Real Management Company

Such a sorry excuse for a management company. They are quick to get you a letter if your grass is a half an inch higher than they want it to be, but when you ask them for anything you can be prepared to wait a long time. They will have no empathy as they blame you, their policies and procedures or the post office for their actions.
We sold our house on June 30^th and they debited our account on July 5^th for the quarterly homeowner fees. I thought this would be an easy fix. Just put our money back into the account. OH LORD NO. They have to send a check to the Title Company that closed on our house (Title company says this is ridiculous, its my $$$ not theirs). Title company never got the check (that was made out to me, so I am sure they were confused as to who I am since its a big company and I do not work there). So then we had to wait 30 days for a stop check. Then a 2^nd check was never sent out (when they said it would be sent out, and to us). When we called we were told that a check was never promised to be sent out to us and once again they were going to get around to sending it to the title company that would in turn be mystified as to who I am since I do not work there. After yelling and screaming (why would they make me yell and scream, I don’t want to be THAT guy) they promised to just cut a check that day and mail it directly to me. 7 business days later and I am still waiting with little hope of ever seeing that money.

I’m reviewing RMC as a tenant for 3 years. We rented a lovely home in the Sunset for 3 years through RMC. We set up our rent on auto payment. The few times we called for repairs — they were handled professionally and swiftly. The repair people sent over were always friendly and efficient. John just completed our move out inspection. He is a good guy, grounded and sincerely concerned about his clients. He mentioned he already knew of a family who could possibly be moving in. Being a recruiter — I love getting people jobs and it is clear that RMC enjoys finding people homes.

If I could leave negative stars I would. My roommates and I pay an inordinate amount of money in monthly rent. Our dishwasher has been broken since we moved in. For two months it has been full of standing, molding, dirty dishwater. Aaliyah from the staff has been totally incompetent in taking care of the problem. She fails to keep us apprised of their «efforts» to fix the dishwasher, and we often don’t hear from her for weeks unless we send multiple prodding follow-​up emails. If she responds at all, she sends snotty, toothless emails that assure us that they are doing «everything they can to take care of the problem.» In all this time, they’ve accomplished NOTHING. They also offered us as stock line that they don’t offer reductions in rent for broken appliances — what a convenient excuse for a management company that cannot handle a simple dishwasher repair. Really really really terrible customer service. Avoid renting through this management company if at all possible.

I’m in the last few months of two years in an RMC rental apartment and have had a decidedly mixed experience. While JJ is incredibly helpful and the staff were knowledgeable, helpful, and accommodating when I was initially finding the place, more recently I’ve reserved almost comically terrible customer service from their office staff.
I submitted a maintenance request for some plumbing issues over the weekend. I specifically asked to be notified before maintenance came to make any changes. I woke up on Monday morning to find my door locked from the bottom (something I’ve never done), my shower door wide open, and the problems apparently resolved. No notice of any kind from RMC. Later in the afternoon, I receive a call from a plumber who informs me he’s «eight minutes away.» I still have not heard anything about anyone coming to address the issues. When the plumber gets there, he confirms the problem has been solved by whomever entered my apartment that morning.
Shortly thereafter, I received an email from an Aaliyah at the company informing me that the second plumber said there were no issues, strongly implying I had fabricated the issues, and threatening that I would be charged the next time they «send a plumber and do not find any issues.» In addition to being rather disturbed someone clearly had entered my home without my knowledge, I was extremely insulted by the implication that I would invent fictional problems for maintenance requests. I found the accusation incredibly unprofessional.
After responding via email, I called and asked to speak to a manager. Click. Yes, I was immediately hung up on. I called back and asked more pointedly to speak to the individual’s manager, and I then left a voicemail. Aaliyah then called me and began to say that she didn’t know what happened, which I find embarrassing given that TWO separate plumbers were sent to my home and I was not notified in either case, and that it did not usually happen this way. I wasn’t particularly interested in conversing and ended the conversation.
I love my living space and have had few problems in the past, but I would just suggest that when a maintenance issue comes up, it’s not the best business practice to accuse a paying tenant of having made up the problem. I hope they’ll improve because, like I said, the few prior maintenance requests I’ve made were handled much more professionally – although they have sent maintenance people into my apartment in the past without providing any notice – and this particular case could not have been handled much more poorly. For the exorbitant rent, I expect (much) more.
Edited to add: In their defense, I do find the positive reviews (clearly from employees or otherwise hired shills) quite amusing, which brightened my day a bit after the sour experience right before. Thanks for the laugh!

