Buckingham Properties Lake Tahoe

I stayed at one of their homes during presidents weekend. The home was lovely and stocked, the reservationists were prompt in answering my questions, and the directions and other information were very useful for me and my group. Would love to book with them again.

Imagine spending an idyllic winter day, skiing back and forth across the mountainous border between California and Nevada, then coming home to cook a meal in the gourmet kitchen of a uniquely designed mountain-​side home, sharing that meal with a lovely group of friends and then retiring to the hot tub on the forest covered balcony to watch the stars as you sip a glass of wine…
And then you get none of that because less than 48 hours before you are due to set off for your vacation, Buckingham Luxury Rentals phones you to say that the vacation home you chose with such excruciating care for yourself, your family and guests, is mysteriously no longer available despite your having paid in full and signed a contract for its rental.
Instead, for the same money, you can stay in a vacation home development packed with Home Depot-​furnished homes, where the closest thing to a hot tub is a jacuzzi bath with a view of the neighbor’s roof from a peek-​a-​boo window. Where only 4 out of 5 burners on the stove function, the Kitchenaid oven light fails to work at all, where the master bedroom shower oscillates momentarily between scalding and freezing as the temperature setting dial hangs limply from the faucet. Where the audio for the television literally requires 2 PhDs 45 minutes to solve. Where the gas fireplace has a giant crack across its entire diagonal.
To be fair, there was nothing unusually wrong with our rental. We stayed in similar homes as students and were delighted. It’s just absolutely not what we were looking for, clearly overpriced (most likely the reason for its availability as a last minute substitution), and definitely not *luxury*.
Buckingham Rental should be ashamed for this last minute «bait and switch» tactic, which left us with no recourse in the face of imminently arriving guests who had taken time off to be with us. If we had cancelled with less than 48 hours notice, we would have lost more than $ 2000. But apparently the guarantee is only one way and so, caveat emptor, rental agreements are only binding to the renter. Buckingham promises you nothing!

Owners beware! This «company» is NOT interested in providing customer service of any sort to their owners. It is more of a dictatorship run by one woman. Sudden, unwarranted charges show up on your check/​bill each month, and if you try to get an answer as to why, you are yelled at, ignored, and belittled on phone, in person, and in email. The housekeepers leave MUCH to be desired. Wet laundry was left in the washing machine for over 5 days — after being washed without detergent. As an owner, we left the place relatively clean — cleaned floors, took out trash, cleaned kitchen, even did a load of towels — and the next person who came in found the linens on the incredibly dirty floor, trash on the kitchen countertop, trash in the trashcans, and K-​cups missing. We had things shipped to the company to be put in the property — at Buckingham’s REQUEST — they «didn’t see a packing slip», multiple items were missing and broken, and they didn’t even open the boxes until 2 months later, when it was too late to return anything or get a refund, and when we asked to be reimbursed, we were berated that they «accepted the boxes out of the kindness of their hearts». The last time we stayed at our property, we found the toilet paper holder in the master BROKEN and MISSING. This is an 8 month old property. After searching, we found it in a drawer, so obviously someone knew about it and didn’t tell us, the owners. I’m sure we’ll be «billed’ for it on the upcoming check even though we fixed it ourselves. 90% of interaction with «the Queen» is one-​sided. She does not answer questions, instead she turns everything around to it being your fault. Examples of the kinds of feedback you can expect:
«I don’t have time to focus on this… Any communications in the future needs to be directed to
our accounting department.» — Managing Partner
«The caretaker just came into the office and no he has not cleaned the unit yet (a week after check-​out and with wet laundry in the washer) it was on the back burner due to a sellout weekend… this is to inform you, that is not going to happen.» — Managing Partner
«Also, we need you to ship BBQ tools/​plunger for each bathroom and a scrubbing brush for the toilet in each bathroom.» — Managing Partner — then, in 2 months…
«We really are on the wrong page. Buckingham extends the privilege to you to arrange shipping items to the office. This privilege has absolutely nothing to do with commission. Your caretaker picks up the boxes and takes them to the unit, but your caretaker’s job is to clean. Most pick-​ups and delivery are done by our maintenance dept. and there is a charge associated with this service.» — Managing Partner
We are so surprised that they have made a business of treating owners — without who, they wouldn’t have anything to rent out — this way! On to a better Vacation Rental Management company!

We stayed in My73 Wilderness Lodge for the month of September 2015. It was wonderful. You will never run out of hot water or ice! The neighborhood was quiet and clean. I was surprised at the number of owners walking dogs but not cleaning up after them so watch your step EVERYWHERE outside. There is a smart tv in the living room so you have access to Netflix and Amazon, an iPod directly connected to the receiver will give you music in all rooms and outside deck. Highly recommend this location and would definitely stay again. Bring extra towels for the hot tub but otherwise all is plentiful, pillows, blankets, dishes, glasses. Kitchen is walk in and cook away ready,.including rice cooker.

