Has anyone used Only Choice Property Management
Rental Property Investor · Parker, CO · Member since 2017 · 80 posts · 15 votes
Im looking at working with Only Choice PM and wanted to hear from others that may have used them in the past.
Please let me know what you think of them and if you would recommend them.
Regards
Jeff
I had an awful experience with Only Choice PM. I was with them for 3 1/2 years. I left them in January 2020 and they won't give me the money left in my account. They wanted me to sign a termination agreement noting a $10,000 fee for making any negative claims against them, posting negative reviews or contacting any governmental agency or the BBB. If they need such agreement, it should tell you a lot about the internal issues with their company. This company did not act in my best interest and they did not uphold their side of the contract. Unfortunately, the individuals running this side of the business are NOT licensed and therefore may be unaware of the real estate rules and regulations regarding property management.
They charged me for things they didn't do, for utility bills they didn't pay, inflated their prices. My property was vacant for over 7 months and they didn't contact the online prospective tenant inquiries and told me they would ALLOW me a 15 minute phone call once a week. There was a citation on the property they didn't take care of although they said they did. Maintenance issues they said were completed were not done. There was a Section 8 application on the property and after a month of waiting for the inspection, they lead me to believe the Section 8 inspection was being rescheduled. When I contacted Section 8, it was cancelled over a month ago and no further activity on the property.
The owners statements were sometimes late and many times incorrect. The employee turnover was high. They were slow to return calls if they returned them at all. The Director of Compliance didn't take ownership, blamed others (on HER team) and didn't hold her team members accountable for their actions - not an effective team. There was no oversight in the departments - leasing, maintenance, make-ready, billing, etc. This was a nightmare!
They know about their negative reviews (on Google and BBB, OH BBB too) so I'm not sure why they haven't implemented anything to approve their services.
@Julie S. You and I have went over your portfolio many times and there is nothing due to you. Out of professional courtesy, I will not state the true details of your situation and the balance owed to us. We have responded to your MREC complaint and have been received validation that there was nothing wrong done on our part. I apologize that we were unable to rent a "blimp" and fly it over your property as you suggested. I am confident that we did everything we could to satisfy your request within reason. Please note that you were not charged any management fees and we paid more than half of the cost to make your property rent ready. The endless calls to employees personal phones well into the evening is what prompted the suggestion of a weekly call to touch base. I wish you the best of luck and hope that your property is profitable.
CJ
You are still not taking accountability for the things that you and your team failed to do. Looking at your reviews on this site, Goggle and the BBB - you have 84 reviews on google, 59 of those reviews are a 1 star rating. On the BBB, your company has 14 complaints in the last year with a D rating for the KC office and an F rating for both offices in OH. Obviously many others have also stated their concerns.
I left your company in January 2020 because I found that your company was not acting in my best interest. In your email dated February 21, 2020, the termination agreement showed that you owed me $300. What happened with those funds? I haven’t talked to you since then so we DID NOT go over any portfolio “many times”. In your response to my complaint on the BBB, you stated I have a negative balance of $152. So somewhere between February 21 and May 27 you managed to fabricate costs in your favor of $452. Where’s the final accounting statement you are required to send to me (per contract)? On the December 2019 owner statement it shows a net income of $356.13. Where are those funds?
In another email, you noted the difficulties with renting the property and stated that you were going to waive the $1,000 termination fee. Why should anyone be required to pay a fee when you did not act in accordance with the contract? Why do you ask clients to sign a termination agreement stating a liquidated damage fee of $10,000 for any negative comments posted on any media or chat boards; or for contacting any governmental agency, any consumer affairs dept, or the BBB? Companies don’t normally have those types of clauses in their agreements unless there are concerns. Instead of a termination agreement with a $10K fee, why not focus on improving your services where you don’t have to worry about the negative comments? As for your comment regarding the “blimp” flyover, I have NEVER suggested any such thing (making stuff up again), but would have been happy if you contacted prospective tenants. As it stands, I talked to 13 (of the 17) potential tenants (in January alone) and each of them informed me that no one from your office ever reached out to them so they found other residences.
