Rental management companies

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

I am going to be moving away for two years and would like to rent out my condo while I am gone. I'd rather go through a local management company, as I think it would be easier than trying to finagle repairs from far away. But, as a former renter I am aware that there are some *horrible* management companies out there, and I *do not* want to become an absentee slum lord. So I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations or warnings about management companies they have worked with before (either as a landlord or as a renter).

Thanks!

Comments

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

I had a good experience with Maven in winter 2006 (great, actually) but when I went to use them again in winter 2008, they were terrible. What was great about the first time was that the agent listened to my handful of deal-breakers and budget and found me a GREAT place that was under my budget and had the deal-breaker stuff. What was terrible about 2009 was that the agent talked on his cell phone constantly while driving with us to potential apartments, showed us apartments that were a definite "no" (apartments that were part of building for sale, apartments over our budget, apartments that did not have the two deal-breaker things we specifically mentioned) and was shady/uncomfortable looking when asked direct questions about places that we were viewing. That and their abuse of CL (my beef is that they post in the no-fee, not-by-agent sections which is dishonest since they are agents and they do charge a fee) make it so that I would no longer recommend them to anyone looking. Well, that and the fact that when I told them that the reason I was looking again so soon was because the apartment of 2006 was being managed by a slumlord getting intolerably slummy (and they rent a number of his properties), they seemed unfazed.