Beautiful home, however, we had ongoing problems with the heating system and entertainment system. All 3 levels of the home have a natural gas fireplace that were non operational upon arrival. 2 of the 3 fireplaces required the pilots to be lit and the mid level fireplace was out of order. The bedrooms at the mid level were at a constant 56 degrees. A relative of mine was able to rewire the mid level fireplace to get the fireplace operational since the HVAC system does not heat the mid level. Additionally, the sound system attached to the top level and lower level TV’s were not functional and required re-​wiring. I will also note that the faucet in the kitchen is leaking and water pools on the granite surrounding the sink. Considering this is a luxury rental, you would expect that the fireplace responsible for heating a main living area with bedrooms not to have a note taped to the fireplace stating «out of order».
Note, my stay at this rental was January 30^th, 2015 and after numerous emails I have yet to get any response from management. With service like this, I do not see my family and I using the rental group again.

This is a very good company. We used them for the first time this past summer and were very impressed with their professionalism and customer service. We will definitely use them for our vacation rental needs in the future. They were very courteous and helpful. It was a wonderful experience to do business with such a fine group of people.

This review is from a tenant’s perspective. I rented a place from them for a month. I explained that I work from home and need reliable internet access. Initially they were very responsive setting up the lease and answering questions.
But on move-​in, the internet did not work. After several modem resets, I got it to work temporarily. Every day required a few modem resets to get the internet working. After requesting someone come out to check the modem, I got no response. Luckily, I have iphone hotspot access to fill in the gaps.
I think if you are advertising internet access and providing longer term rentals, you need to make sure the internet works. It becomes false advertising. I’ve stayed in other parts of Tahoe and did not have this problem so ‘spotty tahoe connections’ is not a valid excuse.

I am updating my previous review on Buckingham as I may have been unfairly harsh. As an owner, I am extremely sensitive and critical and may have overreacted a bit when I thought that the number of rentals being utilized were insufficient to make up for the wear and tear of the few that were renting it. The economy obviously had an impact and I can only say after trying another management company, I found that Buckingham was making every effort to get our property rented. Although I felt our cleaning crew was not quite up to snuff, I realize how hard it is to get good maintenance people on a continuous basis. I have since spoken to the management of Buckingham and they have assured me that many changes were made in their operations. I am very impressed with their revamped website which should attract a lot of new potential renters. I would definitely recommend giving Buckingham Properties a try if you are interested in renting or have a property you want them to handle. They are known for renting very upscale properties all over the lake.

This is a review of Buckingham properties from a property owner perspective. If you own a property do not use Buckingham.
Bait and switch: We newly listed our property for rental with Buckingham. We picked the price point they advised us to use. They said we could expect 50% occupancy in off season and 80%+ in high season. After spending one year with them we received 1 rental for 4 days.
Revenue enhancement: Buckingham constantly called us to offer us cleaning services we didn’t need. They asked us to restock supplies etc. at a price. They tried to bill us for a cleaning service we didn’t need or ask for. They called us to tell us the unit needed repairs and they would fix them at a price — only to find it was another unit they were referencing. They seemed to spend their time trying to nickel and dime us rather than rent the unit.
Unauthorized stays: Once we discovered the house had been occupied without authorization (beds were remade wrong and Buckingham supplies were all through the bathrooms). When we brought this to Buckingham’s attention we were stunned at their lack of concern. They said they would research it but never did. Essentially, they knew the unit was vacant and they allowed someone to stay there for free.
Doing business with Buckingham was a nightmare.

I had a great experiance with this company all 3 times we used them! The service was EXCEPTIONAL, and the rentals we have experianced were BEAUTIFUL! I’ve been in 3 of their rentals now and all 3 were fully stocked, and VERY clean! I was really happy especially with the furnishings in them. I was suprised to read someone had a bed review cause this is where I always turn to when I need a rental for famlilies or events we throw, and I happen to know that this is also a popular spot for celebrity guest staying in our town, and they also have great things to say about the properties. To each their own I guess, but I was treated like gold, and the houses were exceptional, and yes, I have pretty high standards.

The worst service EVER! There were complications with the rental we booked so they tried to make it up to us by sending us to another cabin with the amenities we originally paid for. They told us it was ready, but this place didn’t have enough towels for their guests, no clean dish sponge, no coffee filters, a broken heater and remote control. All of these things were available at our fist rental cabin so we assumed these things would be available at this other property they recommended. We called them the entire weekend to bring us towels and they kept taking messages and not showing. We happened to be there during the Dec storm and were freezing at night because we had no heat. We called the office and they sent their maintenance man over, but we had to be home for him. We lost a day of our vacation having to accommodate the maintenance man. He couldn’t fix it as the thermometer on the heater was broken which a technician had to fix. So we froze each night and did laundry so we would have enough towels for our guests. IT WAS HORRIBLE! We complained and Buckingham didn’t even apologize for this. They didn’t even give us the benefit of the doubt and told us that everything worked fine when it clearly did not during our stay. My friends and I will never trust or use Buckingham’s services again! They do not treat you like royalty! Trust me.