On October 29, I sent a lengthy comprehensive description of our family and needs/desires for a home. We are taking our time looking for a home, as we are separately very happy where we are and do not want to move until we find the perfect place that is mutually beneficial to our family and landlords. We do not want to move again for at least 5 years after we find a home so are looking for a longterm rental. Jen Gough replied that our family sounds like a great fit, and asked me to call her to set up an appointment to view the property. I called her and she had no idea who I was or what property I was talking about, told me that she runs a "very large business" with 9 properties. When I described the house in more detail she told me they have short term tenants for the next week and I will need to call back some other time. I asked her when I should call back, and she huffed -- extremely frustrated to be engaging in this conversation -- and asked how long we planned to stay. I reminded her of our email exchange hoping that would cue her to who I was and what we are about, which didn't happen, and then told her we are looking for a rental of 5 or more years. She exclaimed, "That's way too long! We aren't interested. Thanks." And hung up. If you plan to give Jen a call, make sure you are equipped to speak to the most important person alive. read more

If I could give less than 1 star, I would. Absolutely dreadful experience with these people. I am in an organization that tried to book the place for a weekend retreat, and I just wish we would have recognized the red flags sooner. Jen was unbelievably unprofessional---they made us pay HALF of the cost in cash for "tax reasons" (yeah right). I don't think Voldemort, Frank Underwood, and Satan combined could get away with what these people pulled. They kept our initial $2,400 deposit after changing and nullifying the initial contract (getting a lawyer on this) and they made it such a pain in the neck to try and get a hold of them whenever we needed them, but surprisingly they gave us the $5,400.00 back within a day via PayPal after cancelling our reservation just days before our retreat this Friday. Honestly, if you're looking for a place with the same view of the ocean with similar service, go to Guantanamo. read more

Very shady company. I would proceed with caution when using them... Yesterday, I called and spoke with Lane who told me over the phone that a certain property was available over the holidays for my family. He said he would send me a quote "right over" via email so we could proceed with the rental. No email or any follow up from him at all. I then got a call today from JG Estates, a different person this time, returning a call I had left yesterday morning. She called from a Florida area code which should have been my first red flag. We talked about the same property and she referred me to the website, which she says is "always up to date" in regards to the availability calendar. The property showed complete availability on the website without any bookings (another red flag). She told me a bit more about the property though clearly she had never visited it and knew only what was on the website. I went ahead to proceed with the booking, however the rental agreement did not load on the website. I wanted to view it obviously before paying any deposit. I called her back and she said she would troubleshoot it quickly and call me back. 3 hours went by and no word. So, I called to follow up. She then told me that actually the property wasn't available at all. In fact, "just 5 minutes ago" it had been rented for 45 days, including the week that I was interested in. I found this really hard to believe. At best, this is a new company that does not have its act together and has poor follow-through. At worst, they are just shady. I could not recommend this company to anyone and in the future would stick to airbnb or other websites where you can deal with homeowners directly. Quite a disappointment. read more

I will not, under any circumstances, rent anything from Jen Gough again. Honestly, I wish that our stay had been canceled ahead of time like some of the other people leaving reviews because she was beyond unprofessional, impossible to contact, and the estate itself was in a state of disrepair that was most definitely not represented by the website. Prior to our arrival, Jen rarely if ever answered our questions regarding the property, and changed the rules/contract for the stay multiple times, including trying to change the number of people who could stay after it had been made explicit in our initial request that we needed to accommodate a larger number. When we arrived, the home itself was filthy, the kitchen not only had open food and beer bottles, and the laundry room was overflowing with dirty and foul-smelling laundry. The pool area was beautiful but we discovered after using it that we shouldn't have been swimming at all when the pool guy came by and warned us that there was bacteria in the water. Overall, an upsetting and disappointing end to what should have been a great weekend with friends. read more

I'm going to keep this short. They are the most unprofessional and rude company I've ever worked with. We were booking a location for an event our organization does twice a year. We had booked the location months in advance. We sent our deposit to the paypal address they wanted us to send it to and they emailed us a week later asking why they didn't get it. Turns out they had sent the wrong email which left us attempting to get our money back from a random person and still needing to put down a deposit. After trying to get a hold of Jen (the hardest person in the world to reach) for weeks they texted us two days before the event saying we could not stay there. Stay away. read more

I, like the many people below, made an awful decision in booking through this company without reading reviews. Here I am a day after my stay reading these reviews and agreeing with every single one! Jen could quite possibly be the worst human being alive. When I met her, after many phone conversations, it was with the homeowner as well. Jen showed up, clearly drunk, and then had the nerve to ask the homeowner for more alcohol! She also continuously called the homeowner, to her face, "dude", while demanding for said alcohol. She is easily the most incompetent, unprofessional person I've ever had to deal with. Save yourself money, effort, and anything else you find valuable by not going through JG estates. What a joke. read more

My friends and I rented a vacation home from Jen Gough in January 2015. As others have said, Jen can be very tough to get ahold of, especially when there was 3 weeks before we were supposed to check in. As we pulled up to meet Jen at the vacation home, my friends saw her chugging a beer while she was waiting for us to arrive. Very unprofessional, but as we were trying to have a good time ourselves, laughed if off. The stay was pleasant, but the owner kept coming around the property to see what we were up to. I called the owner at check out, and he said there was nothing we had to do, except pick up cigarrette butts before we left, and we did. When I emailed Jen asking for my deposit back, she replied our "damages exceeded our deposit, i will email a receipt later today" . I have emailed and called her numerous times and have never received a receipt or itemized list for "damages" . I wish I would have read this sooner. Hopefully this will save you time and hassle. FYI: DON'T STAY AT "CHAMPAGNE POOL VILLAS"! read more

