Have anyone used Flex Realty Property Management in Toledo, OH
Rental Property Investor · Trabuco Canyon, CA · Member since 2014 · 134 posts · 78 votes
As an out of state investor, I was offered a property that is under management of Flex Realty Property Management in Toledo, OH. It is not a great deal but it is tempting enough for a Californian :).
The seller is the property management company so I am somewhat suspicious. The asking price is $56k (3Bd+1Ba). It is currently rented for $750/month (2 year lease option). Comps are all over the place with the lowest at about 59k but most of them are around $65k.
Have any of the BP used this Management company before? Or have you heard anything (good or bad) about them? They are(claim to be) :
Hi Sam, Robert, Arthur, and Bobby,
Sorry to hear about your experience with Jim's company. He means well but unfortunately they cannot keep up with the demands of the market. I work with investors locally, nationally, and internationally to invest in the Toledo, OH market. My company is also a member/sponsor of the Toledo REIA. We know Flex well. I'm happy to make some additional management suggestions for you if you would like. It will depend on the type of property you own and where they are. Feel free to reach out anytime.
Yes, unfortunately, I did. Their owner of the company is a great guy but the people working for him - not so much. A member here told me that they are the best in Toledo, OH. I guess one should not have too high standards.
Communication is a problem. The water bill gets billed to me but for some reason it is received by their office. Despite my request to send me the bill - I have not received a single copy of the bill and I owned the place for over 6 months. Supposedly, the tenant gets charged back for it but it took over 5 months to adjust, readjust and re-readjust the accounting.
Now (July 14th), I just received an e-mail (I was about to call them today) telling me that the tenant is late on his payments. I am still waiting to see if they have served him with a 3 day notice on 6th as they were supposed to(stated in the lease agreement). I'll keep you posted with the progress but my advice is - don't do it. I only did it because they had a lease purchase agreement with a tenant that was trying to build his credit and start a family. I was hoping that this would be a no-problem tenant but in this case even a lease purchase agreement is not enough to make people pay their rent.
Last month he was late and because of it, the management company decided that is is OK to wait till the middle of the month before taking any actions. I cannot understand the logic here!? If you want a better outcome you should probably call them twice a month to remind them how to do their job.
@Bobby Narinov I'm the one that told you they were the best in Toledo and I stand behind that statement. As you pointed out, all things are relative and I can't say that our relationship has been perfect - there is no such thing when it comes to property management.
That said, I hope you're getting on the horn quick with Mark K. and getting him engaged asap. I'll openly state that Flex does require a lot of follow-up (as do most PMs) but I find their actions to be reasonable.
As mentioned in our private messages last year, please reach out to me and keep me posted as this progresses. I have a lot of assets with Flex and have sent many friends and associates (from around the globe) their way - it goes without saying that I like to keep in the loop on how they are treating people and managing customers, especially us long distance folks. All in all, from my camp, everyone is happy.
After pushing a bit more, I got some more information on the issue. They did serve the tenant a 3 day notice to pay or quit but the tenant have not responded yet.
@Bobby Narinov you can contact the water department, here's the link to their website: http://toledo.oh.gov/services/public-utilities/ and change the mailing address so you get the water bill. I suggest you do that so you don't one day get a surprise water bill because your tenants started a car wash.
Hi Sam,
I'm looking at possibly making my first investment in the Toledo area. Seeing as how you're from the same area it would be great if we could connect. I value any insight and recommendations that you might have to offer.
Cheers,
Arthur
@Arthur Schulte Sure thing. I'll shoot you a PM, you're welcome to e-mail/call. I'm on business in Asia now so we'll have to work together on timezones.
I self manage the handful of properties that I own. For reasons I won't get into, I was on the other side of the transaction for 3+ years with Flex. I was the tenant. I can tell you from my experience I will never use them as a property management company for my own properties. Their service is horrible and they are very unresponsive. The property I rented had numerous issues that took forever to fix. I had a roof leak for a period of 1+ years that was never resolved. I moved out before they took care of the issue. This could have been due to the property owner not wanting to fix the issue, but I do not know. They do not communicate at all. After moving out I had to chase them down in order to get my deposit back. It took over 3 months (the law being 30 days).
