I am currently in the "probationary" period of 30 days. I am most likely going to cancel my partnership with Caldwell Property Solutions. Here is a list of things gone wrong these past few weeks:
1. Initial communication with them was excellent. They ask for pictures of our home so they may post on websites for perspective tenants. Within 3 days of submitting our pictures to them, our house was posted on several sites. We are scheduled to move out of our home in mid-December.
2. A week later, the representative, Cordae (I apologize if I spell the name wrong) sent a text to my wife saying that a tenant wants to come within 3 hours to look at the home. Needless to say, we told her that is not enough time for us to vacate our home. She stated that she will not be accompanying the tenants and we would need to show them ourselves. In that case, it's definitely a "no" to come view on last minute. A week after that, the same tenant wanted to come on a Saturday at 12pm. We were told this at 9am. Another 3 hour notice. And of course, Cordae couldn't make it because she is out of town. Reluctantly, I gather my 2 dogs and went out to run errands around 11:30am. 12:15pm viewing done.
3. Got a message from Cordae stating that there is another perspective tenant that would like to see the house and made a scheduled showing on Saturday at 12pm. Everything went smoothly.....fast forward to the problem.
4. The perspective tenant advised us that she would have to pay a "Municipal Fee" of 4% per month. We inquired what this was and a Ryan told us that it is essentially a "renter's tax". We are aware of this when we used to live in Phoenix, but from our understanding, Pinal County (our home is located in San Tan Valley) does not charge renter's tax. Being a Property Management company with "x" number of years experience would know this right? Wrong! After several email exchanges, Ryan acknowledges that this was a mistake on the listing agents part and would not charge the "Municipal Fee". If this was not brought up, I wonder where the 4% Municipal Fee would go. My guess is that it won't go to the city of San Tan Valley since this "tax" does not exist.
5. The tenant told us that they would be signing a 2 year lease agreement and paying 1 year upfront. Ryan and Cordae throughout the negotiation process never told us this. Until we inquire about it, Ryan reluctantly stated that he will look into it. The problem is this, the tenant will pay 1 year's rent upfront, but Caldwell will disburse our share of the collected rent (minus their management fees) every month. This seems to us that Caldwell wants to keep all the money for as long as possible.
6. The perspective tenant also told us today that Caldwell will only refund 75% of her security deposit. The 25% will be used for cleaning and relisting the property. From my understanding, only a breach of contract can we charge the tenant for relisting. Also, we need to provide an itemized receipt showing the cleaning fees. Throwing out 25% is downright unethical.
My summary on Caldwell Property Solutions is this. They will nickel and dime the home owner and tenants so they can make a profit. They put in charges that, quite frankly in our case, does not exist and hope that nobody catches it. If Caldwell Property Solutions is truly an outstanding company (like so many reviews I've seen), then they would really help me take the headache of finding a tenant for my home as I am relocating to another state, instead of creating more issues for me as I needed to take out time and research some of the charges they are imposing. The final kicker to this is, nobody has ever been out to our house. How are you going to "sell" or in this case "rent" my home out if you've never seen it in person? It's like going to a car salesman who doesn't work in the lot and have never seen a car, but have seen pictures. Ryan stated that our situation is unique as we are currently still living in the home. There are solutions, such as coming out and seeing my home first and schedule viewings and giving us ample time so we can vacate.
If I can give Caldwell Property Solutions negative star, trust me, I would. read more