It's hard to know how REIS is actually operating now. They merged with MKE Property Management and they are now WHMilwaukee (Welcome Home Milwaukee)
Unfortunately, I can not recommend REIS at all as a Landlord or tenant.
We hired REIS with very little time and ability to perform research due to a job relocation. Jacob Nelson pitched REIS as "all inclusive" and "transparent." They claimed repeatedly not to "nickel and dime people like the other guys." We went with them knowing we could switch property management companies later, which we did within a year.
Jacob then showed our house to a couple relocating from out of state who needed to be in their rental property before we were scheduled to be out of our home. He said the couple loved our house and they were in the process of finalizing the paperwork with them.
I called my relocation contact and told them that I needed the move team to be at my house earlier than our scheduled move to accommodate the renters. They scrambled to make this happen in the middle of winter.
My husband, who was originally going to stay in our house longer, quit his job since we would no longer be supporting two housing payments as Jacob told us our home was rented.
Days later we inquired about the paperwork and come to find out that they backed out and that REIS never had a signed lease from this family.
At one of the most stressful times of our lives (cross country move, starting a new job) we hired a company who specializes in managing property, to mitigate our risk, and instead they dropped another bomb on us.
Since my husband had already quit his job we went ahead and moved cross country anyway hoping the home would get rented quickly. Jacob did offer us a concession to make it right after we expressed extreme disappointment, however, the reality is a professional and knowledgable property management company would have never done this in the first place.
Once they started showing our house they did end up renting it. The woman, Lindsay, who was showing it became a person we interacted with as well. Through these interactions we started asking her questions and she would respond and offer help to us. She inadvertently became our point of contact, but we found her interpersonal skills lacking in some cases.
We asked her about lawn care, stopping by the property, and notifying the tenants. In the last situation we messaged her and told her that we would be stopping by the property inspect the yard, install some parts into an appliance, as well as access a locked cabinet in the property. We provided about a month of notice with a time frame of 2-5pm. I understand their job is to keep the tenant happy, but ultimately a property management company acts as an agent for the property owner, which means they work for us. The accusatory nature that Lindsay spoke to us in was ridiculous. Jacob handled this, notified the tenant, let them know that they were welcome to be there if they were able to, but that as the owners we were providing them with plenty of notice and legitimate reasoning.
The last straw was when Wisconsin had heavy, extreme rains in August 2018. The communication log shows that the tenants reported streaming water into the finished basement on multiple occasions and that this was not addressed by REIS. We were also not notified of this in advance, we found out in the communication log on our Property Management report.
We were unable to address this promptly for our tenants because we had no idea. Rather than notify us and let us get a window contractor to the house to replace the old basement windows, they sent their "best" at $68 an hour to put plastic window covers over the basement windows.
Then they tried to charge us for "their best" to examine the foundation, which we declined. The issue was the old, original basement windows.
We immediately started calling contractors and when we tried to ask them to coordinate a time with the tenant for the contractors to show up they said they would take 10 or 15% for coordinating a time the tenants would be home. What? It's literally coordinating an appointment.
So much for not nickel and diming.
After a full analysis of every question we asked, service we inquired about, and etc., we realized that they are going to default to a rate of $35-40 an hour for ANY service you ask and they're going to quote you a minimum of 4-5 hours for ANY service you ask for a "handful of guys."
Need 4 flowerbeds weeded? $35 an hour for the morning for 3-5 people. Could be 3, could be 5. That's really the difference of $200 without any way to control the cost.
After talking to our tenants we realized we did them a disservice by using REIS/Welcome Home Milwaukee.
I absolutely do not recommend REIS/Welcome Home Milwaukee. We switched to World Property Management and Joe Mundo and his team have been great.
We check in with our tenants and they're happy as well. read more
