The Property Society

I lived at Newning Oaks from when the Property Society took it over in 2013 and for over two years following. Reflecting on my experience (which I’ll get to in a minute), the best way to summarize it is to say that John O’Neill and co at the Property Society have absolutely *no* interest in serving the rental customer, but are merely concerned with extracting as much rent as possible from you and other tenants while holding rental properties short term. They turned the Madrid just down the road into condos, and my guess is they view Newning Oaks as a teardown and are waiting for the right offer to come in from a condo developer.
As soon as they took the building over, they raised rent to the extent that half the building moved out. There were vacant units for a good six months afterwards before the complex filled back up. The very basic grounds-​keeping done by the previous owner of leaf blowing the parking lot and vestibules stopped. The previous landlords had a contract with Coinmach for the washers and dryers in the vestibules. Those were quickly removed and replaced with low quality machines that consistently had problems. For the rest of my tenancy there, there were large stretches of time where the entire 20 unit building was using one washer. Us tenants kept complaining, but it was still an issue when I left.
When a unit at the end of the building vacated, I asked if I could move to it because it had one less shared wall (the building has paper thin walls). I offered to cover cleaning expenses for my old unit, so there would be no cost on their end. After being denied with no explanation over email, I confronted the building manager in person, and she said John denied the request, as he felt he could probably get higher rent from a new tenant. While that is fine from a business point of view, it illustrates perfectly they have no concept of tenant loyalty.
As others have said, maintenance requests were often closed without being completed, and emails are deliberately ignored unless it involves their money. This is *not* an exaggeration! I once sent an email to the building manager which never received a response, only to receive a renewal notice a week later from the same email address! Same applies for answering the phone and returning voicemail messages.
A neighbor of mine had her AC out for over two months in the summer, and her battle with them is a story in and of itself. When the building water heater went out, it took ten days for it to get it fixed. After repeated attempts to fix the existing heater (including several days waiting for parts via ground shipping), John finally gave in and bought the building a new water heater.
Shortly before moving out, my AC drain clogged. This caused water to puddle underneath the vinyl plank flooring in the bathroom, causing damage. While having no direct impact on me, I opened a maintenance request. My reward was the maintenance personnel stealing $ 900 cash from my dresser. I opened a police report and forwarded it to John O’Neill and didn’t even receive an apology.
I sincerely hope you are reading this prior to signing a lease! You’ve been warned.

I despise The Property Society with a fiery passion.
It’s like they’re trying to be terrible. Seriously, it’s not possible to suck this much without putting in some effort. They even made it difficult to pay my rent which is a new low in my book. The apartment I rented was dirty and hadn’t been painted or even looked at after the last tenant, but that’s not even why they’re so terrible. My heat or air (depending on the season) was always broken and they would take days to fix it. They made a habit of sending me eviction notices because they wouldn’t bill me for the power, then they were mad that I didn’t pay the bill that they forgot to give me. The highlight was when the janky latch on the sliding door closed itself and locked me out back in the tiny fenced in yard.
The Property Society is THE WORST. Negative 5,000 stars.

Renters beware! Do not rent a house or duplex from this company. They want to rob you of your hard earned money. Everyone else’s claim that they are very difficult to deal with are spot on. They want to charge you for things upon move out that are normal wear and tear which is against Texas Tenant Rights. They want to charge me for leaving fuzz on the return air cover!!! In all my years of renting I have never had such a horrible experience.

The duplex and especially the yard was a filthy mess when I moved in. The company is difficult to communicate with and ignores minor requests. Minor maintenance requests submitted on the online portal were marked as complete when they never were even addressed. The property was poorly maintained (trashy upon move in, sketchy wiring, siding falling off the walls, rotten tree limbs, paint spatter on the floors, rotting cabinets with water damage, etc.) — those things you think would be taken care of before move in.
I was lucky to get a large chunk of my security deposit back, but I left the place in much better condition than when I moved in. After getting the feeling that having them do minor repairs would be a hassle, I just took to doing things myself instead.
A big complaint is that my move out date was the last day of June. They didn’t cash my June rent check until July 23. That really screwed up my finances for the month. They had always cashed rent checks during the first week of the month, why wait almost 50 days this time???
Would not recommend The Property Society. I could go on, but you get the gist.

Absolutely the worst property management company I have ever had to deal with. They are unresponsive, inconsiderate and unprofessional. I would not recommend any property that they manage. It has been a nightmare to deal with them. I have had several instances where I made legitimate maintenance request with no immediate follow ups (reporting mold in the ceiling and reporting a broken refrigerator). I went four days with out a refrigerator and three days without hearing back from anyone.

