McGrath Real Estate Services

I went through several property management company for my property in Aldie. We live in San Diego CA and I need a great company to look after my house. I have interviewed a handful of companies and Mcgrath are the only ones that suggested giving their information to our neighbors if they see problems with our tenants. What a great concept! Being thousands of miles away, our neighbors are the only ones that see our tenant’s everyday activities. What really impressed is when I need help with the property, They’re always ready to recommend someone reputable. Gregg Waters, at Client Advocate, is wonderful! He always has his expert comments to help us out with repairs. When my sump pump stopped working, he stopped me from spending thousands of dollars with a company’s quote of $ 30k, when all it needed was a $ 600 new sump pump. They truly look after their client’s best interest first. I will always recommend them to all our family and friends. If I can only give them 10 stars, out of ten, I would!

Jim McGrath and his associates are attempting to withhold the full amount of our security deposit. DO NOT Lease with this firm or Mr. Jim McGrath. They have breached multiple clauses in the lease after lease termination (move out) and are outright refusing to make the situation right. If you value your sanity and your wallet, avoid this firm altogether.
Summary: Mr. Jim McGrath and his firm are refusing to observe the lease. They have been in Fairfax County Courts no less than 7 times for Warrants in Debt, likely all for not returning security deposits. AVOID

I rented an apartment through McGrath Real Estate for the last four years and had a wonderful experience. Their office staff is small and friendly, and very responsive. We only had a few issues over the years for things that needed to be replaced or fixed and they were very prompt and the contractors they used to do the repairs did a good job. The only reason we’ll no longer be using them is that we bought a home. They were a great company to rent from and their online portal system to pay your monthly rent is super easy to use.

We were tenants for 4 yrs with a property McGrath managed. They were consistent returning our calls within 24 hours and answering our questions in a timely manner. When we had billing issues, they were slow to adjust the bill. We had to make follow up calls. They were slower to process our calls when it came down to natural disasters like flooding and high winds where the property needed to be repaired. They weren’t good about giving us a heads up when they were coming to look at the property. We have dogs so we were concerned with people entering and not being home.
I have looked at the previous negative reviews regarding repairs. We needed repairs done after a flood, over 6 inches of water in the basement causing major repairs/​replacement to the dry wall, and carpeting. It was done quickly and with good quality. I think the difference is how the actual owners of the property finance the repairs. McGrath manages the property but only with what the owners approve and are willing to pay. The owners of our property wanted to make sure their house was in good shape when they returned. I can’t speak for what other owners do with there properties or what McGrath actually owns and is willing to pay out. I think their hands are tied. But in our owners defense, when we had a tree fall on the fence, McGrath was slow to process their requests for the repair. And we as the renters… had to deal with the he said/​she said scenario.
When we moved out, we received our entire deposit back. And in 60 days too!
I don’t know if we will use this company again. Service wasn’t bad, they fulfilled a service.

I wish I could give this place 0 stars. I’ve only been on this lease for a week and it’s already a disaster. Where do i start…
First of all, this property is a condo located in Falls Church, Va, and some pics from my experience so far have been posted on the page. Feel free to message me if you’d like more…
1. This place was deemed «move-​in-​ready» by the «inspector,» yet, the walls were scratched up as if an exorcism had been performed in each of the closets. That was the least of our problems with this place– There is SPATTERED BLOOD on the wall. We noted this on the walk through with the real estate agent that we went through and she assured us that it would be taken care of, yet, lo and behold, the crime scene was not taken care of upon move in. The toilet seats might be the worst of all– they are literally disintegrating (i’m pretty sure it’s a health hazard). When we addressed these issues with management, they claimed that they were not responsible for fixing these issues, as we needed to state them as contingencies on our leasing application, which we were never informed of having to do– we had been told by the leasing agent that they would be addressed. Aside from these problems, the apartment was full of cracks, water damage, and stains, each one of which we’ll be documenting, upon reading complaints of other tenants on this page about they cheating you out of your deposit money.
2. Before move-​in, we were promised all keys (mailbox and front door) when meeting with the inspector to sign the move-​in paperwork. Upon arriving to the property to pick up said keys, I’m greeted by a McGrath rep who, while I’m signing the paperwork, tells me that he doesn’t have the mailbox keys yet and will have to wait to get them from «the previous tenants.» Umm, what respectable leasing company would give an excuse like that? Totally unacceptable. We did not receive a response from a rep regarding the keys until two emails, two days later.
3. These people are IMPOSSIBLE to get ahold of unless they need something from you. Expect to have to send several emails and call several times before getting a response from anyone. WHO runs a business like this?
Learn from my terrible experiences and don’t bother renting any property managed by these people. I’m literally marking any mark, nick, and stain (oh and there’ll be a ton) in this place so they don’t try to cheat us out of our deposit like they did the other folks who reviewed this page.

