I'm not going to speak about anyone in particular, in case it's just a one-off and that BIG Realty…read moreneeds to define policies so that each realtor is representing their company consistently. I've never had such horrible service with any realty company or realtor that I've worked with when renting short-term before.
We needed help finding a place for a short-term lease (6 months) for rent. We gave BIG Realty (McAllen) 3 months of advance notice (11/19 to 1/15), and the realtor still was unable to find a property (perhaps due to the holidays?). A solution to an issue was only pointed out to us by the realtor only a few days prior to the deadline. During these 3 months, we were only subscribed to a mailing list w/ no updates/calls or anything on what was going on with our choices. Each person works differently, so I assumed that the realtor was doing their best and wasn't the kind of person to update on progress. Anyways, by the time we had reached our deadline, we still didn't have a property.
Fortunately due to laws in ATX, it turns out we had to give 60 days notice instead of 30 which resulted in pushing our move-in date 30 days later which gave the realtor more time. However, during this period the realtor still wasn't able to find a property until less than a week prior. As this was around the time when our lease was up, we didn't even get a choice at choosing a property and were forced into whatever property the realtor had found. The property wasn't even on our list. Nonetheless, we finally had gotten a lease agreement w/ address.
We were given a leasing agreement written up by the realtor and it turned out the address wasn't even a valid address. This is an issue w/ the listing agent, but we personally had to do some X-referencing w/ maps and other listing sites to figure out the correct mailing address. Once we found one, we verified it w/ the realtor which they had confirmed. We then re-scheduled all our utilities for the new address, and began our move.
We had movers (2men and a truck, good service btw) relocate our belongings, and began our drive. During the drive on Thu, we received a call from the realtor that the confirmed address was still the completely wrong address. As we arrived on Thursday night, we couldn't get into the property because the realtor still didn't have a key. We began to wait at the property, but because we were exhausted from the packing, the drive, and it being freaking cold, we ended up going to a hotel.
The next morning (on Friday), we didn't get the key until 5-10 minutes before the movers actually arrived at the designated property. This was mid-friday which did not leave us enough time to get water and other high-priority utilities set up. This forced us to stay in a hotel until Monday, but whatever.
Now that we're at the property that we were "issued", it turns out that to get the correct mailing address, we had to go to the USPS ourselves to figure it out. The previous tenants have had an outstanding balance on the power meter, and so we're forced to pay a large deposit (Thanks Magic Valley Co-op). The upper window is cracked with a hole as if it's been shot with an air-rifle, garage door opener missing, missing microwave tray and oh, it also doesn't work at all. The most fantastic part is that the mailbox takes a key which the realtor didn't have either.
We'd only been here 2 days and had found a half-dozen roaches in a bag of chips that were "chip-clipped", and I'm pretty sure I heard some mice squeaking at 3a as I was sleeping on the couch due to not having put the bed frame back together yet. There's no internet here except for satellite which is not what was on the listing we were given when we arrived.
It feels as-if the realtor, definitely never checked this one out ahead of time, and had historically never called us whenever there was some problem or issue that we could readily fix such as with regards to showing proof of employment. Instead, the realtor would wait for us to call/check-up on them before telling us of an issue. I'd only learn about issues that he was having whenever I called about the status which during the 30 day extension I had to call every monday and wednesday.
Some issues are listing-agent related, but misssing deadlines, not giving out the listing or letting renters choose what property to rent at, not even informing renters of the necessary utilities, having the wrong address, not even having keys, and finally not having contact information for the landlord prior to the final deadline are a big deal. Don't expect BIG Realty to do anything related to looking out for you if you're renting and are remote.
