Compass Property Management

I was a tenant for three years of a home managed by Matt Accola with Compass Property Management. This was one of the most professional, attentive, and complete management groups that I have seen in this business. The responded ²⁴⁄₇ to problems, remediated issues immediately and were always available to help. I wish I could give them a 10 star rating. Robert Malinow

Lived at the small set of apartments near University and Middlefield. Any/​all issues I had staying with them were only a byproduct of the thin walls in the unit. Oh lord were those walls thin.
However, the landlords were always respectful and prompt to respond to issues. The handyman they frequently brought out, Paul, was exceptionally respectful and kind. When time came to renew my lease they were very, very considerate with respect to the % increase. Moreso than they needed to be so close to downtown Palo Alto, for sure.
When I needed to move out, they were similarly accommodating. Great folks, for sure. Would have no issues moving into a unit overseen by Compass again.

I rented a 2 bedroom apartment in Mountain View for a year. It was remodeled and looked okay when I signed the lease. Once I started living in the apartment, I started seeing COCKROACHES everywhere every night! They come out at night and hide during the day. The community was not taken care of at all. I was not told of any pest problems before signing the lease. I even asked them if there was any bug issues, and they said no.
It was a total nightmare living in the apartment. Cockroaches are not only living inside the apartment, but they are very easily found outside the apartment as well. They are just casually crawling everywhere in the community after 9pm.
They think they can just repaint and change some appliances and be okay with renting them out to people saying that it’s like new. Completely unacceptable business ethics.
At the end of the lease, they also charged me $ 170 for unnecessary repaint and for stuff that I asked them to fix multiple times during my lease and was simply ignored, and $ 210 for cleaning the roach house. Guess what I found after I removed all my furnitures. DEAD COCKROACHES!!!
Laura refused to refund me and did not even apologize for all the nightmares that I had for a entire year. She even raised her voice as if I am some kind of lunatic. C’mon. That’s not cool.
I am very sorry for the next tenant who are currently living in the apartment. I am really sorry that I could not save them from cockroach hell.
Please do yourself a favor and avoid this management at all cost, and thank me later.

After reading wall-​to-​wall one star reviews for a couple of other property managers in the Palo Alto area, I thought maybe I can do better by searching for more. Via
and Craigslist I found my place, and saw the good reviews for Compass. My experience has borne this out: may property manager Jake was always polite, friendly, and very responsive to any issues, including on text, which was great for quick feedback. The biggest issues we had in 18 months were one time a minor ant invasion, which they got a guy in quickly to neutralize, a stuck toilet refill mechanism that left water in the bathroom (glad the upstairs neighbors didn’t have it too), which resulted in minor carpet cleaning, and the avocado tree above my parking spot posing a risk of falling fruit. But these sort of things can happen anywhere. After one year, the rent was raised, but only by $ 100 from $ 2500 to $ 2600. Considering that Palo Alto has no rent control, and they said they let the unit above me (no garden) for the same, this seemed very fair. When I moved out, I left a couple of weeks before the 30 day notice was up and they rented it but not immediately. However, my security deposit of $ 2400 was repaid in full minus about $ 300 cleaning, and the rent was prorated back giving me another $ 1000 back. So overall, a very positive experience and I would recommend Compass as a property manager.

I had the pleasure of working with Compass from August of 2013 until December of 2014. They were the property managers for a home our family leased in Dublin, CA. First off, let me tell you that the initial leasing experience was great. They worked quickly to get paperwork done, and pushed through so we didn’t have to sit around wondering if we had secured the house. Our initial experience with our first property manager was ok, but not over the top good. However, once Jake took over our account we noticed a significant improvement. Jake came out to the property, made sure all issues were taken care of in a timely fashion, and even advised us when we were moving out how to best prepare the property for moving.
All in all, we had an excellent experience working with Jake and his team at Compass. They were thorough, fair, and honest. I would still be utilizing them had we not moved to SoCal.

As a first time landlord I chose to work with Compass as they had multiple recommendations from friends that had also worked with them to manage their rental properties. They were wonderful from my perspective and helped us navigate through every part and made it easy for us to travel and not worry about anything going wrong with the unit. If something did break they would call us to authorize the repairs which was appreciated as we then didn’t just get a random bill. They always represented both the renters and us as landlords fairly and when our latest tenants moved out they received almost all of their deposit minus a small repair that they created the need for.
I would highly recommend anyone as a landlord or renter to work with Compass as they are a great company.