Tommy Chambers came through and did as he promised and followed through for which I am very appreciative. I wish he owned the company and everyone at the company was as great as he.
If you do go with McGrath I would highly recommend reaching out to Tommy especially if you encounter issues as he is the one and only person I have dealt with at McGrath that was not only reasonable and understanding and put in an effort to understand the situation and resolve it, he went above and beyond especially since I was terminating my management agreement with them (so I had zero leverage or benefit to them) and despite that he wanted to understand and resolve my issues and even refunded almost $ 200 in fees I had written off as never receiving based on my interactions with everyone else at McGrath (you can see my earlier reviews for details about these fees).
I may have stayed with McGrath if I had gotten Tommy in the loop earlier. He is definitely the one to talk to and is truly in your side.
I can’t say the same about the owner that I emailed (Tim McGrath) unfortunately. He didn’t even attempt to understand the problems I encountered with them and just gave me a one liner saying they don’t prorate management fees. It was clear he had no clue what was going on, no desire to learn about the multitude of issues I faced and was for all intents and purposes telling me to let the door hit me on my way out.
This three star rating is purely driven by Tommy Chambers’ outstanding service and if I only dealt with Tommy it would be five stars. Unfortunately the owner and rest of the team dragged down my rating but I f not for Tommy this would have stayed a one star review.

Whoa, I have dealt with MANY management companies in my life and McGrath is by far THE WORST. I think its easiest to just make a list, starting with the worst offenses:
1) They absolutely stole our entire deposit. They conducted an inspection of the house after we moved in and detailed each part of the house that had something wrong with it (instead of fixing and cleaning everything before we moved in — but that’s a whole different problem). They did another inspection on our exit (we left the place cleaner and nicer than we came) and decided to CHARGE US with all the issues we inherited from years of neglect. Things THEY FOUND on their initial inspection, we had to pay for. There was no reasoning with them — they would not even negotiate. Broken blinds, marks on the walls and floors, etc.
2) They told us before we moved in that they would clean the house prior to our arrival and they did not. The place was an ABSOLUTE mess: cracks in doors, dirty floors and walls, mold everywhere, etc… They could care less when we complained… WE had to clean everything ourselves
3) Impossible to communicate with them — we had to send numerous emails/​calls to get a response!
4) When an appliance broke, it took FOREVER to send someone to fix — sometimes over a month! This includes a washing machine, then a drier, then a dishwasher.
PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS. Even if you love the place you found. Even if its the best price on the market. NOTHING is worth the aggravation and extra cost.

I used McGrath for 5+ years for our rental home while we lived outside the area where the home was located. I will not be using them again.
Communication was, perhaps, the biggest issue. At times, it seemed that people within McGrath did not even talk/​communicate with each other. McGrath, internally, is divided in sections/​groups — repairs, client advocate, marketing, etc. The Client Advocate was — in theory — the go to person to coordinate everything, but in reality he or she rarely ever knew what was going on. I found myself talking directly to the repairs department, marketing, etc. to address and resolve issues, and I usually had to spend my time getting the department reps up to speed after having already explained my issue to the Client Advocate.
Repairs were also disastrous. It seemed McGrath repairs department was more interested in getting a quick fix to the problem instead of truly caring about getting the problem properly fixed at a reasonable cost. On one occasion, when my tenant reported issues with the duct work and HVAC system, McGrath sent out one of their «preferred» contractors to assess the issue. It was determined that I needed a new HVAC system because mine was «too old.» After further investigation into the issue, I learned the issue was not with the performance of the system and that replacing it would have not resolved the issue. Had I listened to McGrath’s contractor, I would have needlessly spent thousands on system upgrade that was not required. This is just one of many examples of this «quick fix» issue during my five years with McGrath. I have not looked at the total loss due to this negligence, but I would safely estimate it to at $ 1,500+.
Bottom line, if you want to overpay for a mediocre service, then McGrath is the property management firm for you. On the other hand, if you want a property management firm that truly has your best interests — financial and non-​financial — in mind, then I suggest you look elsewhere. You’ll spend more time dealing with and fixing McGrath’s mistakes then if you would have managed the property yourself.

