Update: Jeremy gave me a call kindly going over everything that had happened and addressing all my concerns. He emphasized how passionate he was about his work, and how much he values communication. My experience below is definitely sounds like a rare one-off experience due to some very rare and unfortunate circumstances. I have every confidence they are going to be amazing and am looking forward to them managing my home.
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Previous review:
We have just signed the contract with Devine, and moving forward with them. its been a bit of a mix bag. This review is only in regards to the initial contact, up to signing the contract with them to manage our home. We are definitely hoping the experience will change and be more reliable moving forward! My current experience is probably more of a "A-OK" 3 star experience rather than a "Yay! I'm a fan" 4 star experience... but I'm leaving 4 starts in trusting that my experience is a one-off experience and their management if the home will be as glowing as all the reviews below say.
The good:
The walk through of our home was nice, I like that they offer a 3D image of your home which can document any damage (or lack of) They had great advice on what to keep, and what to provide our tenants as well as detailed what they would take care of. Also comparatively to other management companies, they do have the most and the best reviews on yelp. So far everyone has been very friendly.
The bad:
1. Communication:
The response and time taken to response has been consistently slow. With a few exceptions of 1-2 emails that were quickly responded to. We would wait 4 days, and follow up (sometime as many as 3-4 times over text and email) However, after I complained about this, they became VERY VERY good in following up for the next days, which was great! :)
2. Lack of attention to contracts: On our contract, there were changes we asked for because: (A) They spelled my husbands name wrong (B) Our names were backwards, making my middle name register as my first, and (C) we asked to change the amount of money for repairs not needing prior-approval for us. (D) Husband's email was wrong.
We asked to change these items on separate occasions. Each time they would not change them completely, miss something, leave it completely blank, or they would not respond, and we would have to follow up again. Eventually they gave us the excuse that their contract system can't have more than 4 contracts and thus wasn't registering their updates. It was a fairly frustrating experience.
Note: To be fair the frustration to there slow responses were escalated by the fact that we were also in a rush to get the contract signed. (they know this)
There were many other small items that really made me question if they were the right choice. The most recent example would be that we just got an email that they were waiting on 4 documents from us, however we sent over those documents over a week ago. To expedite things, we sent them over again. After probing a bit more.. they admitted they received the other documents previously and there was nothing wrong with them, but cleverly evaded the question of why they asked for them again.
My biggest gripe is with each problem that arose, there was never an apology or any admission of mistakes. They always had an excuses ready Such as: 1. Forgot to send a drafted email, 2. was sick, 3. family emergency 4. The contract system wont update and cant have more than 4 contracts. 5. or somehow evading it all together. We wanted to be understanding, but at some point.. it felt like one excuse after another. No matter what went wrong with you, or your system, its your business, and the mistakes need to be owned up to, not evaded.
Another note: reviews below mention how they take care of everything for you, setting up cleaning, maintenance etc. This has not been the case for us (yet). Even getting recommendations from them was a bit hard and required follow up. They pretty much just tell us what has to be done, and expects us to do it. This includes paying the gardner ourselves (even while they manage the home) and getting all the cleaning and maintenance done on the home to get it ready, and getting the keys to them. So far none of this has been managed or helped by them-- they simply tell us we have to do it.
But again! I have high hopes, I know they have great reviews-- and perhaps this is just a one-off experience. I will update with another review with my experiences with them managing our property, and I'm hoping to write many wonderful things! read more