Windermere Property Management/JMW

I wish I could give zero stars. I am appalled by the lack of professionalism exhibited by Windermere. Over a week ago, boyfriend and I applied for a rental that was being managed by Windermere Property Management. When you are looking into spending $ 18,000 a year on your living space, you expect prompt responses and a degree of respect from those handling the property. Not to mention that we plunked down over $ 70 in application fees. We received NO response whatsoever. I resorted to checking Craigslist to see if the property was still being advertised and it said the author of the post had deleted it (it didn’t just expire). I also checked the status on the Windermere site and it said it was «pending.» I called the agent at Windermere and of course it went straight to voicemail. He never returned my call. I am never consulting with Windermere again for any real estate matter. They are rude, have dreadful customer service, and clearly don’t care about follow-​up or potential customers.

Horrible to work with. We did a job for Andrea Jacobi over a year ago fixing up one of the properties, and are still pursuing payment today. What makes it even more sad that the amount is only a couple of hundred dollars. We have reached out numerous times and have received a response from her saying she will pay, but has not done so. Our only option now is to pursue the money through small claims court. If you are a contractor I would think twice about doing work for her.

As a renter of one of Christy Rice’s and Windermere Property rentals, I was extremely disappointed in the readiness of the condo upon move in, payment options, and lack of professionalism, and outright underhanded business practices shown by Christy. By looking at posts and low ratings on Unilocal — our experience as a renter is quite common (when this was posted 1.5 stars). As I was reminded by Christy, renters are not their concern, they are focused in taking care of the owners’ interests. Lesson learned — think about that carefully if you are planning to rent a property from Christy or Windermere.
— Readiness of condo on move in
Carpets were extremely stained
Walls had nail holes, pencil marks, and scuffs
Worst of all — huge gas leak in outside closet water heater. Smell was quite intense — so not sure how this was overlooked. We had to pay PSE for repairs and this money was taken off of our next months’ rent (so loaned them the money for 5 weeks essentially)
— Payment options and receipts
Options to pay: ACH or Certified Check/​Money Order. No online bill pay (surprising in this day and age).
§ ACH issues — We had sufficient funds in the account, but Windermere transaction did not go through — our bank never even saw the request. After paying $ 50 twice for the failed transactions 2 days in a row without determining who’s side this was failing on — we could only use certified checks/​money order.
No secure drop-​box provided. Like numerous other tenants — had to shove payment under the door.
§ Verbatim response — «Good thing no one stole the checks the last 10 months! It’s on a busy road.»
We were notified that none of our Aug payments had not been received 10 days after the 1^st of the month. Payment was made on time — magically, one of the 2 cashier’s checks was ‘found’, but the other was not. Had to go through the process of stopping payment on the check, was charged a late fees and lawyer fees totally nearly $ 200. If receipts were provided, 10 days would not have gone before we were notified and maybe the other check would have been ‘found’ too.
For the first 10 months, no receipts were ever provided and to be fair we didn’t request them. However, after issues with the Aug payment, we requested receipt of payment. When asked, and by law required to provide when requested, Christy argued why they couldn’t provide one. Eventually, receipts were provided but I’m still not clear why that was such a hard request to grant without argument.
— Read the rental agreement closely (which you receive AFTER submitting your application)
If you need to get keys to move in after hours or weekends they charge $ 250, even though day 1 of the rental falls on the weekend.
Upon submitting 30 day notice, even though this is still your home, if you can’t accommodate a showing it’s a $ 150 charge.
When the rental was vacated, like many other renters who have posted here, they kept the entire $ 2200 security deposit. They charged us for pre-​existing stains though noted in the move in checklist, paint, normal wear and tear and legal fees that were not specified. When we disputed the first bill they sent us a second one with even higher fees and an ‘offer’ to settle at just the security deposit and not ding our credit. When you read the posts — seems a very familiar deceptive business practice used by Windermere and totally unethical.

We’ve rented a property from them for a while now. The first agent we were given was amazing. But of course, she moved on to greener pastures and the quality of service we’ve received since she’s left has greatly suffered.
We get a response probably 10% of the time. The rest of the time our emails are simply ignored without response.
Our current agent is Christian. Like I said, his response rate is pretty low. The admin assistant Eddie is even worse. A response rate of 0% at this moment.
The only people who ever respond to us are the ones not directly employed by Windermere, such as repair personnel. It’s just pretty sad that real estate agents and companies take advantage of how desperate people in Seattle are to find a decent place. They know they can get away with treating you poorly because they are the gatekeepers to real estate that is dwindling.