I rented a house from the Property Society for one year and it was an absolute nightmare from the very beginning of submitting an application.
When I moved in, they gave me one key that they claimed would work in the front door, the garage door, and the overhead garage door (the one that pulls the garage door open). Two weeks after I moved in, I decided to dead lock the front door and leave through the garage. When I got back, my key would not work and i was locked out of my own house. When I called the «emergency» line, I spoke to some receptionist who said they would leave a note and someone would call me on Monday. (It was a Saturday). I told her I was locked out of my house and something needed to be done now. She suggested I call a locksmith and they would reimburse me for it.
$ 99 for a locksmith and a year later, I still haven’t seen that money returned or had anyone call me back about it.
In the middle of July my A/​C unit stopped working. I called their «emergency» line and the woman on the other end told me that there was nothing they could do about it for a few days because they only had one maintenance person and someone would be calling me to schedule a time. I asked her what the point of the «emergency» line was if no one was ever there to handle anything and she told me it was for things like fires and floods. (Right, because if my house is on fire the first people I’m going to call are you). Four days, fifteen phone calls, and several emails later, they finally fixed the A/​C. No one called me back or emailed me back about it though.
I invested nearly $ 2200 on deposits in to that house when I moved in and I just got a move out reconciliation notice in the mail. They’re claiming that they used all of the deposits and I owe them an ADDITIONAL $ 300. Their reasoning is that the house had a very strong pet odor, (I have one dog and one cat) and it was SO strong that the ONLY way they could fix it was to PAINT.
They claim they had to reinstall smoke detectors, paint the entire three bedroom house, and replace carpets and blinds (I’ll let the last two slide since my cat is a jerk, but not so much a jerk that she peed on every single inch of the entire house to leave an «odor» that strong. Anybody ever hear of soap and water??) When I asked to see receipts for the paint supplies, they gave me about six receipts from different places for very expensive paints, brushes, rollers, etc and the only explanation I got was «We had to paint because of pet odors». I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my entire life. I’m 30 years old and have been renting since I turned 18 and this claim is the most outlandish thing I’ve ever heard.
I knew when I moved in what trouble these people were going to be, after the nightmare of even filling out an application. During the entire year that I lived in that house I didn’t even hang a single picture on the wall, not even one thumbtack. I did absolutely nothing to change the interior of that house because I didn’t want to deal with it at move out. Boy, was I wrong.
The kicker is that when I asked to schedule a walk through, at first I got a «yes» and then nothing more. When I asked her about it, the Vice President told me she told me when she was going to be at the house after I moved out and I could have met her there. That’s not exactly how that works. I work an 8 – 6 job, I need to schedule a time.
Do yourself a favor, and no matter how nice their units might be, save yourself the headache (and the money!) and rent from someone else.

Review as a former tenant …
The one-​star reviews on here are absolutely accurate. In my 21 years of living in Austin, at least half of those renting, I don’t think I’ve dealt with a worse property management company. They’re unresponsive, disorganized and just flat don’t care. In one case, I had a water pipe leak in the front yard and water was pooling in the lawn. After submitting the request and waiting … waiting … submitting another request, waiting … waiting … finally after two months, the landlord themselves (not Property Society, the home owners themselves) got in touch with me. They apologized profusely and had somebody out there the same day to dig up a lot of the yard and replace the pipe (hence why I rent in$tead of owning). In the process, the workers had cut a large hole in the sheetrock in the house, thinking they’d need to replace pipe there. They didn’t, nor did they replace the sheetrock. It wasn’t until 9 months later when I was moving out that the Property Society folks decided to fix it.
Another time, the pilot light was out on my furnace and I called to have it lit. After a couple days of no heat and getting no response during our week of Austin winter in the 20s, I pinged the home owner themselves who had somebody out the same day. A couple days later, the Property Society folks finally called me to see if it was fixed. They also said that that kind of issue was the responsibility of the tenant. I slowly laid it out for them that if they’re having tenants take care of natural gas issues, the property blows up and somebody dies, when they’re on the front page of the paper, please remember this phone conversation with me.
At the end of my lease, I was served with a notice to vacate. No explanation, no thank you for paying your exhorbitant rent on time. The notice stated that the lease was up at the end of April, but said they would be taking possession at the end of May. After three phone calls and 3 emails, I finally sent a fourth email and another voice mail stating that the way I read the notice, I had until the end of May to vacate. I immediately got a call after that saying no, that’s not the case. When I read the letter back to them and they agreed that’s what it said, the response from them was oh, that’s a mistake: let me send another one. No ma’am, you may not amend a move-​out notice that you sent by certified letter. Surely you know the law and you’re not just playing dumb.
And even though there was no walk-​through done when I moved in and the place was filthy (I had to clean some pretty gross crap out of the fridge, marks off the walls … (hell, I even had to sweep and mop), I was charged $ 50 for «trash removal.» Gang, the place was spotless when I left, down to the broiler pan (which I never used). The only things left were things that the home owner stored there … and that’s who moved back into the house. Unbelievable.
If you are ever questioning renting a property from these people, search within yourself to see why you’re even giving it a single thought. Without a doubt, nobody should ever have any dealings with this company whatsoever. These people should consider another line of work.