They removed my last review because I told the truth. Sure maybe I got a little too angry. Anyways, this place is horrible. They have zero respect for their customers. And they lie. I asked one of the men how long a place had been on the market and he lied not realizing that I could look it up online. Their process for picking up keys to look at a place is not realistic. They give you 30 mins. Sometimes it takes 30mins to get across town! I would not trust this company. I’m not saying don’t rent from them. I’m just saying don’t trust them.

I used to live in one of the buildings they just renovated and is back on the market for rental — renovated, because there was a fire there several years ago when the *smoke-​detectors didn’t work*.

This review is about the signs in front of the office. They are SO offensive! Why would anyone want to patronize a business that celebrates becoming wealthy a la Monopoly (usually at someone else’s expense)?? And the man looks like an overfed pig. I actually went in one day and mentioned my reaction to the person at the desk, and obviously nothing changed. I’m so disturbed by these awful murals that I’ve thought of starting a petition with my neighbors to request that they be removed.

First off we stayed in one of their properties for 2 years and very rarely dealt with them but on the few occasions we did they were extremely unresponsive. We had our oven go out for weeks… Finally the handyman just let himself in with NO notice and without permission and fixed it. We had a leak that never got fixed even though it had been reported twice. With all that, I’d still give them a couple of stars but the move out was ridiculous. We scheduled a move out inspection and the guy quoted $ 25 per lightbulb PLUS $ 65 per hour to replace them… I know it’s just lightbulbs but it just a small thing that adds stress on move out. But the worst part is that the guy doing the inspection, the same one alot of other people on here complain about refused to take our keys… He said we had to take them to the office which is across town. What part of move out inspection doesn’t include turning in your keys?!? I guess I just expect too much from a company that I shelled out 3k a month to for 2 years…

Talk about an easy to find building. The sign is hokey but totally works when you’re driving around looking for RMC. They were straight-​forward with how everything works: You tell them which property you’re interested in, leave your ID and $ 40 cash to hold, then you have 1 hour to check out the listing and come back. We felt a little rushed at first but realized 1 hour was actually quite a lot of time for looking at 1 place. The guy that helped us was very nice and I appreciate the leniency with the cash deposit (I only had $ 30 on me).
The application process was very easy and the reason this place stands out compared to other rental companies is how honest and straight-​forward they were about picking applicants. They go by a first-​come-​first-​serve basis and they will refund your application fee if they pick someone before even getting to your application. That was a huge relief since applying for apartments in this city is nuts and I was expecting to be out of money from all the application fees. I called to check the status and they told me over the phone how many people were in front of us and said if anyone cancels their appointment, they will go to the next person in line.
We ended up not getting the apartment, but the application refund came through as promised. We ended up finding a place somewhere else but I feel like I will go directly to RMC first the next time we start looking. I am definitely going to recommend my friends to try here because the process was so easy.
Tips: Apartment hunting in SF is TUFF! Be on top of it and ready to make decisions fast. Keep a folder with all your info with you and make sure you’ve coordinated with roommates ahead of time. Don’t wait to apply! If you love the place, jump on it!

