I, thankfully, don't rent from The Property Shop. I went to a viewing today, which they didn't tell anyone was a group viewing. The guy showed up late, walked right past us to the back, and then announced he didn't have the key to let us in, but that he'd give us his spiel while we waited for the owner to show up. Long story short: They expect you to hand in a non-personal check (money order, bank check) for the FULL deposit with your application. I cut him off when he mentioned that, and my reaction was to walk away with my two year old son. His response was "You interrupted me, dude!" (Yes, he actually called me "dude"). So, if you want to risk getting screwed over by a rental agency, go for it! Otherwise, avoid them like the plague. read more

Military property owners... they are like dealing with privatized base housing... we are now 6 weeks into an active roof leak at our house, that they seem to have taken from us and the ceiling and wall are actively wet and crumbling on the tenant. Even though we beg to fix it They say this is no problem and they will not even remove the wet probably molding plaster... it's that nightmare scenario. Update, Hello, got a threatening email right after this post insisting they deal only with my active duty spouse that can't have a phone at work... this company is punishing us. I too own the house, just never signed a contract... Military family here... This company is everything people say it is... we were not present in Richmond full time so my wife hired them to manage the property so the tenant would be taken care of. Right now we are fighting and I do mean fighting to take care of our house and tenant... they are in the middle taking money and letting damage happen and telling us to stay out of it because my wife signed a contract... we are getting a run down property we would have never allowed. We seem to have no say in what happens to our house. They won't even let my wife contact the tenant to schedule appropriate repairs... if you choose this company know that they will win. What they have done to my sweet wife and her prized retirement home is just demoralizing and cruel. read more

RUN don't walk from this property management company. They do not respond to emails or phone calls. Jason Saunders talks down to you and acts like he cares about you as a tenant. Don't be fooled! Winnie is ok I think she tries. read more

Renting from The Property Shop has cost me a lot of money and way too much stress. I'm writing this with the hopes that it'll prevent another renter from being taken advantage of by this company. When we moved into the property, it was absolutely covered in cobwebs and dust. It looked as if it hadn't been touched in months - there were even dead flies in the window sills. The owner had left furniture, old paint cans, and flower pots all over the property. But it was a cute old house with a lot of charm and a great location, so we cleaned up the interior and moved the paint cans and furniture out of the way. Five months or so into my first lease there was a storm that caused a horrible leak in my roommate's room. We immediately informed The Property Shop and they promised to send out someone to assess the leak. My roommate had personal items that had been completely destroyed by this leak in the mean time. This wasn't a small leak. It took them three or four months AFTER we reported the leak for them to finally send someone to repair it. In the mean time we were constantly switching out towels, sheets, buckets - everything we could to try to maintain the mess. It was miserable and when we contacted the Property Shop they were very dismissive and seemed like they couldn't be bothered. When I signed a new lease with a new roommate the repair still hadn't been done. She had to essentially say the repair being done was a condition of her signing the lease to get them to finally act on it. It took about a month off and on for the repairs to be done - the contractors would get to our house at 7am even on weekends and they were very loud and sometimes belligerent. They completely trashed our back yard that I had put a lot of effort into maintaining. They ruined our freshly planted grass -- but in the end at least the roof was finally fixed. Then there were issues with the toilet that we didn't know about until we received a $600+ utility bill. We bought the parts and fixed the toilet ourselves because we felt that if we'd contacted the property shop they'd take months to repair it. And we couldn't afford this utility bill, let alone a second one. About two months later, my roof started leaking. They acted very quickly on that and sent someone the next day. Jump to the end of the lease & moving out - I spent an entire day just cleaning because I knew they would find one last way to screw us over. I mopped, scrubbed down walls, and sanitized everything. We left the house spotless, certainly in much better condition than we'd found it. We were billed $250 out of our security deposit because they decided to hire a cleaning company. Then we were billed $200 for "trash removal" and the invoice detailed that it had been for the abandoned furniture and 20+ pounds of paint cans. All of which belonged to the owner. When I contacted The Property Shop about this they said that the owner would not be helping us with the charge for removing THEIR OWN items from the property. Rental companies should not be allowed to mistreat their tenants like this. And I've dealt with enough amazing and capable rental companies to know that this petty behavior is not normal. I can not warn you enough to stay away from The Property Shop's listings at all costs. There are better rental companies in the Richmond area. Save yourself the stress and money and rent through someone else. read more

