| rev:text
| - I hope my review helps other new landlords ask the right questions before wasting time and money. RPM is cheap for the owner. I have since learned that we only get what we pay for. I am not an investor, I just needed the house I moved out of rented out. I don't even want to imagine what it would be like to be a renter at their mercy. I have saved all emails, text and paperwork so if someone wants to contact me for proof/references, feel free to direct message me.
1) I first contacted a sales agent who wouldn't wait for 5 minutes to meet me when I was delayed. I did catch him when he was leaving, and he gave me a earful on how he had no time. He was a sales agent trying to earn my business, so I should have let him leave right then instead of being reprimanded like a child. He also kept comparing my house in a desirable part of town to his own property much farther out and insisting I wouldn't get the rent I was seeking. But he sounded knowledgeable, so I swallowed, handed over the keys and signed on.
2) I had to be out of town for a month after signing on. An agent emailed me to tell me she had been assigned the property and could she please have keys? I tried to call her hurriedly since I had already given the keys, and wondering if there was a communication gap. I also had to rehash every single detail with her once again, so the meeting with the sales agent was a waste of time.
3) She does not answer the phone EVER. You have to listen to a LOOOONG greeting before you can leave her a voice message. The first lesson in sales is you need to answer calls within 15-60 minutes. It is the age of instant communication, people! She never calls back, always only emails or texts. From what I am reading from other reviews, that is the case with renters as well, so I was sure that she was going to lose all interested parties. I was particularly miffed when once I had replied to an email agreeing to lower rent and there was no response for 4 days or change in the ad.
4) I had mailed her multiple times asking for a link to the MLS ad, and she never addressed that. After 2 months I found out from a friend-realtor that an ad was never made on the MLS. The manual lockbox has a number code that can be shared but does not register realtors. So no one was bringing their clients! The cheap placement fees suddenly made sense but this was never disclosed. She mentioned she would place an ad on craigslist, and a search every two days showed no ad. When asked, she sent us a link so we could make an ad! Zillow and Trulia would never show any photos of the house, and the only true resource to check out the house online was their website, which as you might imagine is not all that famous. The pictures were all at an angle, dark as night and unappealing - apparently opening up the blinds to get some light in photos is too much to ask. Uh, Photoshop, you say? Ha ha!
5) RPM "managed" our house for 11 weeks. In this time, there was no formal report on how many clients were showed the house. I had to constantly ask her and she'd always reply "I have three calls on my phone about your house" which I now realize means nothing. I don't trust she really called back any of those interested renters in time (why does she not pick up calls in the first place??? That is her job!) She occasionally said "a realtor showed it" but considering the MLS and lockbox situation, it was a flat out lie. We got three applications, two out of which involved bankruptcy and unemployment - for a house that was advertised for $1500 rent, no less. The third, she rattled us out by texting us a million times about how her renter was moving in in just four days and the house had to be spotless all the while giving no info on whether the lease was signed. We were thinking maybe the renter had moved on, she finally told us she had gotten the lease date wrong and it was actually the first of the following month. After another two weeks, she let us know that the renter had withdrawn application. If your leasing agent gets the lease date wrong, run!
6) When we finally sent an agreement termination notice, there was not an eyelid batted, either by agent or the company. No inquiries about what went wrong, not persuaded to stay on. Good riddance!
EDITED TO ADD: We ended up using another realty that was recommended bya friend, and he rented out our house in 3 weeks flat from listing date, and at a rent higher than what we advertised with RPM. I know that sounds unbelievable, so again, if you need proof, DM me and I'll give you the zillow listing so you can look at the history.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)