Why Do Property Managers Have Such Bad Reviews?

This question comes up a lot so I feel like I should address it.  The best way to do that is having an understanding of how all this puzzle fits together.

Understanding Reviews

If you read my blog long, you will see I have an assortment of odd experiences in life that I can relate things to.  This just comes from having a broad range of people in my life and lots of unique experiences.  Some of it is very random.  For example: It is completely unrelated to real estate, but my friend owns the Foodies of Nashville foodblog on Facebook and I am an admin for that because he asked me to.  I told you my life is pretty random. 

One of the things that irks him (and the rest of us admins and undoubtedly the restaurant owners) to no end, is how most people will leave tons of bad reviews, but not good ones.  I won't bore you with the psychology here (another random tidbit: I have a degree in psychology I never think I use, but clearly that isn't fully true), but there are lots of studies that prove the fact people are more likely to leave negative reviews or share negative experiences than positive ones.  One reason for this is the way negativity impacts memory, but again that is way more into psychosis than I want to go.  

So while any given entity - be it restaurant, blog, store, provider, or property manager - may have 1000 amazing clients, if only ONE chooses to leave a review -odds are, it will be a bad one.  That is just simply how reviews work in all industries.

The thing is "most" of those are one sided transactions or situations.  If you are a restaurant - you have a client that likes the food or they don't.  If you are a shop - someone likes the purchases or they do not.  If you are a wedding planner - someone is happy with their wedding or they are not.  You get the picture.  

What is unique about property management is that you always have TWO parties judging your actions that by the nature of their relationship will never agree. 

Understand the Roles of the Parties

A property manager represents (and usually has an agency agreement) with the owner of the property, but they also owe care and honesty to tenants as well.  This means that while the property owner is their client the tenant is also their customer and requires care and consideration as well.

Another random fact: I was in school to be a lawyer before real estate because I always wanted to be a judge.  (I said Psychology above, but Psych and English were my undergrad degrees leading up to that.) Sometimes people will still ask me if I regret not becoming one and my answer is simple, "No. I unofficially am one every day of my life."  

Being a propery manager is like being a judge sitting on bench every day of your life.  I suppose it could also be like a king or queen holding a court - you get calls, emails, texts, chats, message requests, etc. daily from the property owner and the tenants and they almost NEVER agree on the situation at hand.

The tenant is almost always needing or upset about something at their home that they fully feel the homeowner is ignoring, not doing correctly, not doing fast enough, not understanding etc.

The home owner almost ways feels the tenant is unrealistic, exaggerating, making excuses to not pay rent, or otherwise wanting to spend their money frivously. 

So you can see the problem here.

The manager is stuck deciding how to get these two parties to a win/win situation.

The good news is that when a property manager vets both property owners and tenants about their expectations, there is a good chance that while they may not always agree -they can come to terms acceptable to both most of the time.

This is not always the case though, even with the best of owners and tenants.

In the end, someone is very often unhappy or at the very least not fully happy. The property manager has to weigh in on this considering all applicable laws they have to follow, ethics they are required to uphold, and what is best for the property itself, as well as both parties. 

Basically, someone is always mad at us no matter how hard we try.  Fun right?  Makes you just want to run out and manage property doesn't it?

Another fun fact: This is one of the primary reasons property management is the part of real estate most prone to litigation and why many brokerages refuse to do it or allow their agents to do it.

So How Does This Affect Review?

Well imagine this scenario:

Suppose you are an attorney and somehow you find yourself representing both the husand and the wife in the messiest divorce ever.  Yes, I know no attorney in their right mind would likely do this in a heated contested divorce, but humor me for a second.

There was cheating, lots of money involved, lots of assets, and a dog.  There is no hope for mediation.  You tried and failed.  They simply will not agree, but the judge tells you (again I know this is not a real scenario) these are your clients that you know and have agreed to do the best for both so you draft the plan of what is to become of them.

You are completely impartial here or maybe you ever are slightly biased to the person that first called you, but you have a legal and ethical obligation holding you to do the right thing. There are so many factors to consider and while some things could have been easy the situations of each party make it nearly impossible to give either what they want so you do what is "right", "legal, "ethical", and what you truly in your heart and in all your experience think is "best" for them because they flat refused to agree or decide.

They are furious.  Neither are happy and now they are about to leave scathing reviews.

Did you do what was right? Yes.  Were you required by law and ethics to do this? Yes. Are they free to write any review they want?  Yes.  Are they BOTH going to? Probably.  Even if only one does, it will still be bad. 

So you see? Landlords are set up for the double whammy every.single.time. where most professions may have one unhappy person in most situations.  

Common Reasons for Bad Reviews Even Though the PM Did Nothing Wrong:

1. A tenant with deplorable credit and multiple evictions etc. has an application denied.

2. A tenant breaks their lease and refuses to pay for the termination THEY signed.

3. A tenant is billed for completely painting the home hot pink without permission.

4. Property owner is furious you had to fix the heat when it was 10 degrees outside.

5. Property owner sold the house without telling you or terminating agreement and does not want to pay the bills they owe you.

6. Tenant posts bad review for a company with similar name in another state.

7. Tenant lies about their damages to apartment on a public social media page and now 200 complete strangers that have seen ZERO proof (because it isn't true) are not only mass leaving bad reviews they are also looking up and threatening you personally.  

You get the point.  Reviews unless they are fake or they are paid for are basically a no-win situation.

I Would Be a Lot More Concerned with Property Managers with Too Good of Reviews

I am in enough groups and have been for years to know that the majority of reputable property managers out there are struggling with bad reviews.

The ones that are not "typically" fall into the following categories:

1. They are having people leave reviews that are not real reviewers that do business with them.

2. They are paying companies for good reviews or to remove negative ones.

3. They are giving the tenants almost anything they want to keep them from leaving bad reviews.

There are more options of course and in fairness some companies really do manage to have better reviews that are real.  Maybe they manage new construction that doesn't have much maintenance.  Maybe they buy tenant gifts and/or offer incentives for positive reviews.

Who knows?  We are all always strugging with this issue.  I know one firm that gets business from their bad reviews by responding why they got them.

Others swear that just makes it worse.  

All this to say, it isn't an easy solution, but I would never walk away from a property management company as a property owner or a tenant just based on the reviews I saw online.

They probably got those trying to do the honest thing and upsetting an irrational or dishonest person. I see it happen every day. 

I think mine are currently at 2.9.  I only know this because every day some company emails offering to have all the bad ones removed if I pay them some crazy high fee, but so far my stance has been that I have never done anything illegal, unethical, or wrong to hide them.