FIRST PLACE MANAGEMENT INC

We hired FPM to manage our rental property. They did place tenants quickly. Our main problem was with accounting and communication. The tenants refused to comply with our home owners association rules, and we got numerous letters from the HOA, followed by one from an attorney threatening a lien against our property. FPM assured me repeatedly that the tenants were in compliance until I sent them photos from the HOA showing differently. Then it was like pulling teeth to get reimbursed for the attorney fees we were charged. Money gets deducted from the rent or from the maintenance fund without explanation. It's very hard to get FPM to answer the phone or return messages in a timely manner. I have had to run point on solving issues, and that's kind of what I was paying them for. I feel like I have had to manage the property as much as they have because otherwise it would have gotten out of control. They insisted on changing out all the locks on the exterior doors, which cost us $160. Okay. Then one of the locks they installed on our brand new French doors broke (the original one worked just fine). They charged us $65 to have their locksmith replace the crappy lock that they put on! We had $600 in our maintenance account. The tenants left the place trashed, but the repairs were made, and paid from the maintenance fund, then reimbursed from funds withheld from the security deposit. The contract ended six weeks ago. We finally got the funds from our maintenance account released to us, but they only gave us back $505 out of the $600! There was no explanation of where the other $95 went. We're still waiting for an answer to that question. If you're looking for a company to manage your property, you would do well to look elsewhere, especially if you live far away and can't check up on it yourself. If you're okay with not getting your calls answered or returned in a timely manner, and having money disappear without notice or explanation, this is the company for you

Pros - They were very good at advertising and keeping my duplex rented. Their accounting department was very efficient. Cons - They were difficult for my renters and me to get a hold of. Which caused problems because our renters ended up contacting us to take care of their issues, which defeats the purpose of having a property manager. They did not inspect properties on a regular basis or take pictures of property condition before or after renters. We had a long term renter that renewed several times. When he moved out, we found the place had been trashed. We had so much damage that we were unable to re-rent the property without doing major repair work. The work is still in progress. They were paying a cleaning service to complete move out cleaning and not inspecting the work. I went in to an apartment after we paid $250 to get it cleaned and bathrooms were disgusting, ceiling fans had caked on dust/dirt on the blades, windows and window sills were dirty, and the list goes on. They did not follow up on repair services to verify completion before they paid for services. We are no longer using this service.