Due to my own house remodeling, I rented a 3-​bedroom apartment for one year through Compass Property Management. The experience was disappointing, especially at the end. To summarize:
1) It’s very difficult to get Compass to fix something they should fix.
2) Compass uses double standards; for example, the conditions of the apartment when you moved in and when you moved out are different.
3) Although we did no damage to the apartment, Compass still deducted over $ 1,000 for cleaning and paint touch ups (normal wear and tear), which was double what they told us at the beginning.
4) They can be very rude, for example, yelling «crazy» to me.
5) The internal management seemed to be chaotic (asking for rent long after we moved out).
I learned my lesson. I just wanted to share them so others can learn from mine. I wish I read something like this before I rented from Compass.
Below are some details; sorry that it’s a bit long. Read on only if you are interested.
Matt was our agent. He was friendly when I first met him to see the apartment and then a few days later to pick up the key. Those were the only two times I ever saw him.
When I picked up the key, Matt and I did a quick walk through in about 10 minutes. I was hoping to spend more time, but Matt told me I could do my inspections and mark things after I moved in. I was inexperienced in renting so I agreed.
Even during the quick walk through, I noticed old stains, scratches, & etc. Some got noted, some were brushed off as normal. As soon as Matt left, I found more.
I also found a few things that needed to be fixed or replaced. For example:
1) A couple of the ventilation fans in the bathrooms were very old, making extremely loud, annoying noises. One was missing its cover, so you could see the thick layers of dust inside. When you turned it on, the dust would fly everywhere.
2) The only window in the master bathroom was missing its screen.
3) One screen in the living room had many of big holes.
I called Matt and asked him if he could fix these. He refused.
My parents live with us. They were 73 and 75 at the time with many health issues, and both of my children have a dust allergy. I told Matt of my concerns on health hazards. He still refused and said «I cannot replace everything new for you» «The landlord just spent a lot of money remodeling the kitchen» «The previous tenant did not have an issue with it», etc.
Since this is about my parents’ and kids’ health, I had to fight very hard on this. At the end, I agreed not to fix the others; just to get the vent fixed. So until I moved out, I never opened the only window in the master bathroom (as there was no screen and I did not want the bugs to come in). I resorted to crudely taping over all the holes in the screen in the living room, a great eyesore.
Before I moved in, I asked Matt what to expect in terms of security deposit deduction. Matt said if there was no damage, it would be $ 500-​$ 600 if we left it to him, as our own contractors might not do a good job. I agreed at the time to leave it to him.
We were very careful during the year and did not damage anything. Our lease ended on 8÷31÷14 and we moved out on ⁸⁄₃₀. I tried to schedule a walk-​through with Matt before I moved out, but he said he was out of town and asked me to drop off the keys at his office. I did, which was a mistake.
On 9/​11, almost two weeks after my lease ended and I moved out, I got a call from Compass and was asked to pay September rent. I called Matt. He said it was a mistake on his end. I then asked him about the security deposit. He told me it’s over $ 1,000 for cleaning and paint touch up, which was double of what he told me when we agreed to move in. When I asked why, he said it was because the apartment was very dirty. He claimed that if it were not him, I would’ve had to pay even more. I pointed out the fact that when I moved in, the apartment was not spotless, with stains and scratches in many places that I had pictures of as evidence. He did not care. He only insisted that the contractors billed over $ 1,000 and that they originally were going to bill even more.
I expressed my disappointment with no result. As the courtesy, I told him I would write a Unilocal review about my experience. He immediately yelled out «CRAZY!» I was stunned and asked him if he called me crazy, after a while, he said no. Until now, I still don’t know who or what he was referring to as «crazy».
He told me he would talk with his dad (I assumed the owner of the company), and get back to me. Now, it has been over 10 days, and I still have not heard from him, so I am proceeding with the Unilocal review.
I was inexperienced and too trusting. Now I know that some are just not trustworthy.

