As an owner, I would recommend that you hire Mill House to manage your property if you want to pay exorbitant and hidden fees, pay ridiculous repair bills and receive a very poor return on your rental investment.
If you live in, let's say, Krakow, and are simply looking for a caretaker while waiting for your property to appreciate for a few years and are not concerned about the ruinous month to month financial management of your units, then the scheming money grabbers at Mill House are perfect for you.
Beware of those back end exit fees! They extracted $1000 from us off the back end after I tried to gracefully exit the contract after exactly one year. Angela agreed to a 30 day notice period after informing me that our contract had "automatically renewed", as per the terms of our contract, at the stroke of midnight 10 hours prior to my notice. "Oh well" I thought, after calming down. "what harm could an extra 30 days do?". Thirty days later I felt the harm when we were hit with almost $1000 in additional repair bills to the units, and slammed with a $1000 exit fee. Calls and complaints to Millhouse fell on deaf ears.
Note that while they don't have power of attorney, they have an extremely sneaky, but apparently very legal method of signing off on leases without your consent because the length of the lease is less then 365 days!!
Note that they can collect "fees" from your tenants and keep those fees as income! Like pet fees..like multiple animal, dog AND cat fees.
Industry Estimated repair costs on a property should be around $1 per square foot per year. For a unit such as mine (The Retreat) which belongs to an HOA ($170 HOA dues per unit over and above the property management fees) to maintain the property exterior, gardens, roof...so even $1/sf is on high end here. $850 per/year is about $71 per month. Millhouse average monthly repair bill on one of my units was $161.96, second unit was $146.28.
These were small easily maintained units. They handed out repair jobs to preferred vendors like candy at Halloween. A clogged shower drain: $150. A light bulb change and squeaky door :$55. Paint "touch up" $375. Running toilet : $147. This is all fact based testimony. Receipts and monthly statements available upon request. See below
They were going to proceed with a $2000 HVAC replacement before they notified me, and I had my local guy, the Boer Bros. step in and clean the system for less than $200. They claimed the Boer Bros. were not on their recommended vendor list and were going to charge me $50 to review them and add them to the list! The famous local HVAC kings the Boer Bros!
I could go on and on with my airing of grievances (this is the Festivus season, right?), but I must stop there. If you are out of state, and hands off, and don't care about losing money or giving it away to Angela and Adam and Irene, who are more than willing to take it off your hands for you, by all means, let MillHouse manage the living crap out of your property.
If, on the other hand, you are local and semi-ambulatory and can swing a hammer and screw in a light bulb, then steer clear of these predators. As first time rental investors we paid a dear price in putting our trust with Mill House. Their cleverly word-smithed contract and our own ignorance and naivety cost us a small fortune.
You might be wondering why I didn't go to my lawyer and fight back. Great question! The good folks at X,Y and Z, who represented me when I purchased these units, happened to have one of the best civil litigation attorneys in the state in their firm. Unfortunately I was told that ..."the firm has in the past represented Mill House Properties on several occasions. Accordingly, we are conflicted out of representing you. I'm sorry we won't be able to help."
I'm considering going to a local minor league lawyer, but then he is fighting this major league guy....Jesus.
Stay away from Millhouse if you are looking for property management. Wherever you go, read the fine print and trust no one. For more details, guidance, consultation: kvh8863@gmail.com read more