Long story short...beware. First..If you schedule a showing they may book several at the very same time. I was shocked and felt "blind-sided" by the tactic. Furthermore you had better have a bank check or money orders on you to secure a property. We went ahead and put down a deposit using money orders (only to be second in line due to our private showing turning into an open house). Now I expect them to sign the money orders back over payable to me. They seem to refuse to do that, stating that I need to go back to where I purchased them along with my receipts to cash them in. That is just plain BS! I only want to be assured that they are payable to me, and deposit into my account without trouble. I may have to report them to the Va. Dept. of Professional and Occupational Regulation if they continue to refuse to aid in the return of my money. read more

WARNING! Do NOT put an application deposit with these guys. They changed the terms of our application and then would not return the deposit. Taking legal action, but these guys are shady. read more

TPS is a three-person organization that separated from Keller Williams a few years ago, and their rental division is headed by Jason Saunders. My single pleasant interaction with him was when he showed me an apartment. After that, he was dismissive or totally non-responsive to concerns about garbage collection or window repair. They subcontract 100% of their work, from HVAC repairs to painting. This is expensive for them, no doubt, and as a result these costs are passed on to you. While the lease says that repairs must be in a workmanlike fashion, remember the contractor is working for TPS, who is working for the landlord. TPS has been through three office admins in two years. I don't know why, but that's tough turnover for a 3 person company. Unless responsibility is explicitly spelled out in your lease, TPS has no interest in doing it. This includes door replacement, window repair, recycling, parking or security. I believe they are a cash-strapped company that's adopted a "nickle and dime" business plan, but that's my editorializing. They have an application fee of $50 / tenant, a $150 annual lease renewal fee, and a $250 annual pet fee. This means that on the first month of a new rental year, I pay an extra $400 of them to keep my same apartment - oh, and I had a rent increase, too. I know that 3 of 6 neighbors in my building are leaving this year, primarily because of lack of service from TPS. Our apartment is big and clean, but not nice enough to continue working with them. read more

Avoid renting from The Property Shop at all costs. Here are just some of the issues I've had in the course of a one year lease: - I was without heat for nearly two weeks during a brutal cold spell, largely because the landlord didn't like the quote he received for boiler repair initially and wanted to shop around for a better price. - There was a substantial water leak in the basement for over a month because the Property Shop simply would not schedule the repair. The fix required the main water line to be dug up in front of the house, and that hole has still not been filled in 8 months later. - Because the new water line was never buried, it froze solid in January leaving us without water. This only got resolved once the weather warmed enough to thaw the pipe. There were a whole raft of smaller problems, like the house being disgustingly dirty on move in, but the bottom line is that these are greasy people who run an extremely greasy operation. read more

Run, don't walk away from this leasing company. The worst I've ever dealt with. If I had the time or energy to sue them for every penny they scam from their tenants, I would've. I rented a home from them, and when I got my keys I walked into a filthy house, covered in dead bugs, an inch of dust, trash, broken blinds thrown in the closets, paint cans, a broken stove, and cobwebs every where. I spent $300 on a cleaning service to come in and detail the house before I could move my things in, which they refused to reimburse me for. The Property Shop swore up and down that they had just had the home cleaned, which was total bull (obvious by the inch of dust and at least 100 dead flies on the windowsills). If you're a female renter, the owner will talk down to you like you're some stupid woman trying to scam them. They were nice as pie leaving voice mails asking if I'd like to renew my lease, but other than that, they're horrible. I had installed some basic blinds in my bedroom, and upon my move out they insisted that I pay to have blinds put on all the windows throughout the house, even when I sent them photos of the home showing that they never had blinds on the windows in the first place. They backed off when I threatened to take them to court over it. This company is shameless. They swore that house smelled like smoke and needed to be entirely repainted from top to bottom. I've been a severe asthmatic since I was 3 years old, and they wouldn't even accept a letter from my Pulmonologist as proof that I cannot physically smoke, even if I wanted to. Expect to lose your entire security deposit and be charged for nonsense that this company should be responsible for. Stay far away from The Property Shop if you like your money and common decency read more