Attempted to book this location for a weekend. Initially very accommodating, but all of a sudden, they became very unresponsive. We payed our deposit and about two weeks before the scheduled weekend, they changed their policy on us, with stricter rules and increased fines, which were not accounted for in our budget. After continuously trying to contact them to clarify the new contract, they remained un-cooperative. Eventually, they expressed to us that they felt "uncomfortable" with us renting the estate via a text message and refused to return our security deposit but did refund us the initial payment. Jen Gough is as unprofessional as it gets, and the operations of her office truly encompasses it. I don't know how they haven't been reading these reviews and not considered changing their attitude. I understand that they are a young company but they'll soon be a non-operational company if they keep this up. If you're reading this, Jen, it's too late. read more

Fraudulent and horrible! Do not do business with Jen Gough!!! Total scam. I had searched for properties to rent through VRBO and a property with Jen came up in my search. She contacted me outside of VRBO and much to my hesitation I ended up booking with her directly. BIG MISTAKE. Like the other reviews she is impossible to get a hold of and will fraudulently keep a portion of your deposit. When you try and fight her she will vanish.... I am only out $200 but I am considering legal action out of principle. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS WOMAN!!! read more

I have to agree with my fellow yelp reviewers. This company is, at best, very difficult to deal with and at worst, very shady. We experienced a very similar experience when dealing with this company. We were looking for a vacation rental, and received the same confusing inconsistencies and unprofessional behavior. This seems to be an MO for this company. If you do your research as I did, you will notice that there are very few if any reviews of the properties offered by this company. There are also very few bookings according to the availability calendar located on their website. Some properties have an entire year open with no bookings. This seems strange to me because the properties look great and are in desirable locations. Why aren't these properties being booked? Why are potential renters being told a property is available and then after an application has been completed and sent, the properties miraculously become unavailable? Yes, something is fishy with this company for sure. I'm not sure what is going on but a respectable rental agency this is not. read more

Similar experience to all the previous reviews. Rented the Magic Castle at the end of March 2015 and have yet to receive my $1000 deposit back. Left numerous voice messages with Jen Gough to no avail. Left message via their website and got a response back in a few days saying they were looking into it. Will pursue Small Claims Court next. read more

This is my first Yelp review ever. I really wish I had checked Yelp before booking our vacation. 3 nights in Santa Barbara. Luxury Estate...I think not. I too had trouble reaching anyone to get instructions for check in. Then I was told they had someone checking out same day and would like all the time they could to clean. But we paid good money for our 3:00 check-in and stalled as long as we could. No doubt, they needed the time as you can't clean 6500 square feet properly in 3 hours with 2 people cleaning. Needless to say, our first 4 hours of stay were used to clean and try to get things working. The property was not as advertised. Don't believe them about any of it. There's a reason they have all 1 star reviews. They are robbing people blind. They had only 1/3 the light bulbs working, broken bar fridge/ice maker, broken window blinds or none at all. No working TV's. Too long a list to mention it all here. There was no maintenance done in a very long time. It was filthy and old food was left in the oven!! And we paid for pool (which was freezing) and jacuzzi spa (never would go over 80 degrees). I emailed Jen to complain but negative reviews obviously don't bother her, so got no response. Too bad more people don't use Yelp before booking, because she'd be out of business. Oh yeah, and the "estate" was pulled from her website the moment we checked out, further evidence it was in no condition to be rented in the first place. My advice, when looking for home rentals, go elsewhere. read more

Jen Gough used my home for one of her vacation rentals. I had no idea she was going to do this. She had rented it under the pretense that it was for her only. I received continuous phone calls from the neighbors complaining about noise and seedy people sleeping in their cars outside my house, foul language and threats to any of the neighbors that complained to her. I had no idea on the weekends she was renting my home that I had rented to her alone was being used as a VRBO. The neighbors finally figured it out when they saw a limo pull up and at least ten people get out. I evicted her and thankfully she left. She owed me $9000 for the unbelievable damage and stolen items from my property. I spent months getting my money out of her. Finally, the Sheriff had to take the money out of her account. She didn't show up to court to defend herself. She did so much damage to my house that it took months to repair. Do not ever use Jen Gough for anything. JG properties is a disgrace to Santa Barbara. read more

Our group would not recommend using this rental agency!!! Had we seen the other reviews before booking we would not have used. Very very poor communication. Once we had paid our money and paid our air flight to Santa Barbara, we were told the house we rented would no longer be available as they were going to paint it. I found this out after repeatedly calling them. They did substitute a comparable home in the same area but the fact they needed to change houses made us suspicious and uneasy. We were promised three queen beds for the three couples that would be using the home. I had to call them multiple times again before arriving as we hadn't received any directions or instructions. Their response was "oh, that must have gotten lost in the shuffle". Again raising our suspicions and uneasiness. Upon arriving from out of state, we found the home they sent us to was not the home we had reserved. We found the key under the mat, but also an eviction notice on the front door. They were evidently renting the home, violating the local covenants!!! The home was filthy. Luckily We were able to reach a rep for JG Collections and after a half hour of high stress and confusion sent us the correct email with the correct directions to the home we had rented. Thank goodness for Smart phones that receive emails!! We arrived at the correct home only to find a twin bed in the third room. Had to wait til 10 pm that night to have the third queen bed delivered. Not the way we wanted to start our vacation. The home was not very clean. There was the owners dirty cloths on the closet floors, the linens and towels were stained and there were hardly enough dishes, pots and pans in the kitchen to prepare and serve a meal. We had to wash everything as most of the dishes were not clean. Thank goodness for great travel buddies, we made it work and had a great week in Santa Barbara, but after successfully renting homes for many years, this was the worst experience ever. read more