My husband and I used McGrath to rent our townhouse for two years, beginning in 2012. We are very disappointed in the lack of communication and professionalism during the last few months of our agreement with them.
Our renters caused some damage to the townhouse, some of which we wanted McGrath to help us repair or determine a fair deduction from the tenant’s security deposit. We have had no communication from John Bennet or others in McGrath after our initial walk through upon our return to the area. We have phoned, emailed, and requested updates multiple times. The security deposit was due back to the tenant nearly 10 days ago, and we still have no confirmation that the security deposit was returned nor any idea if an amount was set aside to pay for damages.
We are very upset with McGraths poor service and complete lack of communication. We have also discovered that repairs that we’re claimed to have been made (and that we paid for) we’re not completed correctly or as reported in write ups. Very disappointing.
We would not recommend McGrath to anyone, either as a renter or owner. We will not be using McGrath for our next rental either.

Poor service and poor ethics.
We retained McGrath to handle rental or sale of our home when we were preparing to leave the country. We lost confidence in their service because, among other things:
–McGrath initially posted a picture of the wrong house – a much more expensive house than ours – on various internet services, resulting in several irate real estate agents accusing us of having induced them to bring their clients to the house under false pretenses;
–When we complained about the inaccurate picture and the angry response we were getting from agents, the McGrath listing agent, Tommy Chambers, was completely nonchalant about it, and despite our expressed concerns, took more than a week to correct it;
–McGrath took more than two weeks days from the signing of the rental agreement and more than a week from our agreement to sell even to get «for rent» and «for sale» signs posted in front of our house, despite multiple requests from us;
–When we expressed concern to Mr. Chambers about the length of time it took to get the signs up, he blamed someone else whom McGrath apparently retained to put the signs up, rather than simply taking responsibility for the problem;
–Although we stressed to Mr. Chambers multiple times our need to get feedback from potential buyers who came through the house, and he agreed to do so, he later told us that he was only checking once a week to see if buyers had come through, and told us he disagreed with us and did not think feedback was important.
–When we called Mr. Chambers to tell him that we had decided we did not want to work with McGrath further and would seek a different agent, he became irate and said, by phone and in an email, that he would not withdraw in less than the 90 days stipulated in the listing agreement unless we agreed to pay him $ 500. He knew when he made this demand that we were leaving for Europe almost immediately, and could not get into a fight that would delay listing of our house with another agent.
As we said, poor service and poor ethics.

Glad I read these reviews… I’ve been looking at a $ 2,200.00 (lowered from $ 2,250.00) rental property in Ashburn and love the layout of it but the carpets are dirty, the whole townhouse is dirty, the brick patio is very uneven and some of the bricks are sticking up out of the ground, the front porch has dry-​rot and the white paint is peeling off of EVERY single kitchen cabinet. The picture McGrath posted of it is in pristine condition. My real estate guy (who is very nice and not associated with McGrath) just advised me that McGrath is renting the property «as is» and won’t clean or fix anything. I was considering placing an offer for this place before I found out it being rented as is and thought that maybe I would still submit an offer tomorrow to rent at for a lower amount but just read these horrible reviews… I think I’ll run, not walk away.

I have been very happy with using McGrath Real Estate. I have been a client of theirs for over 4 years and have found that deliver very prompt service to any problems that I had with my property. I hope to use them again soon.

