Rental Fees on Appliances???
We thought we'd seen it all in unprofessional property management, but these people give a whole new meaning to the words. We found a property we wanted to tour on Zillow and reached out numerous times to get it arranged. We could reach NO ONE in the Palm Desert office live no matter how many times we tried. Finally, a week later on a Saturday after hitting redial a dozen times, someone picked up. They told us they needed a rental app first *before* we could see it AND a fee up front. Never heard of that one before. We reluctantly paid and submitted the app, did a self guided tour (they wouldn't even come out to show us the property) and then when we had questions, they told us we didn't qualify via their monthly income requirement even though we had ample proceeds from the sale of a home in the bank, let alone enough income. We never heard back after that, so we demanded our app fee back and our bank returned it right away. Fast forward a couple weeks and I decided to reach out to the owner in the Palm Springs office. He said there must be a mistake and within a day we got a call from the PD office that we had been accepted no issue and received lease paperwork via email. We were perplexed. We asked to see the property again to be sure we still wanted it (also self guided), decided to take it and called the owner back with questions. He then explained that the person who "handled" that particular property was out of town and would be back in a week, but told us we'd be "renting the appliances" (refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, etc) for $30 PER MONTH and that if we chose to get a dog, we'd pay $50 PER MONTH in pet fees. Has anyone ever heard of RENTING APPLIANCES or paying MONTHLY for a pet instead of a pet deposit??? Still, we waited for the person responsible for the property to get back to go over it all with us, but we didn't process paperwork because we didn't agree with these random fees. Needless to say, we got one phone call from her (which we missed due to being on work calls/in meetings) and were never contacted again, even though we called back and requested to set a time to talk or meet at the property. The next week we were told the property was rented. Total scam and beyond a total waste of our time. We've been warned about these guys and now we know why! Be very cautious if you are considering one of their places. They don't pick up the phone and if you are lucky enough to finally reach them after repeated calls and emails, the story changes multiple times. We wonder if the owners of the properties know these guys are charging rental fees on appliances. Is that even legal??? Would NOT recommend! read more