We’ve been renting a property managed by this office for 18 months, and have found Windermere to be nearly as unresponsive as a direct absentee landlord.
When we ask for repairs, they requests simply go off into the ether; without ever a response about «no, the owner won’t fix that» or a «the owner doesn’t have to fix that.»
In the one case where a problem was fixed, we were not notified at all that it was going to be handled and by whom, or when, or how, until a crew showed up at the house without notice at 8am with orders that were not ever discussed with us as to the impact of what they were told to do (which wasn’t correct in our opinion, and more importantly never even discussed with us when it came to removing a large portion of a 130′ tall tree on the property).
When they do show up, they show up unannounced and with no notice; which we’ve always accommodated even though it’s clearly spelled out in the lease that they are to give us 24 hours notice before showing up.
Thankfully, we set up getting our bills delivered from the city to stay on top of the utilities, as the office routinely forwards city bills to us after their due date.
I have no idea how they work with actual property owners, but if their work with the renters is any indication; I would not consider them for managing rental properties of my own if we had them.

My review comes from the perspective of a long distance property owner. Windermere does a good job of finding renters, but they charge a lot for that and provide little to no service after. I had to consistently pay my tenants water bill (with late fees) because my property manager couldn’t be persuaded to get the bill to them (despite assurances that he would) and it would fall back on me as the owner. I received a fairly steady stream of questionable charges, including a $ 550 charge when I asked to have the lawn mowed after the tenants moved out (invoice indicates the mower also trimmed some branches and cleaned the gutters without asking; maybe 5 hours of work). You’d be wise to look elsewhere.

BEWARE, THEY ARE THE WORST! Absolutely no professionalism here. This company is negligent to say the least. It took them 6 months to take care of the rat infestation, one year to repair the dishwasher and they replaced the failed water heater with a smaller unit (30 gal less) essentially making the hot water all but nonexistent. Poor communication. Disrespectful and combative staff. I made it a point to document every single interaction I had with this company and was able to catch them in multiple lies. All of this has led to the property owner firing this company and making me the property manager. As a contractor, a renter and a property manager I would not recommend this company under any circumstances save if you’re feeling masochistic for they will provide ample torture for you.

Andrea Jacobi never had our lease notarized (in other words we never protected by a real lease!), and working with her was really disappointing. She was in Hawaii at least once a month and had her assistant do all the heavy lifting — often this was at a snail’s pace — even when we were paying over $ 5K in rent a month — and even when there were rats infesting the property we rented. She CANNOT be described as detail-​oriented when it comes to maintenance, contracts, or communication. I believe the only reason she gets work is that she was/​is part of the Jacobi family, which owns Windermere.

Although the other Unilocal reviews are not great, I can say that Christy Rice is fantastic and I highly recommend her services!
When our landlord backed out of our lease at the last minute after we paid and set up our move, Christy sprang into action searching high and low for a home to accommodate out needs. And since we were relocating from California, she went out of her way to video properties and sent us the movies so we could make an informed decision on available homes. She also verified other agents’ credentials to protect us from fraud and provided us with constant communication, great information on homes and area locations, and valuable advice with schools and commuting. She was great to work with.
It is obvious that not only does Christy know the market but she definitely cares and operates with high morales and compassion. I would recommend her to all of my friends and family.

This particular Windermere office (Windermere Property Mgmt– Seattle NOT Lori Gill’s offices) is a really good office. Nobody works harder than Andrea Jacobi for the owners she represents both in terms of making sure the laws are followed and in terms of making sure the properties are well-​maintained in a cost-​effective manner. She’s amazingly conscientious, very direct and efficient, and knows her business well.
Some of these reviews by tenants might be a little unfair. First of all, while it’s the property manager’s duty to make sure the rights of tenants are being met, they represent the property owner— and sometimes a tenants’ wants/​needs are different from an owner’s wants/​needs. Additionally, this office represents pretty desirable properties that rent quickly which is probably frustrating to those who are in competition with other tenants to get a property. And finally, I know they have to turn a lot of applications down because the applicants’ credit isn’t up to par… and I’m sure it’s upsetting to people who really want to rent a place but don’t have the credit to get it.
Just my two cents to keep in mind as you read the reviews.

