I rented through Citysearch for a 3 year term in the community of Mount Royal. They were promptly attentive to the few maintenance requests made during my tenure. I have to admit the negative reviews had me very concerned about the move-out inspection (being bilked-out of my security deposit)- I had personally invested a lot of sweat-equity in the property so going out on a sour note wouldn't have sat well. In reality, the inspection, conducted by the CEO herself and another employee was an extremely fair and pleasant experience. I can only assume those leaving 1 star reviews were being vindictive. I would have continued renting the property, should I have stayed in Calgary. Should I return, I wouldn't hesitate to reach-out to Citysearch to find my next accommodations. read more

stay away, poor response time and over pricing for any appliances you may have to change. Have to keep on top of them while paying them to do property inspection or invoice production. I was also shorted rental income and only realized when doing my tax return. Was advised they had switched systems and would have caught the error in due time. read more

They ghost you alot when they don't want to deal with an issue. Very rude on the phone. Maybe with some new people your reviews may get better. read more

CITYSEARCH RENTAL + PANAMA PAPERS Grant, I've posted images of your weak Cease & Desist; highlighting the important points. Aside from disgusting X-Rated narrative, "The Walrus Theory" reads as a description of the John & Alex Hripko / Lisa Hamielec's real estate business model. There are four facts I'd like to point out: 1. In "The Walrus Theory", Lisa states that "setting up a secret bank account in your mother's maiden name" is "a key strategy"; 2. In May 1997, John Hripko & Robert Croteau had Lisa Hamielec set up a front organization to buy Forgrave Relocation Services; 3. The original Copyright holder of "The Walrus Theory" is, "Walrus Enterprises & Promotions Inc."; 4. On 23rd May 1997, a company by the name of "Walrus Enterprises Ltd." was established in the Bahamas - which is made public in the "Panama Papers". In addition, there are at LEAST three numbered companies they set up for the Forgrave acquisition. That's a lot of companies set up to purchase the assets of a self-proprietor with 4-5 part-time employees. In short, Grant, I consider these facts as being relevant. You say that I "suggest that Royal LePage participates with Citysearch in a cover-up". I said no such thing. As a lawyer, you should be more careful when reading statements. Stop using Lisa's petty tactic of misrepresenting what other people say. I fully stand by the statement that "Citysearch's ultimate goal is to find a tenant interested in buying a house while restricting showings to other legitimate prospective tenants". Citysearch has breached their fiduciary duty to me on several occasions. I suggest you start by looking at the emails that came to Citysearch through Rentfaster, from individuals interested in viewing the property. By my count, there are at least fourteen expressions of interest to see the property and, of those, Janice highlighted the lowest quality prospective tenants (i.e., those who wanted to rent my house for one night to hold a party). Note, Rentfaster is only one of at least five marketing channels that are used. One individual - a co-founder and executive of a multinational energy group - emailed THREE times over the course of THREE FULL MONTHS with no reply from Citysearch. I know this because I reached out to him DIRECTLY and asked him to confirm my suspicions - which he did...and even asked me if the house was still available! Yes, Mr. Strapon, I spent hundreds of thousands to deal with the mess that Citysearch created. Might I suggest that you learn a thing or two about business and economics before calling anything a "gross exaggeration" or at a minimum asking me what my expenses were. Citysearch promises to "conduct an owner handover at the start of the process to ensure the property is ready for a tenancy". Citysearch ALSO promises to "conduct a pre move-in inspection to ensure the property is free of deficiencies". If that is true, how did I end up spending $41K, $49K, and $46K for "maintenance & repairs" (i.e. upgrades) in 2017, 2018, and 2019 respectively? Repairs which I was forced into by Citysearch's mismanagement. Prior to signing a contract, I inquired whether repairs or upgrades were necessary. Lisa and Janice repeatedly stated, "No, it's just a rental". Add on top of that four months of lost rent- $21K. I could have paid off debt with the $1.3M originally invested... that ALONE is worth over $100K. Lisa sold me on the concept that "Effective Property Management Pays, it does not Cost". However, the only person that it "pays" is clearly Lisa Hamielec & her "Family Business". By Lisa's own logic, if "effective property management pays, it does not cost", then clearly Citysearch is NOT an effective property management company. read more

Citysearch Rental Network - Property Management Near Me - Calgary, Alberta

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This is a bad company. They used a vague agreement and then charged and ripped off anything they could.

