GORENTER

It was easy and the people were friendly.

Easy process, friendly, fast. Happy experience

They spent 17,000 of my money evicting someone who had already moved out and cleaned the apartment 2 months prior. Very high pressure sales.

They had one person who was in charge of getting my business; when I signed the contract with her, I listed a number of things that they needed to know about the property (eg., it was still being remodelled so there was a lock box in the front yard). Apparently afterwards, the acount went to Shawnn, without my being informed, to actually find the renter. Most of my problems were with him, because he never communicated with the first person that I had given all the information to. They cut the lock box off, and he denied having any knowledge or documentation of the lock box until I gave him the entire e-mail trail of the conversations with the first agent. He then promised to reimburse me for the cost of the lock box, but when I showed up, he wanted to simply give me one of their old ones (which was of much cheaper quality). He said he would talk to the manager about getting the cost reimbursed when I gave him the receipt; two months later there was no word. When I called him again, he said they would not reimburse me the costs because I refused the one they had offered in exchange. I then filed a complain with the BBB. Almost immediately after that, I got a letter from the owner apologizing and reimbursing me for the costs of the lock box. Since the account turned over to yet another team now that there is a tenant, things have gone better. Despite the fact that I was told there should be one person assigned to my account, I get phone calls from multiple different people, and when I email, it almost always gets forwarded 'to the appropriate person.' Despite this, the service since then has been decent. From a tenant point of view, they always call me immediately when the tenant calls with problems with the property, and I have both arranged for independent people to come in and fix the problem or used their home repair services. They have been much more responsive now when I contact them with HOA violation notices or with problems that I am aware of. Initially, after my problems with them while I was finding a renter, I was planning on finding another company, but I have decided to stay since then - they may not be a great company, but I've not found a single property management company that people have liked, and they're currently doing a fairly decent job. Pricewise, the first year they had a special where the property management fee was $50/month (although they make up for that with advertising fees and annual fees). Now that I am in my second year, it's a flat percentage of the monthly rent. From what I can tell, it seems to be about market value for other property management companies in Phoenix. They still charge an annual fee as well.

I used Go Renter for almost 2 years, and it felt like their business plan was something like this: 1. Find unqualified tenant 2. Promise free rent to unqualified tenant without authorization from home owner 3. Tell home owner after the fact about free rent 4. Charge home owner high leasing fee for finding unqualified tenant 5. Charge home owner high marketing fees even if they didn't do any marketing 6. Move in the unqualified tenant 7. Charge home owner much higher than market rate for repairs to the home during the tenancy 8. Evict unqualified tenant after tenant stops paying rent 9. Charge home owner high fees for removing unqualified tenant 10. Charge home owner higher than market rate (thousands of dollars) to get the home into rent ready condition after it was trashed by unqualified tenant 11. Repeat process Go Renter's goals seem to be at odds with your goals -- their motivation seems to be to suck you dry of all your money. And Go Renter completely defeats the purpose of having a management company -- I spent more time trying to deal with Go Renter and their weasely moves than I ever would have managing the tenants myself. Then the kicker, when I finally canceled -- they wouldn't return the deposits until 65 days after cancellation, and then they charged a $260 cancellation fee. (Buried in the small print it says that if you cancel they will charge you for the rest of the contract. Even though I had a one year contract, it automatically renews every year.)