Jacksonville investors stay away from Suncoast Property Mgt
If you are considering hiring Suncoast to manage one or more of your investment houses please read this first. It is rare for me to leave a negative review, especially knowing how detrimental it can be for a business, but in this case it has to be done. You deserve to know this before you begin a contract with Suncoast.
I own multiple rental properties in multiple states. I work with multiple property management companies. I have never dealt with a company more incompetent to take care of a house than Suncoast.
This is going to be a long review. If google didn’t limit character count it would be much longer.
I will attempt to briefly summarize the type of experience you will have if you choose to work with Suncoast:
Communication:
Please see attached photo showing vacancy timeline. Their communication was so poor that I had no idea what was going on with my house. I actually got to the point where I was starting to look at plane tickets to Jacksonville so I could see the house in person since I literally had no idea what was going on in the house and it had been vacant for 3 months. No one ever reached out to me to inform me of what was going on. In most cases my phone calls were not answered and I did not receive replies to most voicemails or emails.
Management:
1 - Tenant was caught red handed with a dog in the property. This was a violation of the lease. I communicated this with Suncoast and they failed to do anything about it.
2 - During the vacancy period the AC was not turned on however the blower was on blowing hot humid air all over the house and causing ridiculously expensive power bills. This led to the development of a mold problem.
3 - Management company never told me about the mold issue, I only found out because I had emailed them to ask why the house was no longer listed as for rent. Mold issue was discovered in mid June and as of July 16 when I terminated my agreement with Suncoast I did not have a single repair quote for the whole scope of repair. An entire month went by without me receiving any useful information from Suncoast in regards to the extent of the damage and the price to have it repaired. Ironically I was able to get multiple quotes in less than a day after terminating my contract with suncoast. Also, I ended up selling the house and three separate professional home buyers inspected the property and found no evidence of mold in the entire house. I could have easily been tricked into dishing out over 10 grand for suncoast to fix a problem that didn’t even exist!
Maintenance:
1 - Ryan, the turn manager viewed the house when it became vacant. 20 days later I received a repair estimate - The house had been destroyed by a tenant (placed by Suncoast with a ridiculously low security deposit). He prepared a list of things that needed to be repaired. His list, while long, missed extremely important items which include but are not limited to: thermostat broken, tile floor destroyed in kitchen and bathroom, 3 interior doors destroyed, broken screen door, missing towel bars in the bathroom, spilled paint on floor and carpet. I honestly have no idea if this would have ever been addressed.
2 - There was never any communication with me as to how repairs were going. On July 16, 2 months after I approved the list of repairs, I found out that out of the entire list of things that needed to be done the only one that was taken care of was the paint job. This is indisputable and was even communicated to me by Suncoast. I am not sure when they planned on doing these repairs.
3 - The paint job that was done by suncoast was so poor that it has to be redone.
4 - House was so poorly maintained that I realized it was hopeless to have this asset while living out of state. I realized that my only option was to sell the house for a loss. Multiple experienced home buyers looked at the house and all of them told me they were shocked that a property management company would allow a house to be in such a terrible condition.
Thanks to everyone for sharing their experience.
Friends,
I am glad this thread exists because it does offer some genuine exchanges of perspective and experience.
I will reiterate: I had a slight issue and Suncoast was proactive and worked to solve, but I am
still confused why those here did not exercise their contractual rights if the problems were so grave.
i do not want to be a cheerleader or a critic, just a genuine question. I personally believe most of us on BP have had some mixed experiences and we need to share, inform, and support to ensure that we understand the challenges, options, and opportunities whenever questions or concerns arise.
Very glad I found this thread. I have seriously been considering a Southern Impression Homes (SIH) and Suncoast PM deal. Just before I read this, I read https://www.yelp.com/biz/sunco... where mostly renters posted very negative complaints (2.5 stars) as recently as July of 2021. But there was one owner back in February 2019, "Jc W.", wrote a long post that said in part:
"...Then, when I sent Suncoast the Notice of Default to fire them, listing the causes of why I wanted to cancel the management period, the same Chandler, replied IN WRITING that "I did not find you were ever ignored...I have reviewed Karen's communication and found that she was performing her job as I expect her to" and "a cancellation fee of $500 will be applied to your account." Per the management agreement, Suncoast shouldn't charge the cancellation fee if I canceled with cause..." (emphasis is mine).
My question to you David, and this is an honest, sincere question, is have you or anyone you know tried exercising the "for cause" bail out in your contract and, if so, what happened? How long are you locked into the contract?
As a follow up question to anyone who has a SIH BTR property: Since Suncoast is SIH's affiliate and SIH requires you use Suncoast, do these red flags apply to SIH as well? The BP thread at https://www.biggerpockets.com/... has mixed reviews of both SIH and Suncoast.
I had a terrible experience with Suncoast Property Management. I stayed with them several years. I gave them a second chance. I fired them last year.
I just opened my mail to find a notice from a COLLECTION AGENCY stating I owed them money. WTF?!
I have no idea what this is for - they sent me money when I terminated services and I haven't heard from them since.
STAY AWAY FROM SUNCOAST!
I'm sorry to hear this. It sucks to hear that someone is in business but doesn't serve their clients well.
In 2023, email or text seem to be the best form of communication with most of my vendors.
The one item you forgot to mention in your post is the zip code.
I'm not defending Suncoast, I know nothing about them however if the property is located in a bad area, management is a near impossibility.
Jacksonville has war zones.
There are a lot of out of town "wholesalers" who try to sell crap properties in war zones acting like they're a good deal. If your property is in a bad area, prepare the house for HUD assistance and get a manager who knows HUD housing.
I wish you well.
Please post when you do find a good property manager, that will help them and go a long way for those facing similar problems.
I had rentals all over Jacksonville. Some not so great, some new construction. The issue wasn't the home or its location, it was the management company. Would you turn your clients over to a collection agency without contacting them first?