McGrath real estate is the worst company that I’ve ever had to work with when it comes to renting a house or apartment. Thier internal processess are broken. I have unfortunately rented two homes managed by them, both were in great locations or great houses, and the benefits outweighed the HUGE negatives associated with McGrath.
Point 1: Both times I rented from them I either Express Mailed or Hand Delivered my First Month’s Rent, Pet Deposit, and Security deposit only to get an email later that day stating they still hadn’t received these checks. Each had a receipt (either signed delivery confirmation or McGrath Receipt), yet the staff didn’t have a central location that they could look to find if these payments had been received. If they did, the staff was too lazy to look and opted for a template email instead.
Point 2: A contingency in my first lease was that three rooms needed to be painted before I moved in. I signed my lease August 29 and Moved in Oct 1. No painting or repairs had been done and I ended up having to take 4 days off of work so the repairs could be made.
Point 3: Their leases are sneaky. There was a clause is my first lease that said I could be removed from the home if the owners came back to the area. I asked if they were Military and was told «No». I proceeded to sign a two year lease. At the 10 month point I was told I had 60 days to leave because the State Department Rep who owned the property was moving back. These things don’t just pop up on us in the Military or the DoS, so clearly information was intentionally held.
Point 4: I had a scheduled walk through for House #2, the one I had to move into after Point 3. They called me 30 minutes prior to and stated they were running 30 minutes behind. Finally at 1245, a full hour and forty-​five minutes later they showed up. I called to complain about the delay and express my anger of their lack of respect for peoples time and was essentially «blown off» by the inspection department «manager». I asked to speak to a Managing partner and was told «no.»
Point 5: 3 days after I moved into house #1 the drain sink in the basement started over-​flowing. I hadn’t even finished unpacking and was charged for the $ 200 bill for the plumber.
Point 6: Their hired contractors who mow my grass left my gates open while my dogs were outside. They got out and were lost for about 4 hours. I called McGrath to complain about the quality of thier hired help and the secretary stated a manager would call me back to get more details. It’s been 4 months.
About the only thing they do right is collect my money for rent. If you have to rent with them, make sure a lawyer reviews the lease, you ask A LOT of questions regarding the home, the owners, and contracts that will be used. Prepare mentally for poor service and bad attitudes.

If i had the option to give 0 stars I would.
This is the worst place i have ever rented with.
If you think they are helping you out with anything, think again, they just act like that and later hit you with tiny clauses of the contract «you should have read bc you had plenty of time to read over the contract».
Oh and don’t even bother cleaning the place when you move out. they call everything dirty so you might as well let it be true. I scrubbed my fridge and microwave (that were never even close to dirty to begin with) with lestoil and had them sparkling and they still got a DIRTY next to them on the move out report. What a waste of my time.

Currently in year 2 of a 3 year lease with a property managed with McGrath. First off we met the owner before we started leasing the property. They were moving out of the country. We love the owner, and I am lucky enough to be able to communicate with them via email which saves me from dealing with McGrath.
The who application process was a HUGE headache! I’ve blocked most of it out at this point, but after several emails and calls asking if they received all parts of the application, being told yes/​no from different people, then not hearing anything for weeks (someone quit and they clearly are not organized enough) only to find out from the owner that we were good to go.
Next the second full bath is in need of an update and started leaking. They sent out two companies, and of course, picked the lowest bidder. Who had to return twice more to get the thing fixed (yep, 4 days total we had to take off work). The third time it started leaking it took McGrath 4 days to respond. 4 days of water damage from the leak (we had buckets to catch it).
We noticed we have carpenter bee’s burrowing in the fence in the back yard. I took a few pictures, sent an email to McGrath. One week went by, and 4 other bee’s moved in. One into the siding! A pest control guy happened to be servicing other homes in the neighborhood, so we took it upon ourselves to sign up for the service, and get the bee’s (and camel crickets and wolf spiders and ants that invade the home) taken care of. Another week later someone at McGrath finally gets back to us.
We will NEVER rent a property from them again. Never. I’d rather take the chance with some random owner. Camden apartments is better than them, and that’s saying a lot!

My friend and I are in the process of finding a place to rent for the next year. We’ve got a dream location lined up for the year after, so all we need is a simple 12-​month lease.
We found a place in Reston (North Point to be exact) that we both really liked and which was being managed by McGrath. We contacted a third-​party realtor to have a look for ourselves. Luckily, this third-​party wound up being a really great Long & Foster realtor, without whom this whole process would’ve been a total nightmare. After we took a look, we filled out the applications and sent them in, along with the application fee and first month’s rent.
Lisa (our realtor) emailed us the next day and told us that all looked well: our credit was great, our incomes more than sufficient, and all the other things that renters look for in tenants checked out great to. Ideal tenants– that’s the phrase that McGrath themselves used.
Then, 2 days later, we’re told by McGrath that –oops!- the owners of the property want to sell now. Lisa did her best to fight in our favor, but McGrath couldn’t be reasoned with. So we picked our checks back up and found another place– one which we’re currently applying to now.
Here’s the thing: I understand that the owners made the call to sell, not McGrath. But as a realty company, it’s McGrath’s responsibility, and indeed their duty, to not only keep their records up to date, but guide their clients in the best possible direction. Clearly they don’t bother keeping their listings fresh and updated– that’s the obvious part (this also means their communication with property owners is probably poor). But what’s really ridiculous is their total lack of expertise with regards to helping their clients (in this case the property owners) make the right decision.
If you live in Reston or any of the surrounding areas, then you know that the metro expansion is nearly complete (finally, after 5+ years). What this means for real estate is an across-​the-​board value hike for all property within usable distance of the new Silver Line. The metro will be open and in full swing by this time next year. Hence, by renting their property for just ONE more year before selling, they would be virtually guaranteed to make at LEAST 20% more when they do sell it.
Any competent realtor should know this (hell, any competent human in general), and therefor be pushing their clients to make this (infinitely superior) decision to be patient. But McGrath doesn’t do this.
What’s really funny is that it not only hurts the property owners, but their own business as well! If I ran my own realty firm, I’d be singing this «wait for the metro» song to everyone within earshot. Perhaps this aggravating experience was just our really bad luck, but from everything I could tell in dealing with them, it was not.
There are tons of great places to live in the Reston/​Fairfax area, and just as many capable, hardworking realtors. I’m glad that I’ve got one working with me, and not McGrath.