Hi Sam, Robert, Arthur, and Bobby,
Sorry to hear about your experience with Jim's company. He means well but unfortunately they cannot keep up with the demands of the market. I work with investors locally, nationally, and internationally to invest in the Toledo, OH market. My company is also a member/sponsor of the Toledo REIA. We know Flex well. I'm happy to make some additional management suggestions for you if you would like. It will depend on the type of property you own and where they are. Feel free to reach out anytime.
An additional comment I forgot to mention. Flex is by far the most advertised and best marketed property management company in Toledo but when it comes down to customer service, leasing, repairs/maintenance, and communication they're not the at the top of my list unfortunately. It would not take much for them to get there, but at this point in time service is lacking. There are several other smaller companies that have the capability of taking on larger portfolios with the drive and passion to be the best. I currently self manage my portfolio in Toledo, but when the time comes they will be my first call.
I have to agree with Brian N. They are NOT professional or courteous at all. They do NOT fix anything right away. I've had issues since before moving in that they were going to fix. I'm yet waiting on the garage to be fixed that's sinking in! I asked prior to moving in for this to happen. Other tenants are complaining as well. Pot holes in the parking lot area coming into the driveway to our home. They finally came out and marked everything like they were going to finally fix it...still waiting. I love the area and my home but they are not the best at what they are "suppose" to do.
Well, it looks like my experience is turning out to be similar to the OP. I am 3 months into my purchase/lease agreement with the tenants and received an email on Nov 24th from Flex Realty that they had not received November's rental payment and apologized for the delay due to upgrading their accounting system. They didn't provide any details so I will call and find out tomorrow. Will update.
You are in luck. I did not get anything for The month of November: "We are closing our books around 24th of the month..." So I am waiting.
Meanwhile I am having the following additional problems:
They say "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" but I cannot figure out what is worse them wanting to rip me off or them being stupid?
In the past I had experience with a management company that was also doing the maintenance of the properties they manage and I explicitly asked about that relationship to which I got the "reassuring": "Flex Realty Property Management DOES NOT make money on maintenance nor does it do upcharges". Yes that is 100% correct and legally binding statement which is a 100% false and misleading answer to my questions. "Flex Realty Property Management" - The Company does not make money but their owners do. The owners of "Flexible Maintenance Solutions LLC" and "Flex Realty Property Management" are one and the same. Even the mailing addresses for the two companies are the same.
Well, good new/bad news.
The good news- the tenants paid the following day on the 30th.
The bad news, the tenants paid on the 30th, so the next payment is already due.
Bobby, have you looked into other property management companies in the area? It sounds like you are ready for a change, and I may be looking too, but not yet. I will wait and see how things go from here, but if they are as bad as some reviewers claim then the area should be ripe for a quality company to pick up the slack.
I am having serious issues with Flex in Ohio also managing my properties out of the state. I have sent several emails, phone calls, txt messages to Bill and he can take up to 3 weeks to reply a query about their statements. I have a similar issue with water bills as stated above by Bobby. I am seriously thinking of changing to another property management at this point. Any recommendation in the area?
I don't think anyone has the intentions of doing a poor job. My guess is that their is too much volume placed on one person.....just my 2 cents.
Flex has been a complete DISASTER for me. I have 2 houses in the Toledo area. They're not in a great part of town, I admit but everyone needs housing at a fair and reasonable price. My 2 homes were priced at $600 a month. Both properties took over 12 months to get tenants in, even through I spent a LOT of $$$ getting them in great shape, looking good and great working order. Section 8 passed both without any problems. One house had to go through a lead-abatement rehab in 2012. After the house was looking awesome with new windows, doors, inside/outside paint all-around, someone broke-in to steal the copper pipes, causing over $2,200 in damages. Only AFTERWARDS did Flex screw the basement windows shut, to secure the house! I recently went through an eviction. Flex waited until they were over $2,000 behind in rent to do anything. Now I'm out $2,800 in rent, and have been told the place is filthy dirty. I'm expecting the bill from Flex on clean-up costs. Chances are, between the lost rent + cleaning costs, I will have lost over 2 years worth of rent. I'm looking for suggestions on replacement property managers if anyone can provide them!!!