I would give them 0 stars if I could. It’s very clear that the main profit this company makes is not on renting properties that stay advertised for months, but on rental applications $ 40 per crack. My boyfriend and I had a terrible experience dealing with a person named Howard. He took our $ 80, had us email all the supplemental documents and left us hanging half way into it: no follow up, no contact, no information. I sent him an email asking to refund our application fees since he had no intention renting us the place we applied for: nothing. This person is conducting very bad business and representing this company in the worst possible way. No customer service, not even a hint of it. Please, don’t waste your time and, most importantly, your money dealing with this crappy company.

Do not deal with these people.
I walked into the office with a smile on my face and didn’t even get a hello from anyone. The jackass behind the counter just looked at me. I inquired about a property and got an immediate «Its been leased».
Even though I had just seen it on the site 2 min earlier. Had my mom call to inquire about the same property. They told her she could stop by tomorrow?
P. S. I am not caucasian. I NEVER pull the race card, but…

I truly believe that all of the good reviews of this management company are from employees/​close friends of theirs. This past weekend my boyfriend and I had been looking for apartments in San Francisco, and we saw a Craigslist ad for one that brought us to this company. We stopped in to talk to them and pick up a key for the hour to view it. First off, immediately upon walking in, no one said hello or even acknowledged us, which was awkward because the two employees were sitting about two feet (literally) from us. When we expressed interest in the apartment they really could have cared less, and like a robot the man took our key deposit and gave us something to sign, not asking a single thing about us/​anything at all. We are a very upbeat, young professional couple– my boyfriend being a Mortgage Broker and me being in Retail Management. My boyfriend alone makes three times the monthly rent, yet I think because we weren’t in our 40s they didn’t take us seriously. Mind you, we are NOT buying a place, this was for an apartment rental for only $ 1,900/month. I have no idea why they feel like thats a hard/​large amount for most people to pay. Upon returning the key, we expressed extreme interest in the apartment and started a conversation with the man at the desk/​basically said we would do whatever it takes/​pay anything to get the place. We offered the first 6^th months of rent up front, along with the option of my boyfriends parents as consignors (who have 820 credit scores and make $ 200,000 per year), as well as an immediate tenancy. The robotic man switched his tone, and suddenly was a bit friendlier. Basically, the man made it sound like we had a great chance of getting the place/​said there were not any other applicants in front of us, and that we needed to fill out applications that were $ 40 each (the most expensive applications we have ever come across, literally ever). Not only did we each have to fill one out (obviously), but BOTH of his parents had to as well, equaling a total of $ 160 in applications. However, we were totally happy/​willing to do it and excited because he said we basically had an amazing chance, and we loved the place… Fast forward 3 days later to Monday. After not hearing from the company all day (even though the man said he would call us in the morning), we called to get an update and check on the status. Simply put, they said that someone from Los Angeles liked the place and had made an offer and was wiring a check to them for it… Interesting. How exactly did that happen two days later when the man expressed that no one else was in the running? Ohhhh, I see. Like complete money driven assholes, they knew we weren’t going to get it/​already had that person ready to go, but squeezed us for $ 160 and gave us false hope. Now, I bet people may think thats a normal thing for a business like this to do– however none of the companies we have worked with during this process (6 of them) have done anything like that. Four of them told us flat out how many applications were in front, and what our chances were– before we filled out any applications/​paid the fee. Everyone else was extremely nice and friendly, and followed up with us, etc. RMC is a money driven excuse for a company, and I literally have no idea why people would go to them.
I will say, we came to the conclusion that this was a blessing in disguise– there is no way in hell (especially after reading most of these reviews) that we would want to be their tenants. How terrible would that be?! So, maybe this was God giving us a freebee, but for everyone else, just beware of these idiots and decide to go with a different management company/​through landlords directly…