If I could put 0 stars, I would. My experience with Windermere was everything less than excellent. The woman who I unfortunately had to work through directly, Rebecca, seemed nice enough during our initial meeting. After renting a house, and being stuck in the lease, I soon realized that this company must hire only those whose resumes state «blood sucking vermin» at the top. I was cheated out of more than $ 1,000 within the first month of leasing through this company. Don’t worry, when old houses from the 1940’s begin to fall apart, it is your duty as the tenant to pay for the repairs as if it is your own home. This may be a false statement according to law, but apparently Windermere thrives their business under this philosophy. They will do anything to steal your money, and sleep happily with it at night. I look forward to NEVER working through the South Lake Union Windermere ever again, and for that matter Windermere in general. It is too bad that a name you hear as a common property management company is worse than the people who may be posting to lease on Craigslist.

From reading other Unilocal reviews about this place I should’ve known not to trust the word of anyone who works here. I was supposed to pick up something from this office and asked them to notify me by email if the item was no longer available. When I showed up it was no longer available and I had already wasted 30 minutes crossing town to get there. I am glad I never have to do rental business with this company ever.

This review is for Jeannette Requa:
My wife and I were looking at rentals and Jeannette took our applications and $ 60 application fee and never returned our calls or called us back. Not sure if this is how Windermere’s other employees do business but she seemed very unprofessional. We’re not even sure if she ran any background check with our fee or just kept our money.

As so many renting through them have said, «If I could give no stars, I would». We rented through them for 4.5 years. Four and a ½ years of a «high end» rental that on two separate occasions resulted in NO REFRIDGERATION FOR A MONTH. I shit you not. The second time it happened two weeks into it they «let» us use a tiny dorm refridge. Both times resulted in $ 100’s of dollars of food thrown out; with NO compensation. .
They have a very convoluted process for repairs; an online form; and, of course, no one will address things on weekends.
ANY REPAIR WILL TAKE WEEKS.
To add to the final straw; when we moved; they repainted the house and told us we were responsible because we had «damaged» the walls. We are professional adults; no kids; no pets; we don’t smoke. We traveled frequently; the house was empty at least a week a month; it was very lightly used. When we moved in; we had complained about the paint; and they had done a HORRIBLE job of some paint touch ups; we kept the emails from our move in; detailing out concerns about the horrible paint touch ups.
It didn’t matter; corporate still charged us $ 1,200 for inside painting. We also had the house professionally cleaned; and for this lightly used; professionally cleaned house, we were still charged cleaning fees!
I suppose we could have gone to small claims court; I am quite sure we would have won. But who has time for that BS?
And; re: the person who claims to be a «contractor». WHAT EVAH.
I am a landlord myself; of over 20 years duration; and when a fridge is broken…
I FIX IT THE NEXT DAY. I pay for the wear and tear and repainting per WA state law.
The only time I kept any portion of a deposit was when there were holes in the wall; and the dog chewed a hole in the rug.
Keep in mind that while this office is horrible (I haven’t mentioned how rude our agent was); Windermere property management will have the same policies no matter which office you use…
DO NOT USE WINDERMERE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT.
(Unless you like being disrespected; and losing thousands of dollars. If so, go right ahead…)

If I could give less than one star, I would. We are current tenants and our property manager is Gary V. It has been a stressful experience since moving in. It is exhausting dealing with this company. We had a dispute over a water bill with previous tenants and he forwards their unprofessional comments to us as if we are to fight it out among ourselves. During check in at the house, he noted the weather stripping hanging outside from the front door and other issues, but it is obvious to me from the issues noted and a call made about another issue in the house since move in that we are on our own. We have had a woodpecker issue since move in and now, ants. He comes out and hangs a party balloon on the house which is supposed to scare away the woodpecker. This is not 10 feet from a real balloon hung by a pest control company to scare away woodpeckers. Now we have a deflated party balloon hanging from the outside and still a woodpecker pecking on the metal part of the chimney in early mornings! Perhaps woodpeckers are not easily deterred by balloons. There are electrical problems in the house and neither the outside or inside has been maintained in quite some time. Of course, the 30 pictures that they put online when I rented the house were from quite a while ago. The fence outside is falling apart. We have people walking to school next door throwing the pieces of fence that have fallen off back over into the yard. I have rented before, but never from such an unprofessional organization. I am also a homeowner with a house in Michigan and I hope that a property management company would take better care of my property. I wouldn’t recommend them to a homeowner that wants to protect their investment nor to a renter. At this point, I very much regret not reading the reviews here first. I got a job in Seattle and had to relocate here quickly. I am seriously wondering how much of this I am willing to take before just breaking the lease and buying a house. The situation here just makes me feel physically ill.