Jim Moody here, owner of Flex Property Management...
It's apparent that a couple investors are quite unhappy with their relationship with my company and I'd like to respond. Make no mistake, we know that we are not perfect and all responsibility for a client's happiness begins and ends with me. That being said, every owner who has a relationship with us, Bobby and Bernie in particular, has always had my direct cell phone number and has been encouraged to call me at any time. NOT ONCE did either call me. Imagine my surprise to read their vitriol comments here. I'm not going to get into a he 'said/she said' but I am going to set the record straight.
Low hanging fruit....Adam TRIES to compete with us. I'll not say any more.
One of these owners came to us having seriously overpaid for houses in the worst neighborhoods. My only mistake was trying to help him dig out of a nearly 100/k hole. I should have went with my instinct and not my heart and told him good luck and been done with him. I wonder why in his diatribe here he didn't mention that he repeatedly asked me to help him find more homes in Toledo or that we helped him receive 10's of 1000's of dollars in free fix up grants for his POS house. No gratitude. As for not screwing the basement widows shut...hindsight is a wonderful thing. And still he stayed with us for years.
The other owner who spent the most time on this page has had my personal phone number since before I sold him the house...A solid cut-stone house, with beautiful replacement windows, brand new HVAC, beautiful floors in a solid west toledo neighborhood purchased for 20-25% below market value and I ripped him off? oh yea-NEVER a phone call from him.
Another owner who commented here purchased a house $24,000 below bank appraisal...and this is a bad deal? And if the LO doesn't work...they got $5,000 and can put the house on the market and make another big chunk of money. How is this a bad thing? I'm seriously confused.
Renters not paying on time...here is our philosophy-nobody lives for free! We also believe that it is better to work with a renter than it is to begin eviction on day 6 of the month. Make no mistake, we do exactly as our owner requests and if they want them out-we'll do it. But over the 25 years we have been in business...finding a way to keep a renter paying within the month the rent is due is much more profitable. Remember, we're talking 1st economic tier here not a white collar PHD renter.
I could go on and address the others but I won't. Either you get it or you never will.
Investing in real estate doesn't come without risks and our job is to minimize it. We do nationwide criminal background checks, big-3 credit checks, attempt TWO landlord back checks, drive by their existing residence and references. Then we call the owner and let them make the final decision.
Armchair quarterbacks are always great Monday morning, but put them in the thick of the game and they whither and their bluster proves to be much about nothing. Want to know the truth about Flex Realty Property Management? Give me call-you have my number, its everywhere.
-jim
I have purchased 4 homes from Flex over the last 4 years. It has been 90 % positive, with just a few minor glitches along the way. Anytime I did have an issue, I just reached out to Jim, and he made things right. I was leery of purchasing property in this price point, but the renters have turned out to be better than my Vegas renters. I'm still amazed at the rent to purchase price... :)
Here is a recent article regarding the owner of Flex Mgmt.
@Robyn J. Wow, that is pretty insane. Perhaps this goes way beyond doing a poor job. It may be the case that this would be a time to find alternative solutions and quickly. Everyone should get a chance for their day in court and this looks like a very long day at that. Fortunately there might some BP folks nearby who can assist. Look up Engelo Romura in Toledo or some other BP members in Toledo.
Good luck!
I was so shocked by Jim Moody's accusations above that I was unable to provide a reasonable answer to them. Every day I was writing one and deleting it before hitting the "Post Reply" button.
But today I'll be really short. I did try to communicate with Flex realty via e-mail. I don't want to call because calling is always misunderstood and misinterpreted. This way I have a paper/electronic trace of everything that was said and when. So picking up the phone does not work. Jim Moody have been personally CC-ed on all of my e-mails so it is a bit shocking that he needs an explicit phone call to tell him to check his e-mail.
there were many cases where he turned back on what was promised before I purchased the property from him:
And finally the 25% below market equity that he was so generous to give me:
Jim, I am willing to split that equity with you 50/50. 12.5% for me and 12.5% for you. PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS and buy me out. I am willing to sell you back this "great investment" for just 12.5% more than you have sold it to me a year ago. You'll gain 12.5% plus the appreciation for the last 13 months. Deal?