A month ago I hired a property management company to rent out the Martin house for me. In that time I have gotten Mr. Richard's home and the 508 home rented. I have never had a home sit vacant this long.
There is no sign in the yard. There is no posting on their web site. There is no advertising in the Birmingham News. In fact, if it weren't for my Craig's List postings the only way anyone would know this home was available is if they caught the presumable smoke signals the property management company is sending out.
And, as if that wasn't enough, the contractor the property management company sent out left the air conditioner at 60 degrees, causing me a $200 electric bill.
Sadly, when I interviewed property management companies last year, this company was the only one that impressed me. Now I am pretty annoyed.
I went with the breach-of-contract-lapse-in-fiduciary-duties stance when I fired them Wednesday.
At this point, I could have flown to Birmingham, spent the weekend holding the home open and spent less money than I have on a vacant home, lost rent and an outrageous air conditioning bill.
Of course, now I still have a vacant home. But at least there is a possibility of getting it rented at this point.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
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3 comments:
every. single. time. we are let down by supposed professionals in cases like this.
we hired a real estate agent to sell a house that we wanted sold *quickly*. she said she would put the push on, we would price it aggressively, and she would sell it within 60 days.
she had the listing for 60 days at the height of home-selling season.
she had surgery (that she knew she was going to have) during that period of time, was hospitalized, then was at home recovering. she scheduled exactly one open house at the property, with another agent running it for her, and it was unadvertised.
basically the house just sat that entire time and we missed our prime opportunity to sell it, plus got that "no one wants it" funk all over it, unfairly.
i rent my clothing in fury, but what can you do? i was surprised that she would deliberately screw us over - wasn't she worried that we would trash her name around town? but we figured out that you can't really damage her - the ppl who are coming along looking for an agent are doing a once-every-15-yrs thing and don't ask around.
frustrating.
forgot to mention - she also went on a 2-week vacation before her surgery.
Oh Lori... That made me cry.
I hate hearing about people in positions of trust deliberately burning others. I am so sorry you had to live through that kind of hell.
The public does have some recourse. The state licenses agents. There are fines and other consequences for breaching fiduciary responsibilities.
There are good agents out there. I promise.
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