City Search took over when my landlord died in Dec 2021, they informed me 8 days into the month they were taking over and were extremely evasive about telling tenants he had passed away. I was already leaving the apartment at the end of the month as I was on a month to month, and they demanded that I personally give them 30 days notice, despite that not being physically possible as they were there a week into the month. They also wanted to charge me a 1000$ pet deposit for my pets the landlord already said I could have for no deposit. They rattled my door (not knocked) and tried to get into my unit before the notice was even posted, which was just so inappropriate to begin with. They demanded I do a walkthrough, which was not possible or necessary because there wasn't an original walkthrough, as it was a transfer from another apartment in the building so there was nothing to deduct. The landlord had given me that unit due to the other unit being gassed out by weed from the neighbors constantly, and said not to worry about anything because he was renovating it after I moved anyway. When they pressed on the walkthrough I pointed out all the mice, mold, etc that they know is in the building, and they quickly pivoted to the walkthrough not mattering because there wasn't an initial one (you know, what I told them initially and they kept insisting otherwise) They also held my security deposit of 1000$ and refused to give it back despite knowing I am disabled and moving was already tough for me. The security deposit wasn't even theirs, it was my dead landlord's and they had zero right to hold it. They are extremely greedy and look for every dollar even from vulnerable people, and won't just let things go. If you see them take over your apartment building, MOVE. read more

As a property owner and a real estate broker, this is the worst management company I have dealt with. This is not an ethical business. before they start any tangible work they already send to the owners invoices for unsubstantiated services. Be very careful if you are to sign anything with them. Their contract is convoluted and vaguely phrased. The owner Lisa is greedy and aggressive. You will regret dealing with them. read more

Worst company to deal with. They just charge you expenses and it looks like the company they use is married to them. Good luck fighting the charges read more

This company is terrible to work with. They don't reply to phone calls - email only, they were renting our place out for far less than market value. The do terrible repair work that I have to go and fix myself after already being charged with the bill. They show up late to inspections, and are very unprofessional. It has been a nightmare and we are glad to have finally parted ways with them. read more

We contacted Citysearch to rent a house in Calgary. Overall, they were oddly vague when it came to questioning about additional fees, and even when directly asked about the fees Citysearch was unable to provide a breakdown of what they were for, nor could they answer the question "Do these fees go directly to the home owner or to Citysearch?" We would have been paying additional, unexplained fees on top of the rent (details below), so we elected not to rent with them. Fees in addition to the rent as follows : 1) A $10/month "resident amenity fee" that covers some "arm-wavy" things such as: online rent payments (most banks charge nothing for this and most rentals have this capability), property inspections (not usually charged monthly for a single inspection?), trust, response time guarantee, etc. The only thing we saw that actually provides value is the 24 hour repair hotline, resident portal to book repairs and an assurance that quality repairs will be done. 2) A $30/pet/month "lease administration fee". Does it really cost $30/pet/month to administer a lease with pet agreements included? 3) A $350 initial pet fee (again labeled "lease administration fee"). So in total for a single pet, you are paying $30 x 12 months + $350 = $710 on a 1-year lease to "administer the lease"? In addition, the pet agreement states that the tenant is responsible and liable for any damages caused by the pets, including odor removal. So since the tenant is responsible for essentially returning the property in the exact condition they moved into (very reasonable), the $710 must NOT be to cover cleaning once the tenant has moved out. Furthermore, the tenant gives a damage deposit which covers any damage to the property caused by the tenant/pet. So we were curious as to why we would be paying $710 for a pet, when this does NOT go toward anything related to the pet on the premises. Unfortunately because Citysearch could not provide any form of reasonable explanation as to where our money would be going, it created a lack of confidence in dealing with Citysearch, and we decided we did not want to enter into a relationship with an this organization. read more

This company doesn't deal fairly with tenants. They refuse to answer phones and assist with issues the way a property manager should. In addition the will do all in their power to take your damage deposit - warranted or otherwise. They will do all they can to take as much of your deposit as possible, which includes fraudulently increasing costs they don't truly incur. This company should be vetted by the RCMP. Please stay away for your own good. read more

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! They will take your money and not maintain the property. They then make up bogus claims to charge you even more. They will ignore all your complaints. They are rude and completely unprofessional. Literally use any other property manager in Calgary for better results! read more

Reca.ca is your best course of action. Sometimes acknowledging a bad situation and providing a positive customer service experience for your clients would solve most matters. So I will let Reca.ca review my complaint and hopefully help others avoid the things listed in most of the reviews on here. I am beyond disappointed. read more

