This is my first Yelp review. Heritage Realty has been good to me. When we were looking three years ago for a house that would take a dog and a cat there weren't many options. Our Realtor, Don Sfarzo, was very patient and diligent in showing us houses. My wife and I had poor credit at the time due to our prior divorces and he really pushed to have us accepted as tenants. We did the normal walk through and noted all the defects or damage that was leftover from prior tenants. We got a nice house in the Laurie Meadow area but it is forty years old and obviously there were going to be occasional maintenance issues. The refrigerator, dishwasher and garbage disposal were replaced promptly when they broke down without any particular hassle. One of the bathrooms had no lights because of a short and they sent somebody within a week to rewire the whole thing and put in a whole new light/fan system. Some other tenants might be "outraged" by these minor inconveniences and would have demand action the next day. Let me say there is a big difference between all of us four in the house sharing a bathroom for a few days and something more urgent like no sewage flow. Let me state that there is a clear delineation between inconveniences and emergencies. Many tenants don't seem to understand that. A landlord and tenant relationship is a two way street. When I noticed that the tile in the bathroom had cracks in it along the base, it didn't affect my ability to bathe and aesthetically I didn't care, but it was clearly going to eventually cause a long term and expensive problem to property owner. As a responsible tenant I notified the property management company, who promptly initiated repairs to prevent the situation from getting far worse. They realize the importance water leakage into the frame of a house and the ensuing dry rot or even foundation problems it can cause. Just watch any of the house renovation shows on television to see how costly and devastating this problem can be to the property owners. A tenant has to watch out for a landlord's interest the same way as an employee does for an employer. When a couple of planks on the backyard fence fell off I repaired it myself. It cost me $8 and about 15 minutes to fix. If I had called the landlord it would have cost him much more in labor costs. When the front door knob broke off in my hand I went to Home Depot, got a replacement, and installed it in about an hour. The landlord reimbursed me for the cost. If the locksmith had been sent out it would have cost four times as much. I am not going try to replace a broken water heater or screw around with the electrical work, but if I can save the landlord some grief and cost I will. We have had our share of rent increases, which is always painful, but they have not been outrageous, especially considering current market demand. Prospective tenants may not have a firm grasp of how tight the residential rental market is right now. Sure, it is unpleasant when you leave messages and don't get responses and undoubtedly this happened. You just have to be polite and be persistent. There are a lot of competitors for each rental now. The previous commentator who was looking for a studio apartment for $1,300 that would take a large dog was pretty unreasonable in his expectations, despite his statement otherwise, especially for the poor dog. No wonder the Realtor laughed. That is not to say you should not stand up to a landlord if they aren't maintaining the property or are treating you unfairly. But realize that landlords are people who have bad days and good days and most of the time they hear from a tenant it is about a complaint. When you hear from irritated people all the time it is difficult to be pleasant, which brings me to Rose Madrid, the property manager. Rose has been exceptional to work with. She has been responsive to our needs and patient with our inquiries. I think she takes her job very seriously and is professional in every way. Bottom line my experience with this property management firm and their representatives have been top notch. read more

I would strongly recommend that any renters or landlords looking to deal with a professional and trustworthy company stay as far away from Heritage Realty as possible. When we began renting with Heritage and were informed that utilities were included in the monthly rent and then informed that they weren't AFTER we had signed a contract saying so (no need to resign it though, they said...), we remained hopeful that the company was merely negligent, but not deceitful. Fast forwarding to moving out 3 years later and trying to secure our complete security deposit. We were informed that we could have a pre-inspection, to which their agent showed up to looking completely disinterested. However, she informed us that everything looked good - but to make sure that the blinds were dusted. She also told us that we need to have the carpets cleaned, and if we didn't want to be charged by Heritage for that, we needed to do it ourselves and save the receipt. So, we paid to get the carpets cleaned and had the kitchen professionally cleaned. At the final inspection, a completely different person showed up. When we asked him for feedback on anything that we would be charged for, he said that "he doesn't decide or control that" and to call the other agent. This seemed somewhat troubling, since he was doing the inspection, but we handed him the receipt for the carpet cleaning. So, we then begin calling the woman from the pre-inspection every other day for two weeks for feedback, but never received any sort of reply. That is when we began to get concerned. Finally, the check arrives from our landlord. We have been charged for - yep, you guessed it - carpet cleaning and oven cleaning. Somewhat strange as both the carpet and oven were professionally cleaned and at no point during either inspection were we informed that the stove was not up to standard, or we would have fixed it (my uncle who is a lawyer tells me that their failure of disclosure is particularly concerning). When we called our landlord about the carpet cleaning, he informed us that Heritage had charged him for the carpet cleaning, so we were finally able to conclude that this is a outrightly deceitful property manager. It is now five days past when we should have received all the money we were owed, yet we have still not received the refund for the carpet cleaning, or proof of the oven being dirty enough that they had to have it professionally cleaned again. It's always disappointing to run into companies like these, but Heritage is clearly a property manager that looks to continuously make extra money by taking advantage of tenants that it knows doesn't have the time or money to fight them. I will make sure to avoid renting any properties from them again, and would advise others to do so as well. read more