Thankless business to be in taking care of someone’s home while you are overseas or out of the state? Parameters are set by The McGrath team and they seem to do a good job following them. They found a qualified renter and when I returned the place looked great. I did not have high expectations on that.

I began using McGrath in January of 2010 as I was moving abroad for two years. Initially the service was very good; however, since September 2010 the experience has trended steadily lower. McGrath is supposed to perform annual inspections of the home and unless prompted, the annual inspections seemed to have been forgotten and overlooked.
I should have known there were problems in early 2012, when my tenant refused to speak to anyone from McGrath and even had to involve her attorney. I had to step into the matter and bring calm to and eventually resolve the matter.
The final straw for me was after more than 15 months since the last inspection. I sent an inquiry to understand why hadn’t an inspection been completed. At which, time I received feedback that an inspection had been done and the results would follow (HOW IRONIC.). I did receive a work order in the following weeks and many of the items include were cosmetic (most applicable to spring actions such has power washing the deck, etc…) of which I happily approved, as I have an excellent tenant who always pays and looks after the home. The problem starts when I receive an invoice for $ 300 to include items which were not included on the original work order, yet the invoice made reference to the work order number and when I challenged the charges I was sent images of another home as proof of the completed work.
HOW UNPROFESSIONAL!
Finally after several emails with the client repair manager Dave Buckingham, I then received a message from a Gregg Waters, the client advocate, who definitely doesn’t understand his job title and certainly was not advocating on my behalf and is as rude as they come. This is what my 8% gets me on a month basis.
I certainly would not advocate nor recommend McGrath as a property management company under any circumstance. Their quality is lacking and their customer service is absolutely horrible. There are plenty of property managers that can do the job and have more respect for their clients.

I’m not sure where all these negative reviews are coming from as I had a great experience with McGrath for Property Management and would recommend them without reserve. They handled the whole process with ease and took the worry and stress out of the rental process for me. Definitely prefer going through a company rather than trying to handle person-​to-​person.
The rental process is a nightmare – I learned from a friend who had tenants from HELL in her house (refused to pay rent, took months and months to evict the tenant, tenant complained there was mold and mildew but refused to let anyone in to inspect, changed the locks and wouldn’t allow anyone in, ripped up expensive landscaping, cut a new doorway (!) into the side of their garage just for kicks…) that I didn’t want to go through the process alone and McGrath provided the buffer layer in there to make the rental process as smooth as could be and appropriately handle all questions and concerns from the tenant. I will never rent a property again without a property management company and would use McGrath again in a heartbeat.
It seems like a lot of the complaints are about normal pains in the rental process – like having a lock box on your door and third party realtors coming to look at it – that’s just part of the real estate process and out of McGrath’s control; getting your car towed when you forgot to leave a parking pass in the window, well, that’s how assigned/​controlled parking should be if you want to make sure there are spaces available for the tenants.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I recently had to break my lease and McGrath Real Estate could not have been more helpful through the whole process. One of the realtors at McGrath, Lindsay, contacted by landlords at the time to explain the situation and offered to put the apartment on the market at a discounted rate. She walked me through the entire process from initially contacting my landlords to the move out inspection. I was fortunate enough that McGrath was able to quickly find new tenants for the apartment which cleared me of all financial responsibility for a very low (and extremely affordable) price!
I will absolutely work with McGrath again.