There were plenty of reviews on the BBB that I wish I had read before I dealt with Citysearch as it would have saved me a lot of grief and money. This is a cautionary tale for whoever is looking to rent from Citysearch. We rented a property and the entire lease was a nightmare, a constant battle to get Citysearch to attend to the endless problems at this property. They claim to rent luxury properties but on the day we moved in we had no heat or electricity, the basement had no heating and the warmest we could get it at in the winter was 17C, the master bedroom bath tub had no hot water and the fireplace was not working. Every winter the furnace would completely shutoff, specially in hard cold days. We had a wire fence, uneven ground in the backyard and holes under the fence that our dog once fell through and ended up in the construction site next door. There was construction debris in our back and front yard pretty much the entire time we lived there, Citysearch never cared or did anything to remediate so we simply could not use or enjoy the backyard. An employee by the name of Emilio would completely ignore our emails and requests for assistance, it was just completely unprofessional. The list goes on... so many issues to capture in this review. Finally, on our move out inspection they unilaterally charged us for furnace service calls, appliance repairs, yard maintenance, etc based on service reports that we never saw, signed or agreed to. read more

I signed a rental leasing for 12 months, every correspondence after signing the lease was rude, the professional manners were something else! I would never recommend this rental team to anyone. They are never on time, will never get back to you, and when they do it's about them not you. I have never had to deal with such rudeness, seriously! read more

Move in reports will not show deficiencies. They promise to correct them. If you want to sign that you disagree with the report and write down the deficiencies they will refuse you keys. Move out is a thorough 2 hour inspection with lots of pictures. You will lose some or all of your security deposit. They will charge you for things not even on the move in. You will have to take them to court. Worst company I have ever dealt with. No tenant owner portal so there is no transparency. No consequences for their actions as you have to take them to court and all they have to do is return your money. Things need to change. Contact me if you have experienced this and want to help change the tenancy act to protect tenants read more

Since the day I moved into my rental unit, I had nothing but problems with this property management company. You are very lucky IF they respond to an email regarding any repairs that needs to be done to the property. It took a month to fix our fridge after it broke down! My brother and I ended up fixing most of the repairs ourselves. Any time I voiced concerns about the lack of urgency when it came to the repairs I was made to feel like I was the one in the wrong. Moving out was a complete nightmare...I have never dealt with such unprofessional individuals in my entire life. I felt insulted and harassed, especially from a person who had absolutely no clue when it came to construction. I'm sorry, but when I am paying for property management in my rent, I am the customer, not them. We were super lucky to have amazing landlords, or else this would have been a complete disaster. I also can share a similar experience to the other reviews, where I was asked to rate them a 5 star review on Google to avoid a fee when my rent bounced based on a banking error. Talk about fake reviews. Save yourself some stress by not renting from this company! read more

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY. They will nickel and dime you for every little thing they do and once they have your money and the contract signed, you will never be able to get ahold of them. Their accounting system is wacked also. They send my person statement to everyone in their database. Not professional and bad customer service. read more

We used CitySearch to help us find a rental. We were happy with the property that they found for us but found many of their senior staff to be abrasive and unprofessional. In addition to having to follow up on an average four or five times to get a single response from them about anything, they on numerous occasions sent me emails about a property I did not either own or rent, mixing me up with other clients of theirs. It took 4 phone calls and 3 emails to get them to change the account they withdrew rent from, and (against our better judgement) when we recommended them to friends of ours, their representative was incredibly rude to one of them (an eight month pregnant woman) Naturally that ended things immediately, despite a perfunctory apologetic phone call made two days later by said employee. It's not uncommon, when visiting their office, to hear how rudely they talk about their clients. In fact we were told multiple times in fact how the owners of the property we were renting from, were "royal pains in the ass". After we questioned an issue on our security deposit cheque after we moved out - I received a follow up call from a private number, after hours, from an employee that said I was ruder than I needed to be (1- I was only questioning what I naturally assumed to be yet another error on their part; and 2 - The caller wasn't even in the office at the time). This was our experience. I will never use this company in the future for any reason. read more

CitySearch are a strong property management team...I sleep better knowing my property is being managed professionally and ethically.