This is an unethical and unlawful business. They are an absolute disgrace. All of the reviews on Unilocal are accurate. Be warned. These are slumlords that violate the terms of the lease agreements egregiously, will not respond to emails, maintenance requests, or deferred maintenance. They have a terrible reputation for good reason. My previous lease was transferred to this company, and the level of service became non-​existent immediately. Requests throughout the complex were routinely and blatantly ignored. They have no regard for their tenants whatsoever. They do the absolute minimum to keep from being sued.

They have zero respect for humans.
We didn’t have hot water for 5 weeks in January and the amount of cares they gave: zero. We still got water bills and they kept sending e-​mails telling us that we had hot water but just not all of the units. It was awful. AWFUL (and freezing and miserable).
It’s also been several months since I got out of there and I still have yet to see any of my security deposit back. We’ve called several times and we keep getting «oh we mailed to to the address you moved out of» (logical) «let me see what we owe you and get back to you».
I wish there could be some takedown of this absolutely horrific disgrace of a company.

Giving bad reviews is never comfortable but I feel that in addition telling the business the public should be aware as well. This is not a company I would hire to manage my property (business or residential). No returned calls, Sub contractor that arrived intoxicated, and poor customer service, high turn over in Property Society staff are just some of the things that you will experience when dealing with this company. Leasing a property that they manage is something you may want to think long and hard about. I know I will not renew my terms.

The Property Society sucks. I have never written a negative Unilocal review, but this company warrants it. They do not care at all about the satisfaction of their tenants, not even enough to return a phone call or email. I have never experienced anything like it.
The laundry room in my apartment complex has never been cleaned since I moved in (I have been living here 2 years due to location), and even though there are only 4 washers and dryers each, most of the time there is at least 2 broken. My toilet wasn’t working for 5 days and they couldn’t be bothered, it doesn’t matter what is broken, these people will not return your call or email.
I cannot wait to never have to deal with Stephanie Hill ever again. Worst management I have ever seen. Nothing pisses me off more than being ignored, especially when it’s by someone you’re paying the majority of your pay check to every month.

If I could rate them less than one, I would. The unit I moved into last year had several things wrong with it. I took several pictures and emailed the manager, Stephanie, to no avail. The entire unit was at some point painted in FLAT paint. When I moved in, there were several areas that weren’t painted or cleaned. STEPHANIE DOESN’T RETURN EMAILS. When I moved out, I was charged $ 1700 for painting that WASN’T DONE prior to moving in. My husband has tried to reach Stephanie about these charges for a MONTH, and not one email or call has been returned. These are the most unprofessional people you could possible try to deal with. Don’t take my word for it. Read the other reviews.

I moved into the Townhollow apartments December 2014 when it was managed by Roscoe. When Property Society took over everything went downhill. They’re unresponsive to emails, phone calls and taking care of any issue presented by a resident. We spent the whole summer with broken pool furniture. I wouldn’t never rent from this management company again.

Do not do business with these people.
Their business practices are rude, unprofessional, and unethical. The Property Society bought the apartment complex that I had been living in 2 weeks prior to moving out. We moved into the apartment in very poor conditions and were given our full deposit back prior to move out for peace of mind. When we left the property we had never even seen an inkling of the new management company and the office had been closed for 2 weeks. So no where to drop keys, parking permits, etc…(not to mention no maintenance or trash service on sight).
So, I returned a week later, leaving my keys and forwarding information. I thought that was the end of that until I received a bill for damages to the apartment delivered to my former address. After trying to contact them repeatedly, I finally got a very rude email from one of their managers that they would send the bill to collections and damage our credit and rental history if we did not pay the bill.
I will be seeking legal action for the unethical practices of this company, which I had never intended on doing business with in the first place.