I lived at the Twin Oak apartments for a few years in two different units. First off, rent is cheap and the neighborhood is fairly quiet. That's the only plus. Having said that, you get what you pay for. At one point, 1 of 2 clothes dryers was broken for 2 months before I called Terry Michaud and then he had it fixed. He was usually better at resolving issues then Claudia the property manager. Claudia was very hard to get a hold of and rude as hell for no apparent reason. When I first moved in, two other tenants had small dogs and a couple people had cats. I tried for weeks to get a hold of Claudia for approval to allow a small dog. She came by my apartment one evening and left a crumpled up "notice" in my door that she typed up stating they were not accepting pets at this time. I then contacted Terry Michaud and with a $500 deposit was allowed to have a dog. FYI- your pet deposit should not cost more then half your rent. Something I learned when I moved out and consulted my lawyer. Claudia also showed up to my apartment one evening after 8pm unannounced to collect my pet deposit. Of course she had a shitty attitude so I set her straight. She was much nicer after that... When I left the first apartment and moved to a same sized unit that had a patio for less rent, I used the cleaning lady that Claudia hires. She guaranteed a no hassle inspection if this was done. I then come to find out they charged me an additional $85 for cleaning the blinds which should have been included. I went to the HR office with my receipts to dispute this. Terry Michaud's daughter Janae was covering for him and she was extremely rude and unprofessional. She even started arguing with another employee about something right in front of me. Unbelievable! I got my $85 back and also asked for a copy of rug cleaning bill which mysteriously surfaced after 20 min on some genetic receipt. Totally fraudulent. When I moved into the second unit, the rugs were still damp from cleaning. I had already waited as long as I could and had to be out of my old unit ASAP. I only lived there for about 8 months before the conditions were inhabitable due to the raging alcoholic neighbor upstairs and his psychotic episodes. At that point I had a lawyer break my lease and used my deposit for my last months rent. If I didn't get a lawyer to handle this situation, I'm sure HR would have kept my deposit for breaking my lease. I know from talking to previous tenants. Also rents varied for different tenants. I found this out from rent increase notices that were openly posted on tenants doors for anyone to see. When I moved out and did the inspection with Claudia, I was sure to video tape it. I would avoid doing any business with Heritage Realty. read more

HELL NO!!!!!! I can't give them a single star. That would mean I like some portion of there company. I DON'T!!!! These people are so backwards. We lived in one of their properties for two years. a BIG Mistake. First off, the staff are trailer trash, as are the residents. Section Eight is a BIG mistake. Make no mistake. I have had their staff address many issues regarding our unit. Plumbing, electrical and insects. First was plumbing issues. They sent in a person who spoke "NO" english and was clearly not qualified or certified to make the necessary repairs. The staff "PM" are not qualified which leads the question, why are they there? Bugs, many bugs were in our unit. They sent in a handyman to bug-bomb the unit. Why not a reputable company like Clark, Western or Orkin? Just to name a few. And then they had the audacity to bill me for it. The bugs were coming from another unit, NOT OURS!!! They charged us $80.00 for a $12.00 bug-bomb. We paid our final and last months rent on time, however, our check still has yet to clear the bank. After four months!!!!! I'm not going to inform them of this. What the hell, if they are so f'd up that they can't deposit my rent check after all this time, screw them. Thankfully, I have yet to be charged a late fee, but, what the hell is wrong with these folks? They withheld a portion of my deposit because they said we did not CLEAN the unit. They also said that the faucet leaks. It never did with us, why is it now leaking? The deposit refund is a bogus scam. Don't get sucked into it. The person who conducted the final move-out looked like she couldn't find her own a$$ with both hands. She talk so loud and rambled on about so many things that didn't make sense or had anything to do with our unit or move-out. She complained about her job and the people who's apartments she was inspecting, she really made us feel thankful we went to college and are making something of ourselves. And what is it with her and bed bugs?!!!! We never had them, why scare us with the notion that there might be bed bugs? Stay as far away from these folks as possible. I work for a federal agency that police these types of companies and their practices. I plan to file a complaint with the proper department and have these idiots investigated. fined or penalized for their business practices. They will be fined for hiring illegals and failure to properly document billing and repairs. read more