I really don't even know where to start when it comes to how incredibly incompetent TPS is. It started when we moved in and the apartment was filthy. It obviously hadn't been deep cleaned in months, there was solid dust and sludge on several surfaces in the kitchen and bathroom. I spent that whole first weekend cleaning before I could even unpack. I sent them the photos and stated how disappointed I was. They said that everyone has a "different version of cleanliness" but they certainly would have charged someone a cleaning fee if they moved out with the house in that condition. Then, our heat didn't work in December and it took someone about a week to come fix it. We realized that the upstairs and downstairs units boilers were connected so that each apartment was controlling the heat to the entire house. Basically, if I turned the heat on in my apartment, I am also heating the upstairs (and therefore also paying to heat the upstairs on my bill). We told them this and they rejected it and said "someone checked the utilities when you moved in, they're definitely all separate." We had several months of EXORBITANTLY high water/gas bills due to this reason and TPS just said it must be the city overcharging you. They also knew for several months that our bathroom faucet was leaking a steady stream of water, which also contributed to our bill, and they were not sending maintenance workers over despite us asking (including in writing) on at least three occasions. The grand finale was when our upstairs neighbors moved out early and turned all of their utilities off when they left. Lo and behold, we came home to our water shut off, internet off, and half off our electricity out. Since it was the same day they moved, I figured the wrong utilities must've been shut off. I called the city to turn the water back on (where they verified that the meters were switched on the apartments) and Comcast to fix the internet (which had to be re-wired due to the electrical outage) but TPS was going to have to turn on the power upstairs because apparently half of our outlets were wired to the upstairs power box. This must've been the hardest thing for them in the world because after two weeks it still hadn't been done! They sent a maintenance guy who was on the phone with an electrician and fiddled around in the basement for a while and then left and we heard nothing. I called Jason Saunders, the owner of TPS and Satan incarnate, and left him a voicemail saying that he was failing to provide an essential service by not providing my full electricity. I said I was going to hire the electrician myself and deduct the cost from the next months rent. I guess he didn't like that because he called back and started it off with "you know, when you leave me a voicemail like that, it doesn't exactly make me want to help you". You can imagine how the rest of that convo went. Lots of interrupting and screaming at me, saying he isn't in violation of anything, blah blah blah. He finally agreed to send an actual electrician the next day (mind you, I was without a washer and dryer, kitchen appliances, lights, etc). An electrician does come and says that the house is basically going to need to be re-wired. TPS called to tell us that this is a hard problem to fix and will take a while, which I understand, but asked if they were going to do the quick fix in the meantime by turning on the power upstairs. They hastily said they "were working on it". Over the next several days, they straight up ignored our calls and voicemails, trying not to deal with the problem. I managed to find the homeowner on Facebook and messaged her and asked her to call me asap. She did, and not only did she not know I was without power for so long, she didn't even know the upstairs neighbors had moved out several weeks ago! TPS wasn't trying to rent out the apartment up there, just keeping it empty without telling anyone. Anyhow, she immediately called TPS and fired them (the single greatest day in my adult life). She has been nothing but incredible and fixed all of our maintenance problems that very weekend. I wish we could've rented directly from her the whole time! Anyway, renters: don't rent from TPS. Homeowners: don't hand over management to TPS. They are (bad) scam artists who don't pay their bills (according to the maintenance companies who worked on our place). Jason, you getting fired from my apartment was the greatest joy I'll ever know. read more