My husband and I saw a listing for an apartment in Sunnyvale. It was really cute and quaint and I fell in love with the place. The unit had an enclosed patio that faced avocado trees. We were so excited about living here but we had to first compete with the hoards of people that also wanted to rent the place, since housing is super competitive in San Jose. Knowing how competitive the housing market was, my husband and I arrived at the property an hour early with the rental application signed and complete. It was seriously ridiculous, within the first 30 minutes of the showing, there were about 30 people coming in and out. The people showing the house said that they might need to conduct interviews or raise the rent since it was so popular.
Seeing how popular it was, we just hoped for the best that we would get the place. Since we were first to turn in the application and our credit/​background checked out, we were offered the place. HALLELUJAH! We moved in all our stuff and everything was great. Our neighbors were relatively friendly and super nice. I loved jogging around the neighborhood because the area was relatively safe/​nice. It was especially nice because we lived right next to downtown Sunnyvale where there are so many local eateries and shops. I loved going to the Farmer’s market on the weekends.
Compass was great. When we signed our lease, they were super nice and friend. HOWEVER, when we moved in, the place was pretty dirty. Our contact person at Compass, Troy said that the place had been cleaned by the previous owners but the shelves were super dirty with packets of sugar and the ground had hair. Troy initially denied that the place was dirty and said, «everyone has different standards of cleanliness.» But after I pointed out several areas of hair/​dirt, he said that they would do another round of cleaning. Also, I doubt that the previous owners had cleaned the carpets because there was cat hair in the apartment and I kept sneezing. I asked to have the heater and ac cleaned because the previous owners had 3 cats and I was concerned. Compass initially was not willing to pay for the services so I had it done myself. After the ac/​heater cleaners showed me how gross the heater/​ac was (please see pictures), I was pissed and requested that Compass pay for the services because the cleaners said it was a fire hazard.
Then came the trouble with the fleas in the unit. There was a rampant flea issue in the unit because of the three cats. My husband and I started getting bitten during our entire stay in the apartment. I started to vacuum frequently and wear socks in our home. Nothing worked. I got bitten all over my foot. I didn’t want to complain initially because Troy was already rolling his eyes at us because we had other issues around the house (ie: they said that the cupboard would have doors after we moved in– no doors or drawers — very strange, Also the roof was being fixed and the stucco on the wall and roof was falling down in our unit). Anyways, we tried sucking it up with the flea issue but finally complained. Again, Troy did not seem empathetic at ALL. His solution was just, «you guys can always move out,» rolled his eyes, and treated like we were whinny complainers. Anyways, we decided to move out and save ourselves from being a food source for the fleas. We asked to break our lease. I would have given them 1 star but they actually seemed nice about it all and even gave us our full deposit. I think they were renovating the units so they could charge higher rent so it worked out for their plans. Anyways, I think Compass was a decent property management group, just not Troy.

We recently moved on from a four year rental house in Mountain View managed by Compass Property Management. We mostly dealt with Matt, but everyone at the company was very courteous and friendly. The couple of times we needed maintenance/​repair, someone was sent over within a few hours.
What usually concerns renters is whether they’re going to get nickel and dimed on their security deposits. We got deductions for cleaning (which we expected) and for carpet cleaning (which was reasonable). However, there were no ticky-​tack charges! Based on our relationship with Matt over four years, I would have been very surprised if there had been, but it’s always nice when a company’s actions match its talk.
I regard Compass as highly reputable, and I’d do business with them at any time in the future. If my best friend asked whether he should rent a property from Compass, my recommendation would have no reservations.

When we moved to the UK three years ago due to a job reassignment, it was a bit of a scramble for us to organize our move. We didn’t want to sell our house, but we had no idea on how to find tenants on such short notice or how we would manage the property from overseas. I found Compass Property Management through a quick Internet search and after meeting the Matt and Arend Accola, decided to work with them because they seemed knowledgeable and trustworthy.
Using Compass Property was the best decision we made. Our house was rented within two weeks — before we even left the country. For three years, Arend Accola managed our tenants, dealt with issues on our house, including a plumbing issue and a replacement stovetop, worked with our gardener (who we wanted to keep) and kept us informed every step of the way. In addition we received formal accountings every month. We just sold our house, and Compass Property worked with our realtor to help us complete the sale.
I highly, highly recommend this management company. The Accolas are extremely professional — knowledgeable and responsive. If you’re hoping to lease your home, I would definitely consider working with Compass Property Management.

I gave compass 1 star for being courteous. I’ve dealt with both Matt and Arend and they’ve been courteous professional and helpful every time.
I gave Compass their second star for responsiveness. I called and was able to get someone on the phone right away. We scheduled a time for a repairman to come out and fix the microwave.
I gave Compass their third star for getting things done. As it turned out the microwave needed to be replaced which was done in a timely manner.
I gave compass their 4^th star because we recently renegotiated my lease and they didn’t try to bend me over like my last Property manager did.