The staff of Heritage Reality have always been very courteous with me, and always took great concern to ask if I had any other concerns or needs that I wanted to address with their realtors that they'd immediately convey to the apartment owners if pertinent. Although, rent averages have steadily increased in my area since I moved here in 2008, In all that time I've only ever had one modest rent increase. As long as you pay your rent, which is very convenient since they take payments online as opposed to having to mail or bring in checks to their office, they're usually pretty content. And as far as maintenance, and upkeep, I've not needed much in the way of repairs nor have I had much to complain about. The apartment owners themselves have always been very kind, and their continual maintenance of the exterior, or the occasional small repair of the property, such as, for example, screwing in a loose bolt on my front door, or making sure that minor plumbing issues were immediately addressed makes the atmosphere that much more cozy, and inviting. In the past I did need a repair to my apartment that was somewhat cost-prohibitive. However, I was very much appreciative that their reality office was willing to negotiate a payment plan for the said repair, so that my ability to pay rent was in no way impeded. So, if you're looking for a realty office that will provide you with affordable properties to rent, as well as courteous customer service, Heritage Reality is a good bet. More recently, I had a bit of a challenge getting funds to transfer between banks over a holiday weekend delaying the money clearing for deposit to clear to pay my rent on time. Normally you have to pay a 10% late fee if you pay rent after the grace period. But, since this doesn't usually happen, and the circumstances with the banks and the holiday weekend were completely beyond my control, I was able to negotiate with Heritage's owner, Terry to be able to waive the 10% late fee. So, when you do business with Heritage Reality you know that you're dealing very reasonable agents that accept that sometimes life happens. read more

Worst management company ever! Don't think you'll get any deposit back from this company as they are thieves. Here's the story, we lived in a place in Burlingame for 4 years, we are home owners ourselves (in another state) and landlords so we know the responsibility of renting to other people. Houses are lived in so things break or need attention. I would take care of minor items myself but when something bigger came up, they would generally deny the item and pass blame on the owner. Eventually, the owner stopped by to check on us one time and I was able to make direct contact with the owner and started going direct and things would get fixed and repaired. When we moved out, we spent an extra day at our place after move out and cleaned with immense detail, we lived there for four years, we washed every strand of blinds, we took every globe off lights and cleaned, we pulled microwave out from enclosed cabinet and cleaned, I could go on. The cleaning crew came over and inspected and shared a couple of items to clean and we did. Matter of fact they said, "wow, you guys are doing an excellent job, we really appreciate it." Heritage charged to send a cleaning crew in $340, charged $260 to replace a screen, another $240 to clean the outdoor patio (mopped it) $840 total for lies! They are scam artists. The people moving in said she was going to demand new carpets because we still had the old carpets that were there before us. I think they charged us so much to pay for the carpets. I don't know for sure but they are thieves! I know that much. Go elsewhere, hurry, run! The only thing good about Heritage Realty was the rental agent that found us the place. The rest of it sucked! They constantly solicited us for Yelp reviews the entire time we lived there (I think her name was Claudia, very grumpy person). Well here's your review you asked for. Good luck, don't say you weren't warned. You'll regret it. read more

After 9 years of being the property manager for our family home in East Palo Alto , I made the discovery that our home was not subject to rent control as Heritage realty had maintained fo all those years. This occurred after a discussion with another realtor. After I checked with the rent stabilization board and verified this I called Heritage and spoke with Janay Michaud. I told her of my findings, and she was very surprised and called to verify for herself. In my next conversation with her she said. " We had better get this rent up to where it should be, I will schedule inspections to get started" . In ensuing conversations , after admitting that Heritage had dropped the ball, I told her that I felt we were owed compensation for their error which had "shorted" us for many years. Janay and I were on our way to a resolution in this matter until in "stepped the dragon" Terry, Who firmly maintained they had done no wrong. Consensus of opinion from attorneys was that they had breached their fiduciary responsibility. At present we are in a legal battle. I feel Terry has refused to admit wrongdoing because of all the other Litigation Heritage has been and is currently involved in. Terry Michaud is a LIAR, and I can prove it if I legally have to to qualify this remark. Further turns out that the tenant of 9 years was never given a 'move in' inspection so he took all his own notes and photos. Also, he has not been happy wth Heritage realty's response to his complaints when something went wrong. In fact, Terry Michaud lied to him when he called to come to the rental house to meet with the tenant. First time Terry had been to the house in 9 years. He only expressed interest in the maintenance of the property after the litigation started. I am appalled at the perceived moral character of these people. My recommendation is to avoid them and select another company. Questions....call me Bob B. (650) 400-6708 read more

