Preferred Property Management

We were tenants/​clients for 3 years. We didn’t have any issues with the company. Our experience has been very positive. We had a decent house in a good neighborhood and any time we had a maintenance request it was answered and taken care of within a couple of days. The management Staff at the beginning was rough but the property manager and the rest of the staff have all been replaced within the last three years and everyone in the office now is very nice and we have had a easy time during the move out process. We were short on money for the carpet cleaning and they arranged to take it out of our deposit. I know a lot of people have had some bad experiences with this company but I can honestly say that we would recommend them to friends.

Aside from Bernie in the office… this is the most unprofessional business that I have ever encountered. I am from the West coast and have had my fair share of bad customer service. However, this place beats them all. I waited 2 weeks after moving in to have a faulty toilet fixed. The manager who turned over the keys decided, during the move-​in inspection, that the home was not fit to move in. So on the same day, which happened to be a Friday decided to call the cleaning contract to come clean it as I was moving in. Meanwhile he was stuck in N. VA traffic and did not arrive until close to 6 p.m. that night. Why wasn’t the home up to par prior to my receipt of keys? In addition, I had to go out and randomly attempt to open mailboxes with the key that was provided to my mailbox because nobody could tell me what my mailbox number was. It was a very uncomfortable feeling.
I am active duty, and in the witching hour of a government shutdown today, I call to inquire if there were any options I had in the event that I would not be able to pay full month rent on May 1, 2011. VICKI from accounting was so disrespectful when I was asking questions that my blood pressure rose and I began shaking on the phone. She was treating me as if I were a tenant trying to pull a fast one on them. One of the sales pitches was that they worked with military, which made me feel comfortable. Yet, I receive a response from Vicki that essentially implied that my landlord didn’t care and that I would receive an eviction notice if I was unable to pay full rent and that my service to this country was irrelevant to an extra ordinary event in our economic spiral. Was my landlord ever consulted… most likely… NOT.
SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY try to find a home that is not affiliated with this property management. But if the home is where you want to hang your hat ensure that you have a high level of patience and that the residence is in immaculate condition prior to move in.

It started out fine with a very kind Realtor showing us the property.
After that it was all downhill.
The office was disorganized or just technologically challenged and could not get us a copy of our lease before the signing day.
At the signing day the woman who met us at the house with the papers was not who we were told would meet us, and she was very pushy and abrupt. «I’ve already done the walk-​through, and taken pictures.» She said. Of course I still wanted to do a walk-​through and found more stuff wrong with the house than she had on the papers.
We felt rushed instead of being given time to read over every thing.
We also were not told that we had 5 days from signing to add any additional damage we found in the house to the paper work so that we wouldn’t be held accountable for it.
When we called about a week later with a list of issues they did add them to the paperwork, but they should’ve told us this up front!
Next, whenever we called with a problem (the house has not been maintained, so a lot of things go wrong) they immediately try to tell us some «quick fix» way of dealing with it. Unsealed windows leaking condensation? Oh, they say we should just wipe that up.
That is technically a water leak into the house and the landlord is definitely supposed to take care of the larger issue at hand– the bad windows.
Even when we had a big issue with the water heater, the landlord himself had to call me and hear from ME what was wrong with it, even though property management is supposed to handle everything.
They have been an absolute waste of «middle-​man» and I would much rather just deal with a landlord straight-​up.
I wish I knew of a Property Management company worth working with, because we are getting out of this lease ASAP.