I am terribly disappointing in their service and their responses to tenants. They treat tenants like they don’t mean anything and turn your good faith into their fortune.
Case and point — we signed a contract which THEY screwed up as the contract read that we did not have to pay utilities. instead of just taking the contract to word we decided to play nice and sign a new contract as our verbal agreement was to pay the utilities. Now its come back and bit us. The more nice you are to this company the more they take advantage of you. Do not listen to them, do not give into their good faith verbal agreements and I would not even rent with them.
Their management and maintenance record is terrible, they won’t even pay for cleaning the exterior of the house even if you have been a good tenant for over 2 years.
This is not someone I would recommend renting from, if you don’t have a choice make sure to not make any agreements whatsoever as they will not uphold them.
Absolutely terrible tenant relationship management, as you can tell by their Logo/​Picture — they just try to rake in cash.

I’m living next door to a Real Management Company (RMC) managed property, and they are terrible. This is a quiet street, but the tenants have been having lots of loud parties and lots of people over, acting like it is a hostile or frat house. Prior to the rental, I had expressed my concerns to the agent John Stedele, but he did not care. He just wants the money and has no concern about anything else.
RMC is a disreputable management company.

We’ve had a fantastic experience with the Real Management Company and have, and would again, highly recommend them to other property owners.
Both my aunt and my dad owned rental properties so I know full well what kind of special horrors property management involves — lawsuits, tenants who won’t pay rent, repairs in the middle of the night, etc. In fact, after my dad died, the tenants in his upscale property all decided to stop paying their rent because they knew it would be harder and more expensive for the estate to evict them than for us to just live through it until the building could be sold. They got almost six months rent-​free and I almost lost everything. They basically stole thousands of dollars from me. It was horrible.
So, I was very, very, very hesitant to ever become a landlord and vowed never to do it again. However, when the recession hit and my husband and I were both laid off, we were kind of stuck with it. We had an underwater property in the City and no way to find work other than to move out of state. We knew the only way to get solvent again was to rent our home until conditions improved. But I was nervous about letting someone else manage the property and tried to do it myself. We bled money for six months while I tried to learn California real estate law. Plus, we never really felt comfortable renting to a tenant we would never meet (we were out of state at that point), so the place sat vacant. My husband finally convinced me that we had to do something and we took the plunge with RMC.
It’s been almost three years now and we could not be more thrilled. RMC does a great job at selecting tenants, repairs are made before we even know there’s a problem (which is super awesome since it’s not like we have a stable of skilled contractors), and the rent comes on time. I have not worried about that property for a minute since RMC took over for us. We also love the monthly financial reports we get on the property and the materials they send at tax time. The fees are deductible but even if that weren’t the case, RMC is worth every penny.

RMC is evil! If you are going to rent from this company, please rethink! The ceiling in our bathroom caved in and they didn’t fix it for 3 months. When we complained to them about this later on, they stated that it had «rained every day for 3 months.» Clearly, we knew this to be false. We noticed that they also do illegal things like charge tenants for things that they never fix. When we moved out, they threatened to withhold most of our security deposit for bogus reasons. Luckily, we took the time to annoy them to death about this and they gave us most of it.
We looked up California tenants rights and discovered that we were entitled to get interest on every year they held our security deposit. We pointed this out to RMC and they eventually sent us $ 400 we would not have ever seen had we not complained. If you are planning on renting from RMC, don’t let them screw you bc they will definitely try to!

For the past 3 months I’ve lived in an RMC managed building (much to my chagrin, my building owner is switching to a terrible management company, Dowd [probably cheaper]). But I digress. This is a review of RMC. And let me just say: RMC has been flawless in every step of my rental process.
From filling out my application to the lease signing to moving in, to any maintenance request, they’ve been 100% on top of it! I can’t say enough good things about RMC. Did I mention they have an online maintenance request form that’s typically responded to within 24 hours? Or that they offer online rental payments/​billing? Super easy, and I felt totally secure delivering my rent to them online. I will deeply miss having them as my building managers. A specific shout-​out to John and Howard, who were incredibly helpful and responsive during my rental process (I didn’t work with any other RMC agents, so can’t speak to the rest of the team, but if they’re anything like J&H they’re all great!)