I am curious to know in your response, why you didn’t mention the July citation that was ignored for 5 months and the trash NEVER cleaned up, or didn’t mention the utility bills that were not paid for 4-5 MONTHS but tried to charge me for them (You need the owners statements?). I contacted all 3 utilities company for that information. You also didn’t mention in your response how a Section 8 tenant initially interested in the property cancelled their application on Dec 3rd while your company continued to tell me it was reschedule through the first week of January. Your company never even reached out to Section 8 to reschedule or you would have known about the cancellation – see email dated January 3rd (I got that information from HAKC). Did you happen to mention in your response that you charged over $1400 for mowing 8 times (I have the owner statements with those amounts). How about mentioning not renting the property for 7 months as the reason for not collecting management fees or mentioning the make ready items you were going to pay for but chose not to complete. Then there is the missing front door lock and no hinges on the doors that I was never informed about. You said there is a punch list upon move-in but why do you need a punch list when the property was vacant for 7 months (shouldn’t it be move-in ready within 7 months?). You also didn’t mention the new floor that you installed separating and was going to give me contractor info to get fixed but never did (see email dated February 1st), or the broken pipes because it was winterize wrong or the furnace in which you said it was taken care of and wasn’t. Ironic how those items were left out of your response. Did you ever walked the property? Where’s the oversight? How did the billing, maintenance and leasing dept all fail?
Other than yourself, I NEVER contacted “employees on PERSONAL phones well into the evening” as I didn't have their personal phone numbers. I have called you during the day and YOU returned a couple calls early evening, your time…end of work day for me.
In the end and after transferring the property to another management company while spending thousands on repairs that your company was expected to address while you were the property manager, it was rented immediately. So what does that say about your company?
1. We took accountability by paying $4200 toward a Make Ready for your property. We didn't charge you any fees while marketing and showing your property. 59 1 star reviews for over 600 properties managed is not bad at all. Most of our complaints are disgruntled tenants which is par for the course (evictions, non payment, tenant caused damage, etc)
2.Your account was reconciled and final statement was made available to you. I will resend as a courtesy.
In an effort to remain professional, I will not include the emails and voice recordings that we have.
I sincerely wish you the best.
As a reminder, you were going to pay some make ready costs BECAUSE you renewed the lease of a problem tenant that was damaging my property when I asked your company not to renew lease. Again, your make ready wasn't done (see above) and the property sat vacant for 7 months. What kind of marketing is that?
You think your reviews are “not bad at all?" Maybe if your placement standards were higher and you resolved issues with the tenants (maintenance), you'd have fewer complaints. How many owners are unable to complain as they signed your agreement?
“Your account was reconciled and final statement was made available to you”. You locked me out of your system when I left. So where was this statement “made available?" "I will REsend as a courtesy". How can you "REsend" when it was never sent?
There are no emails or voice recordings that are unprofessional so not sure what you're trying to imply. Most owners would be furious with a PM that didn't take care of their property, sat vacant for 7 months and then wants to charge them for leaving to another PM. But I did notice you didn’t answer most of the questions above.
Your company takes advantage of out of state investors. I’ve had many people contact me privately. Owners should be able to leave your company without all your fees when it's not working out.
STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY... Here is my story and experience with Only Choice Property Management\USREEB. We purchased two turnkey homes from Zach in KC back in January and we used Only Choice because they were already managing the houses. At first, they were very nice replied right away to all my questions and we had no issues. That is until the money was due. Both properties had tenants in them at the time of purchase. However, come March when they owed us our first deposit from February's rent, we found out that one of the Tenents had stop paying rent and moved out. We were never informed of the breach of contract nor were we told that no one had paid rent on it since we purchased it. We requested information on the PM going after the tenant legally and also what happened with the money (security deposit). CRICKETS. These people were harder to contact than congress on break. It only got worse from there.
