Welcome Home has managed many of my rental properties for several years and its extraordinary team…read moreleader and real estate broker, Erika Lamb, has helped me buy and sell homes as well. I could not be more satisfied with the company's services. What makes Welcome Home an exceptional property management company--and Erika a superlative broker--cannot be stated in a few words, so please bear with me.
For starters, I've never known anyone to spend as much time keeping herself apprised of trends and laws that pertain to property management and the real estate market as Erika. She is forever surprising me with her knowledge of the legal rights of tenants, landlords and homeowners associations, which has saved me many headaches and a great deal of money. Likewise, Erika's bottomless knowledge of Reno's best painters, locksmiths, handymen, landscapers, electricians, plumbers, roofers, and other specialists has ensured that work performed on my properties was done right the first time, which has kept my costs down.
Erika's certifications, lofty positions, and awards, which can be found on the "About Us" page, impressive as they are don't do her justice. They don't tell you, for example, that Erika is brilliant when it comes to telling you which tiles, paints, LVP flooring, light fixtures, carpeting, backsplashes, sinks, etc., should go into a new or remodeled home to meet the tastes and expectations of tenants as well as buyers. Based on her advice in these areas I was able to obtain a record-setting sales price for a condo I sold in a huge complex near Midtown (more on her strengths as a broker later). Because of that experience and others, I'm eager to get her design advice on a 4-bedroom house that will be my first rental property in Verdi when construction of it is completed in several months.
I could write a short book on all of the ways Erika has helped me with my rental properties--and how she'd likely help you if you chose Welcome Home to manage your rentals. But I'll move on because Welcome Home is more than Erika. The company consists of an excellent staff that calls upon excellent independent contractors as the need arises.
For instance, the importance of an expertly crafted lease cannot be overstated, and I'm thrilled to report that Welcome Home works with one of Reno's top lawyers to keep its leases in line with current laws and to protect its clients from new laws that favor tenants. Put another way, Welcome Home has got your back on legal matters. A great lease, as some of you no doubt know, can protect a landlord in 1,001 ways, so to speak, and Welcome Home's lease is decisively the best I've ever seen.
I have inspected the work of every member of the Welcome Home team, including its contractors, and have been impressed by all of them. Whether it's the team member who scrutinizes lease applicants and puts excellent tenants in my properties, or the team member who inspects and videotapes the condition of my properties before and after a tenancy to ensure that I'm not charged for tenant-caused damage, or the team member who smartly responds to a tenant request for a repair, or the photographer and the Photoshop masters who make my properties look gorgeous online (and generate above-market rents), there isn't a single person at Welcome Home or among its contractors that I don't hold in high regard.
On a personal note, Welcome Home gives me peace of mind that when I pass on, my wife won't be burdened with all of the work and hard decisions that our rental properties require. Welcome Home will continue to manage them, even to the extent of providing my wife with annual tax statements she will only need to mail to our accountant. Preparing such statements is something Welcome Home does for us now. It's included in their host of property management services. How wonderful is that!
Welcome Home is not the first property management company that I've hired in Reno, but it will certainly be the last. I cannot imagine how a property manager could improve upon the services offered by Welcome Home, and I'm a ridiculously finicky person.
Back to Erika Lamb as a real estate broker. I've been very fortunate. I've owned real estate in Panama, Costa Rica, Pasadena, Altadena, South Pasadena, San Francisco and Reno. In Reno, I've owned no fewer than a dozen houses, townhomes and condos. Before listing a property in each of the above-mentioned markets I spent many hours identifying some of their best real estate agents and/or brokers and I'd give none of them a grade below B+ in hindsight. That said, Erika stands head and shoulders above the rest as representative for the buyer or the seller.
I'd love to include the many examples of why I think so highly of Erika as a broker--and I had written the examples--but to my dismay I just now discovered that Yelp limits the length of reviews posted here and I exceeded the limit by about 900 words. You may find the rest of my testimonial at Welcome Home's website.