A dear friend of mine took a well-​earned vacation this month for the first time in many years. While she was away and relaxing and enjoying I and two other friends were caring for her cats.
Try to imagine my horror when I stopped by her apartment of 15 years and discovered a 3-​day notice to pay or quit on the door from Real Management Company. I knew that it had to be a mistake as my friend has lived there so long and has never had an issue paying her rent before.
I had never dealt with this before, so I did some research and found that if she didn’t respond, Real Management Company might change her locks and kick her out. I was very worried about this, so I did what I thought was the right thing to do and called Real Management Company to see what I could do to help in my friend’s absence.
This is when I met Sue. Instead of being a sympathetic human being about the situation, she was rude to me and insisted that there was nothing that I (or she) could do about the situation. She refused to even agree to put a note in my friend’s file or to let anyone know that there were animals in the apartment. I told her that I was worried that if the locks were changed, the cats would starve. She laughed at me and told me that she didn’t think they would be «that cruel.» She then went on to repeat (several times), that I needed to get in touch with my friend — even after I told her that she was out of the country and in an area where internet was spotty. Gee, thanks for your help, Sue.
Thankfully my friend got back to me the next day and was able to clear things up (turns out that it really WAS an error — told ya so!) I will never, ever rent from or recommend Real Management Company to anyone after the way I was treated by Sue when I called. Her rudeness was uncalled for as I was only trying to do the right thing.

I was at first surprised by the positive reviews here, but as smart Unilocalers know, there is a lot of seeding of reviews by folks associated with companies, so real management has probably put some of these reviews up themselves.
a local attorney call these folks the «real sleaze company» for how they deal with renters… that about says it.
under JJ they have improved. his father was a disaster. however, they can take years to respond to a request to have something fixed, unless it is required by law. and then they fix it in the cheapest way possible.
not sure what to call the prop. management equivalent of slumlords, but these folks come close.
perhaps property owners like them because they do things so cheaply? but ask actual renters in person about them, don’t rely on some of these fake reviews.

First of all, I want to make clear that I have never hired RMC to manage my property; I am a renter. So this review is from the point of view of an excellent, but disappointed tenant.
I moved into an apartment in the Castro/​Noe neighborhood with my girlfriend about a month ago. Her roommate ended up moving out before the lease was up, and we were ready, the apartment is great, so we figured what the hell. Therefore, I am not on the lease.
We opened a joint checking account to be able to pay for rent together, and both of our names are clearly displayed at the top of each check. Not realizing that a clause in the lease prohibits anyone not signed on as a lessee from paying rent on the property, I signed my own name to October’s check and dropped it off on the first of the month.
On the 7^th I receive in the mail a letter from RMC with the check taped to it, stating that they cannot accept it, per the agreement outlined in the lease. I immediately correct the matter, dropping a new check, with my girlfriend’s signature through their door slot around 6pm the same evening. At 8pm a messenger serves me three copies of a THREE DAY NOTICE TO PAY RENT OR QUIT. Pardon the yelling-​all-​caps font – I’m just copying RMC’s delivery.
Obviously the document is written in snippy lawyer legalese and peppered with many threats of legal action against me. I notify the owners of the property/​my downstairs neighbors of the matter and give them a copy of RMC’s notice; they are both understanding and apologetic.
Clearly this is RMC policy for dealing with this kind of situation. The original check was good, but they couldn’t accept it. They made no other effort to contact my girlfriend by phone or email before sending the letter in the mail and messengering over the THREE DAY NOTICE TO PAY RENT OR QUIT. And that is really the source of our frustration.
If you are a property owner considering RMC, just know that this is their standard procedure for dealing with a very simple mistake. At the very least, you could say they overreacted. I have since left two voice mails and have yet to hear back from the necessary parties. Needless to say, I am less than impressed.