equipment. 

You can easily make payments to employees like real estate managers and repair technicians while methodically tracking every detail for a clear understanding of your financial health. 

And you can control tenant sub-accounts to keep operations highly organized. 

Also, with Citi’s comprehensive features like mobile check deposit, bill pay, and tap-and-pay, you can accept numerous types of payments on an investment property, including through mortgage companies like Rocket Mortgage or an equal housing lender with zero hassle. 

While the lack of APY and monthly fee may not wow you at first glance, CitiBusiness bank accounts have a lot to offer in terms of real estate investor-centric features.

You can get a full overview of all the different accounts they offer here. 

Source: Citi

Note that they also have several other helpful services like wealth management, investor tools, investment property advice, and more that can be advantageous to newer real estate investors. 

Try Citibank

Wells Fargo

Source: Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is one of the biggest treasury services and has three business checking account options for real estate investors — Initiate Business Checking, Navigate Business Checking, and Optimize Business Checking. 

Source: Wells Fargo

The one we’ll discuss here is Initiate Business Checking, which is designed for newer real estate investors “seeking a stable foundation.”

Like the last few banks we’ve mentioned, there is a monthly fee if you fail to maintain a certain monthly balance ($500 for this particular business checking account) and there’s no APY, which can be a turnoff for some. 

But when you get past that, there are some definite benefits to choosing Wells Fargo as your bank. 

Their robust online and mobile banking platform, which includes mobile deposit and Bill Pay, along with their network of 12,000 ATMs around the US is a selling point. 

They make it simple to deposit checks, transfer money, and pay business expenses for easy employee payments and property maintenance.

They also offer customized cards and checks, which are perfect for building a small business brand.

Beyond that, Wells Fargo has one of the best fraud monitoring services among today’s banks, with around-the-clock monitoring and zero-liability debit card protection. 

So when you put it all together, it’s an attractive way to handle banking for many real estate investors. 

And as you might imagine, they offer a ton of other financial services, including everything from credit cards and savings to wealth management and investing that can help accelerate the growth of your real estate business.

Try Wells Fargo

How We Chose the Best Banks

We chose these banks based on six key criteria. 

• Little to no monthly fee 
• Little to no transaction fee
• APY
• Minimum deposit
• Features that are specifically beneficial for real estate investment
• Comprehensive services like loan options and savings that are helpful for real estate investing

A lender like Baselane, for instance, offers a healthy APY of 2.6%, has no monthly fee, no transaction fee, and no monthly deposit.

They also have an all-in-one platform that’s ideal for nearly all aspects of real estate investing. 

Another lender like JP Chase Morgan doesn’t offer any interest but offers a staggering array of features like Chase QuickAccept℠ for accepting credit card payments with no hidden fees and free same-day deposits. 

They also have plenty of other banking services like investment property loan options and business credit cards that are perfect for getting ahead with real estate investing. 

The main selling point of some banks is the lack of fees and APY, while the main selling point of others is the rich features and full line of services such as savings accounts, business credit cards, and a loan option (some are even hard money lenders that offer a hard money loan). 

Note that if you’re unable to get a bank account because of a negative banking history, poor credit score, or you owe another bank money, there are several second-chance banks available. 

You can find a list of our top 12 second-chance banks here. 

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re a new small business owner just getting your footing or an established real estate investor looking for financing for commercial real estate or a real estate investment trust, chances are you can find what you need with one of these banks. 

It just boils down to where you’re currently at and what your strategic goals are as a real estate investor. 

Also Read:

• Can I Open A Bank Account If I Owe Another Bank Money?
• Free Online Checking Account: No Opening Deposit, No Credit Check
• Disputing ChexSystems
• ChexSystems Removal: A Step-by-Step Guide
• How to Get Your ChexSystems Report Online
• 12 Second Chance Bank Accounts