Renters beware... I will echo the sentiments below. The property I was renting was amazing but the staff were a nightmare to deal with. I have numerous un-returned emails and issues around getting my safety-deposit back. Finally when they did respond, staff, including the CEO were condescending. And to top it off, they sent me an email advising me to write 5-star review for them on Google (which explains why they're ranked so high) read more

These people seemed nice at first, but when it came time for us to move out they really showed their true colors! They offered to "help" us by cleaning the carpets when we moved out, and ended up taking over $1400 of our damage deposits for "cleaning services"! $1400 to clean a three bedroom house... it's completely rediculous! Plus they gave us No accounting of what was done... no receipts to prove what they spent, and it took over 6 weeks to get the tiny bit of our damage deposit they left us back (and we had to bug them for that!) They claimed we agreed to things we NEVER agreed to, and suddenly their demeanor went from friendly to threatening. My advice is never to deal with this company! They're not what they appear to be, and will gouge you at the end for every bit of your damage deposit they can get their hands on! read more

I agree with the other posts. When you first rent they are okay to deal with. After that they are so unprofessional there are no words. They are rude beyond belief how anyone should ever be treated. They lie right to your face but usually over the phone. They asked the same thing from us, as another poster mentioned write a nice review. I cannot believe this company is still in business. I have rented a dozen homes, condos, etc over the years and never had a problem. This property management company is in a league alone for being the worst. I would rate them 0 out of 10 if I could. Stay away. I wouldn't know where to begin listing my complaints. I will be filing a compliant with the BB and may consider a lawsuit as well. Use anyone else they could not be this bad. read more

Dealing with this company was one of the worst experiences of my life. I just didn't think a company would be allowed, by law, to carry on this way. There were so many warning signs that the company was odd but we were just moving to Calgary from out of town and we wanted the location. I wished I had done more research. They put us through hell during the flood too and ended up really taking advantage of us financially during what was already a terrible time. The landlord was Ralph Wescomb and he was equally responsible for the mismanagement of the property as I even approached him about the horrible treatment we endured from all of the staff we dealt with at CitySearch Rental Network, he did nothing. Like I said, I wished I'd done some research because more people than not have had awful, over-priced experiences with them. Please save yourself and don't believe the lies. Although if you meet with Diane right off the bat, you might get a taste of how badly you will be treated, it gets worse the longer you know her. She actually started yelling at me during a meeting. I am not one to go on about people or companies that have wronged me but this situation was so far over the top, I simply couldn't believe it was happening. I'm so glad it's over but I wished I hadn't paid those people so much money over the course of 18 months. Please beware! read more

My husband and I have multiple property rental experience and have never used as utterly unprofessional a property management company to oversee these rentals as CitySearch! We have been stunned by the deplorable lack of service for what the property owner is paying them monthly! Neither of us has ever see this low a level! And they do not appear to care at all about their name in the community or resolving issues -- we may end up having to file a lawsuit in order to get them to do anything at all. Please feel free to contact if you are considering using their services -- I would be happy to fill you in on our experience. Tafino1@aol.com. read more

This company is an absolute joke. The woman named Diane that came to show us the house always showed up late and reaked like cigarettes and booze. Upon taking the house they told us their would be inspections every 6 months and they never once showed up. When we has problems in the home (ie the furnace not coming on, the hot water tank leaking and flooding the basement..ect) They would take forever to come and take a look and then we would find out later that it was our problem and it wold come out of our damage deposit...They are all extremely rude and unprofessional. My advice is also to NEVER use them. read more

Please avoid this company for both tenants and property owners. We used them as tenants for a short time and it was awful and overly expensive. They just are not trust worthy and will do no maintenance. I own rental properties in other cities and I am so glad I am not involved with anyone like this. Please, beware. read more

I am currently in a battle with this company over the sale of the property. They have been extremely unhelpful and adversarial. They dictated who I was to use as realtor. The tenant is providing no cooperation for the showings and when approached City Search sides with the tenant and provides no assistance either. The tenant has breached the Tenancy Act at least 5 times since the property was listed, however City Search has not approached us with respect to remedies. They continue to deny any wrongdoing. I have now involved a lawyer to evict the tenant as City Search is clearly no longer acting in my best interests or as my agent. We have also terminated our agreement with City Search and they are claiming that I will owe them over $4,000 as a result. They are holding $1,000 damage deposit and an additional $500 holdback...for who knows what!! Dealing with them has been a complete and utter nightmare. As one other reviewing indicating they were nice and professional during our first meeting and it has all gone down hill since then. I am certain they are not completing inspections...they weren't aware that the tenant had moved a boyfriend in with her and they did nothing to add him to the lease or to do any background on this additional tenant. They are poor excuse for a property management company. And I will do everything I can to spread the word. They do not have a BBB F rating for no reason...quite frankly I think their F is generous. read more