Voepel Property Management

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We were able to purchase two homes, through an estate and a foreclosure. Both homes are in good areas of Johnson county. Voepel managed the "make-ready" of the houses. My husband and I could not possibly have done the work. I am an older woman who is physically unable to work. And, we could not have found workers to help us at the reasonable rates Voepel charged to prepare the houses to rent. They did a great job of marketing for us. They know the amount of a fair price for the property rent. We had lots of people interested in the homes. The maintenance service that they provide to the tenants is much faster and more reasonably priced than we could do on our own. We are looking for a third house. A representative has met us at four different houses (even though we are just looking for one) and visited with us about the modifications or repair that would be needed. The Voepel team is very respectful and patient with us. We need to save money faster than our IRA will let us. We now have two investments (the rental houses) that are worth more than we paid after the repairs that Voepel helped us with. And, we have an income stream that will make my husband's dream of retirement a reality. I hope to work with Voepel for many more years.

The Book Cover Summary - After 10 days on the market, Voepel Property Management did a background check on the first person that came along. That person failed the background check for, among other things, owing back rent. Knowing this, VPM rented the home to the individual without securing the $750 deposit. They then failed to later collect the deposit and only collected rent for 3 of the 8 months the tenant lived there. As the owner I ?made? $2000 in rent (after VPM?s commission) but have PAID OUT $3215. This DOES NOT include unpaid rent and only represents my out of pocket. I?ve written only a handful of reviews in my life and they are usually for exceptional service. This is most assuredly not a positive review and the service rendered was so far below my lowest expectation that it is almost unimaginable. In fact, anyone who uses Voepel Property Management after reading about my experience is a professional gambler at best. I took the time to write this so other owners would be able to make an informed choice based on a real client. For the whole tale, read on? The Full Story I am the owner of a small two bedroom house in Kansas City, Missouri. The home is in a modest area of town, for certain, but it was clean and featured brand new carpet, paint, tile, windows, blinds & AC. In short, it was a nice little house ? not a mansion, but safe and clean. Several years ago I had purchased the house as an investment and had dabbled in fixing it up. In late 2011 I moved out of town as part of a promotion and simply didn?t have the time to rent and manage a property remotely. In mid-October 2012 I decided that I was ready to pull the trigger and hire Vopel Property Management (Brent Voepel, Primary) to rent and look after the property. To be honest, I didn't do much research on them and I didn't decide to use them because of a great referral. I decided to use them for two (stupid) reasons - they have a killer website (props) and Brent was (initially) quick to respond. While the latter is generally a good reason to use a company, the former only means they have a good web designer - neither, as I would find, means they have sense enough to avoid renting to a deadbeat. In late October, after no more than 10 days of 'marketing' Brent let me know that he had found a tenant. Since I hadn't had the time to rent the property it had sat vacant for a few years. Brent's seemingly efficient ?cash flowing? of the property had me kicking myself for not finding someone to manage the property sooner. I didn't know it at the time but the only cash that would be "flowing" would eventually be out of my pocket. From day one, Voepel Property Management showed mind-blowing incompetence. In retrospect, my inexperience with being a ?Landlord? also enabled their incompetence to continue far too long, but I digress. Most people would say that failing to get the (contractually agreed to) deposit from a renter BEFORE they move in is a complete and utter fail for a property management company. Unfortunately, that is exactly what they did. Voepel decided to rent to a guy who didn't have enough money to pay the first month rent AND a deposit. Having no experience in this area and knowing that VPM had done a background check on the candidate, I took Brent?s word for it that the deposit would be forthcoming. I assumed the background check showed him as low risk candidate. I mean, what kind of buffoon would rent to someone who had a shaky background check AND not ask for a deposit? To be fair, I didn't think to ask VPM for, nor did they proactively provide the background check on the prospective tenant. After several months of late rent I finally asked for a copy. When I read it a pall of confusion, panic and anger washed over me. We can all agree that a background check is a good idea when screening for a new tenant...right? From the time I signed the contract with them it was reassuring to me that Voepel Property Management said they would run a background check on all applicants. What I didn't realize is that they would choose to ignore the information in that background check despite an overwhelming amount of negative information contained therein. And lest you think that the summary information was cryptic or highly technical I've provided some of the 'low points' from the report Voepel ran on the ONLY tenant he screened. You tell me if this looks like someone YOU would rent to: * Summary Box ? (in Bold) Background Check Summary Result = FAILED * Reason for failing score given as "Failed due to rental cases, owing landlord on credit, and outstanding warrant." * Credit Score = 579 * Negative Trades (credit items with active negative marks) = 8; % of negative trades 89% * Court judgments against for CREDIT reasons = 1 (2012) * Civil cases against for RENTAL reasons = 2 (for back rent to landlord) * Total monthly income = $2400 * Total monthly payments = $3,693 * Outstanding child support debt = $11,401 * Rental history listed as ?Unverified? I can understand needing to have softer standards for lower middle class houses but this background check would scream ?Don?t do it!? to anyone with even a modest level of experience and intelligence. Since I don?t believe Mr. Voepel is unintelligent or inexperienced I am left to believe he is careless, incompetent or both. The Price Tag All told, the renter paid rent for three months ? the first before moving in and the remaining two over the next three months. In other words, he pretty much entered a late rent status immediately. In the end the renter left owing $3750 in back rent, $450 in late fees and $472 in utilities (Voepel?s figures from a post mortem). If you add to that the $443 it cost me to evict him and the $800 to rip out the (previously new) carpet and remove a mountain of trash and debris from the house my total owed is $5915. This doesn?t include the cost of the ?make ready? I need to pay for to bring the house back to a rentable condition. That has been quoted as another $1500 at a minimum. I should also mention that Mr. Voepel (supposedly) personally inspected the home on more than one occasion but failed to notice that there were 11 people living in the home (multiple neighbors informed me after the eviction). This is a 2 bedroom home of no more than 1000 square feet. After all of their failings Vopel Property Management offered to pay $1000 for the clean-up of the property IF?.IF they would be repaid when I collected on the renter. On the advice of an attorney I declined their token offer. Instead, I have dedicated my time to writing this tome so other customers can avoid this unfortunate experience. These individuals run a property management company. In my experience, they are exceedingly bad at what they do. I cannot fathom how they could have done a worse job at fulfilling their obligation to me and to my property. If you are thinking about using their service you might want to consider hiring someone else. Anyone else, actually. A cake decorator, a taxidermist, a meter maid?heck, find a hobo and offer them a few thousand dollars to trash your house and you?ll wind up in basically the same place I did.

We did not use the vendor because we did not believe the contract offered enough flexibility with maintenance. We want to do our own maintenance and their contract would not allow it. We wanted to work with a company that offered that type of contract or a contract with options, up front. When I informed the vendor we would not be using them, I was not happy with the reply we received. I do not feel we, the consumer, own any vendor any explanation as to why we did not go with them. Most of the time, vendors take offense to anything you say you don't like. I don't have time for that so I don't reply to that type of request.

There was nothing on the website that interested us

Since I never received a reply or acknowledgement on my inquiry, I am not impressed and cannot recommend this firm.

We replied to an add on Craig's List looking for a home and were met by Brent Voepel. He was extremly professional and customer service orient as we negotiated terms on the lease. When we moved in from out of state a few weeks later and the house wasn't in the state we expected he came after hours and weekends to take care of it. If not for him we would have found another house. We've been in the house about 8 months now and its been great. The minor repairs and maintenance are called in and handled within a week by a great gentleman named Chris. We requested automatic payments and they made it happen. Overall a wonderful experience.