Greetings: I want to resume my experience as a 10 year (plus) tenant of Heritage Realty and highly recommend their expertise if you are looking for a place to live in the Peninsula. I have been fortunate to encounter in Property Manager Ana Estevez, a genuine professional who 1)understands the necessities of her tenants 2)approaches every issue with respect, assertiveness and in a timely manner 3)provides a solution to any concern you might bring to her attention. In this decade renting with Heritage Realty, I have had moments when repairs were needed and if they were not immediately resolved I was given a prospective date of resolution for the repairs to be taken care of. Whether it was a faucet, the refrigerator , or the water heating unit (some emergencies included) my calls have always been responded promptly. On a personal note, I must say that Property Manager Ana Estevez and Heritage Realty showed me their consideration, in challenging times (I was hospitalized). Act which totally denotes that special human quality that makes a difference nowadays. As a matter of fact, this quality itself embraces the concept Heritage Realty is all about. A team of professionals who will provide service at its best and will prioritize their tenant's well being above all. "Ask with kindness and the world will provide..." On year I went to pay my rent around Xmas season and the staff were celebrating and mentioned that in that year they have all donated their bonus to some sort of Foundation. That's what I called "Sense of community" I have probably recommended about 6 families to their buildings and they have had all great experiences. And I will continue to recommend Ana Estevez and Heritage Realty to anyone who is looking for a place to live in the Peninsula read more

I have personally known Terry M. of Heritage Realty, his daughter and most of Terry's current staff for over 30 years. Heritage Realty is my contact for renting out my properties, as I live out of the area. Heritage Realty has always been on top of any issues or problems that may arise with my properties, and will inform me of problems, asap so I in turn can response asap. If you were to contact most any of my current or previous tenants, I believe they would tell you how pleased they have been with Heritage Realty. Sometimes, people may not be pleased because their problem may be one that cannot be solved right now. Sometimes contractors have to be contacted and estimates made, depending on how critical the problem may be. Other times, yes, speaking from a landlords view, some tenants are difficult. Take my last tenant who left the premises something like this. No PG+E for 4 months with a turkey and other food in the refrigerator. He left me a total disaster with terantulas, scorpians and snakes inside the house. Tons of garbage, old cars etc. It took awhile, but we have redone the house and now have the best of tenants who also try to take care of the home in which they live. Of course the tenant left without paying any rent or paying for any damages. Still we tried to work with him knowing that he lost his job and just could not afford to do more. Thats life and we try to help. So before you believe everything that is written take a minute to think about why someone would write a bad review and not leave his or her name so that the issue can be resolved. Thank you, Marie Ceccato read more

I usually reserve my online feedback for experiences that are truly deserving of either praise or criticism. Today, unfortunately, it's the latter. My recent experience with Heritage Realty, and their property manager Jackie, in particular, leaves a lot to be desired. To begin with, we faced serious issues with the property's piping system that resulted in the sprinklers functioning abnormally, driving our bills over $200 for consecutive months. After many back and forth emails/texts, we were finally able to get the problem addressed and the pipe fixed. To prevent any further complications, we have not touched the sprinkler system at all since then, leaving everything exactly as it was post-repairs. Despite our cooperation and due diligence, Jackie has recently begun to lay the blame on us for the dying lawn AGAIN, even though we had no hand in causing this issue. This repeated scapegoating not only sows seeds of mistrust but also creates an unnecessary stressful living situation. The role of a property manager, as I understand it, is to create a harmonious living environment, a bridge between the tenants and the landlords. Instead, she has only added to the problem, and her attempts to gaslight us by shifting the blame is quite unprofessional I am deeply disappointed by the kind of service and attitude we have experienced from this property management company - especially Jackie. Instead of working together to solve issues, they seem to be more interested in shirking responsibility and blaming tenants for their own lack of maintenance and foresight. read more