I am in shock reading some of these really bad reviews. Maybe I just got a really good agent, but she has been more than accommodating on all fronts. When she was not available, on vacation or other reason, another agent took over and was equally great. I have been in my house for about a year and half and the whole staff has been professional, courteous and has always gotten back to me immediately when I needed something fixed. Again, I am in total shock at the reviews, but maybe there was a bad egg that needed to be weeded out, so wanted to put my 2 cents in to let everyone know, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience.
I wonder if some of this was a case of the messenger being shot as rent increases and other things are usually under orders from the actual owner of the house, unit or building, not the management company.

Unprofessional isnt even the surface!
The manager assigned to me, David S., entered my unit without notice or permission. He left his business card on my dining table, which is how I know that he entered. This is illegal.
He stood me up for an appointment and when his own receptionist called him he said that he was on his way, but left me waiting in the heat of summer for a half an hour before refusing to meet with me and passing his workload off to his receptionist.
In the two years that I’ve rented, the four times that I’ve tried to reach his office phone, he has not been in the office. (I can’t imagine getting paid to do a job where I don’t actually go into work!) They patched me to his cell and I heard his kid playing in the background. Is this real estate or child care?
In two years, he’s never followed through on maintenance issues for broken fans (pre-​exsisting), faucet knobs, caulking, paint samples to patch pre-​existing scuffs. He’s down right rude. All of his rental agreements have contained mistakes: dates, months contracted and financial calculation errors (too high of course). When I pointed out errors, he declined to fix them! One was a mistake of over $ 1,000!
How is it that people get away with such terrible business practices?
He also lied to the property owner: he told her I wanted to move out. In the mean time, he let me know that (since I missed him finally showing up after standing me up five times in a row) I had to end my lease!
I contacted the owner who fired this agency and retained me as her best tenant to date.

Current tenants of a Windermere managed property. Today, they gave me 48 hours notice that they will be increasing my rent and that I had to sign an agreement within those 48 hours or else they are going to rent out my apartment within 2 days and that I will have to leave in 30. Highly illegal on both state and city levels.
Never rent from them. They do not fix things when they need to be fixed… actually they don’t even acknowledge you when you make a request. They do not keep up on landscaping and let everything go. The contractors they do hire do the worst job ever (didn’t reattach gutters or downspouts after painting… I had to do it myself).
UPDATE: Just wanted to add a little tidbit. A couple of months back there was a main water line break from the house to the city’s line out by the street. It took Windermere three (3!!!) days to respond to the water spewing out of the front yard. And when their «plumbers» came and fixed it the city inspector came to check their job and told them that none of it was up to code. Now, I bet you couldn’t guess who is having to offset those massive costs? The tenants!

If negative stars were an option they would get it. Gwen is terrible and won’t return calls, don’t even bother. David is hardly better, although at least he might respond to an email. The application is exhausting and way over the top. More importantly, they don’t tell you if you don’t get a house! They leaving up to you to try and somehow contact them, challenging I can assure you, to find out the important news. This agency has slowed down and frustrated our housing search for over 4 weeks with 2 different houses. DO NOT USE!

I was recommended to Christina Lienenlueke by a friend of mine when I was about to rent out my precious condo for the first time and she’s an owner’s dream come true! I own an one bedroom at Queen Anne and when Christina first met with me, she took time to understand me as a person, what I would like to see in my tenants, and how I feel toward my building. Christina helped me with price adjustments and marketing, showing me the practical sides of the market and was always patient and understanding even though I was really a small client.
Eventually, Christina found me some really reliable people for my place! I’m a law student at night and have a full time job during the day, so suffice to say I have no time left for anything else. But Christina was so easy to work with; once she understood my needs and desire, I didn’t have to do anything else! Now, my first tenant just moved out, he was so easy and dependable I never had any trouble with management myself. My new tenant is currently moving in and she sounds as sweet as can be through my exchanges with her. This is all thanks to Christina, she really took the time to help me weed out the unreliable, irresponsible, and undependable ones.
Christina really had been a godsend and I wish I have someone like her in all other areas of my life!