Unfortunately most banks in my area don't offer cheques on personal accounts anymore. You can still cash them, but my bank hasn't offered cheque books on personal accounts in a good few years (and I think that's the same case for other banks in my area, too)
First a $40 fee just to swipe plastic is stupid, even VISA don't charge anywhere near that much for the card machine operator. Sorry you have to deal with that.
Also does the US not have smartphone banking apps? Do you have to pay fees for a bank transfer? Is it the landlord setting those fees? I'm confused how a free at point of use system is getting slapped with a fee.
Why does everyone in the US have to write cheques to eachother, wasting everyone's time going in person to the bank to cash them in? Even my employer just does a bank transfer to pay me my income.
Not 3 years ago, I had a landlord who was very low key and hands off. This was great in the sense that we could do whatever we wanted to the apartment and he wouldn't care, but we had to write him an actual check each month. Considering this apartment had everything we wanted with all the sprinkles for an incredible price, I was totally down to write a physical check if that's what the guy wanted. Plus you can typically get your bank to write and send checks automatically which we ended up doing after a while. Ended up staying for 5 excellent years! 10/10 would write checks again.
Sure it is. When you have a mortgage each payment is one step closer to not having a mortgage, and owning it outright. Every payment means you could pocket more if you sold.