We then were told that the vacant property had squatters and they did not know when they entered. This is remarkable to think no one knew or saw squatters since they had been charging me to do home visits, lawn repair, etc. to ensure everything was ok. They also told me that someone had tried stealing our AC condenser, then told me it was ok. Then I find out from the new PM that I hired that the HVAC and Water heater had been stolen. Just a few days after they mowed the lawn and "site inspected" because they told me the house was rent ready and they were working with a potential renter. By this point, I could not believe anything they told me.
Long story short they nickel and dimed us for everything. Never giving us itemized reports of what was charged. All there work descriptions were extremely vague. We never (except for a lawn picture) received pictures or documentation for work that was done and charged for. They tried to charge us thousands of dollars to make rent ready a home that was purchased turnkey and rent ready. We would go days even weeks before receiving portal responses. I had to email everyone from the company before I would actually get a response. And the issues go on and on.
To top it all off we never saw a deposit in our bank account until May. That is 5 months after purchasing the properties. 5 MONTHS to get paid a couple of hundred dollars. I also found that they also held back a month's rent from my other property, and unless I mentioned it they would have never paid me. This company may at one point been managed well and had integrity, but no more. I hope this helps some people if they are thinking of using the company for PM. I do not recommend them. Sorry for rambling on I am just frustrated and at the end of my rope with them.
Just a follow up - above CJ stated the final accounting statement was made available to me AND SHE WOULD "RESEND AS A COURTESY." To date, I STILL haven't received any final statement from this company.
I just received a FINAL NOTICE from the KCMO Health Dept (Healthy Homes) for the yearly fee that was due LAST December (I was still with this company at that time). OCPM filled out the required Healthy Homes paperwork with OCPM's address so they would receive the bill. They received the bill and NEVER paid it. Also, THEY HAVE BEEN RECEIVING THE BILL AND DID NOT FORWARD IT TO ME. What a crappy company!!
Hello Julie- Healthy Homes is a fairly new program in Kansas City. We receive one invoice yearly that list all of our properties. Your PM company would have notified Healthy Homes that they manage your property when you transferred. I'm happy to send you a another statement. This may not be the best forum for effective resolution.
CJ - I talked to Healthy Homes and they said they've been sending the PAST DUE statements to you. YOUR address is on the statement. This payment was DUE last December (2019) when you were my PM, SO YOU DIDN'T PAY IT like the other bills that weren't paid. The new PM thought it was taken care of since it was due Dec 2019 and I moved to new the PM on January 21, 2020. Again, stop blaming others for your issues. "I'm happy to send you a ANOTHER statement." As stated numerous times above and in emails - I never received the final statement and I left back in Jan 2020, over 7 months ago. A final accounting is REQUIRED by law and per contract. It's very difficult to resolve anything with your company.
On 10/21/2020, I FINALLY received the final accounting for my property that was transferred to another PM on January 21, 2020, FROM THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (not from Only Choice PM) even though CJ mentioned above that she would be happy to “resend”……and never did.
I was owed $356.13 on the December 2019 Statement that was never paid out to me. So they reversed it in their favor.
The charged me for paying 4 Evergy bills that they NEVER paid. I paid those bills and have proof of payment from my bank. I contacted Evergy and they never received a payment from OCPM for those bills. OCPM also charged me an ADMIN FEE of $20 EACH for paying those bills (that they didn’t pay). These ADMIN FEES was never agreed to in our contract. Why would I ever agree to have them pay a $15.19 bill for $20?
OCPM charged me for paying Water Bills. I received a SHUT OFF notice at the end of January along with a non-payment notice and late fees of over $200.
OCPM charged me an ADMIN FEE of $20 for paying a Spire bill that wasn’t paid on this statement. I paid Spire over $200 in charges and late fees. I have my bank statement to prove it.
OCPM charged an ADMIN FEE dated 8/25/2020. I left 01/21/2020, why are they adding to a cancelled account 7 months after leaving? On 06/01/2020, they charged me for a “VACANT UNIT FEE”, again why are they adding charges to a closed account? This is the reason why a FINAL accounting should be mandatory within 30 days of cancellation….for PM’s that take advantage of their customers.
IS THIS A COMPANY THAT HAS YOUR BEST INTERESTS?