FL
Fritz Liedtke
6 days ago
I am a property owner whose properties were managed by PMI/MVP. I was with the previous management company (MVP) that was bought out by out-of-state management franchise PMI. This review is relevant to anyone considering having their properties managed by PMI, and by anyone looking to lease from them. What I share is my actual, documented experience working with them both before and after I moved my properties to another management company.
First, the fees. PMI charges a $69.99 fee to tenants, ON TOP OF RENT. They will tell you it helps you waive all kinds of other fees, but those fees are mostly fake; no other managers I know charge such fees. (Check with other management companies for yourself.) They also tell you they’ll give you monthly air filters for your furnace because of this fee. With my properties, they never once delivered a filter to my property with a furnace, and they charged this same fee to another property that didn’t even have a filtered furnace. When I approached PMI about this and asked them to deliver filters to my tenants who paid for them, they never responded. In 20 years of owning properties, I’ve never had a company charge fees like this to tenants. They were also not outlined in our contract, and repeated attempts to force them to stop charging my tenants these fees were ignored.
Not only were these fees a burden to my tenants, but they meant I couldn’t charge a competitive rent, because potential tenants were looking at the full rent + fees, which were thus above-market and not competitive.
After switching management companies, I discovered that PMI had also double-charged lease-up fees (charging both me and the tenant). This fee is always paid by the owner; in 20 years of owning rentals, I’ve never seen a manager double charge like this.
Communications were poor. I was dealing with various people in various states, rather than just working with a local Columbus office. Communication between these people internally was also confused, leading to a lot of wasted time and frustration on my part. Transferring the property to new management was also a headache, as PMI’s team lost information, transferred money to wrong people, and couldn’t even keep track of the new management’s contact info.
Upon turnover of one unit, PMI’s team missed dozens of items on the inspection (which I didn’t discover until after my new manager took over and inspected the property). As a result, PMI put my property on the market with stained and torn carpet, marred walls, peeled paint, and non-working appliances. Between this and their excess ‘fees’, it was no wonder the property didn’t rent up until after I switched management.
My new management also discovered that one of my tenants’ homes had experienced wild animal entry through an exterior hole, causing interior damage to the home while being managed by PMI. The tenants’ calls to PMI requesting help and service were never returned. When I emailed PMI about this after the fact, they never replied.
So, that’s my experience. Proceed at your own risk.