RUDE AND UNPROFESSIONAL
Called to make an appointment to see an apartment, made an appointment for the following afternoon. He didn’t show and when we called he said that the property was off the market because two applications had been revived the following day. When appointment was made the previous day nothing was said about any other applications, just to have the deposit money ready to go. John O’neill couldn’t be bother to give us a call to let us know he wouldn’t be showing up, or that he knew all along that the property was off the market. SHADY!!!

Irresponsible, unprofessional, unreasonable, expensive — summarized my experience with them!
My duplex in Austin was managed by the original owner of the business. Then, John O’Neil took over the business and made a fancy name and website with it. Promising some great changes. Ok — but– all I see was great expenses piling up! My property was unattended — left rotten and he didn’t call and tell me it needs repairs/​fixes. I was wondering why the whole time that it didn’t get rented out yet. Then — I decided to sell it and it’s at that times that I eventually got notified by the agents involved that the house is in poor shape and in dire need of attention.
Ok — well — in 2011 — I asked them to email me my 2010 summary costs/​income report for my tax return. A couple of weeks later — no reponse — followed up — finally got some replies — which was — NO — we won’t email anything to you until you mail us the $ 200 remaining balance on the account (since the property was sold). So — fine — mailed over a check. No response after more follow-​up and received nothing. A couple of months passed and I got reminded by my CPA. Followed up again — NO — we can’t email you a summary because we did some wrong calculations on the previous balance owed. You now owe an extra $ 100. WHAT??? ok — I insisted on a summary report plus accounting details on how balance is accrued. I’m concerned of their «calculations» now. Reponse? «NO — we can’t UNTIL you mail us the check!»?
Excuse me? Keep asking me to mail a check without showing me proof that I owed that money and that all calculations are correct? Since when this becomes the «proper» business practise? I’ll report to BBB when I get a chance!
Fortunately — I have monthly statements from 2010 — and the summary report was just a nice-​to-​have. I was able to calculate incomes/​expenses for my CPA. I still don’t see how all the balances come about however…

We have worked with the Property Society for 3 years and have allowed them to manage our single family home in Austin over that time period. In 3 years we have had 6 tenants and if you do the math that means that over half of the tenants they have provided have not finished their year long lease. This is a huge bonus to Property Society because every time the home turns over they get huge fee’s on the cost to fix up your property and then 50% of the first months rent when they find you a tenant.
In addition, the Property Society has it’s own «affiliated» maintenance company (how convenient). When something breaks, they mark up the part by 30%, charge you an extra 10% of whatever the «total» bill is, and throw a fuel surcharge on top of the bill just for kicks and giggles. They mask all their exessive fee’s by providing you with an online portal that allows you to see how little they pass through to you every month on the property they are «managing» for you.
The Property Society also holds onto your money for 30 days after they collect the rent on the first. The tenant pays them on the 1^st of the month and they hold your cash in their account until the last week of the month and in most cases the last acutal day they can ACH those funds back to you. I kick myself everytime I list out all the negatives to the one positive I can see about this property managment company.
Last and definetly not least, the Property Society pays a commission to realtors in the local area to refer «investor» clients to them and promise to cut them into the pie by paying them some of the fee’s that Property Society is going to charge you. If one of your realtors refers you to this company, make sure you politely decline and save yourself the headache of working with a worthless company that will nickle and dime you for every red cent they can and will not pay attention to the tenants that are occupying your real estate because they make more money when it turns over!

Bad business! I contacted John at the beginning of the week letting him know that I would be submitting applications on one of his properties that was available at the time that I called. My clients are from West Texas and because the Property Society only accepts certified funds they checks had to be mailed. They were mailed that day, which I notfied John and submitted applications to him via email. The property was listed as pending in MLS and I called John to make sure that was for my clients. He said yes and I told him I would be receiving checks that day and would bring them by.
The checks came that day and I called John to get instructions to get to his office. He then told me there was one other application now on the property and that he would present both. He then further went on to say that it was very likely that my clients would get the place and that if they were not chosen he would not process the application and would return the money to my clients. That same day I received a call from his property manager requesting some additional information which I quickly got to him. I never heard anything until 5 days later and he then let me know that they took another application and that they actually had two other applications, not the original one that I was told.
I am in the property management business and when someone gives me their word and I give them mine, I stick to it. As an agent, it is very hard to work with people like this because time is money. We could have submitted applications on other proeprties in the mean time but this company is dishonest.
One thing I have learned in Property Management Business (9 years experience) is that you need to take care of vendors and tenants and not just your owners. Any owner looking for a good property manager should pay attention to this. Good relationships with vendors and tenants means less risk for owners because agents are more willing to work to get their properties rented, lower prices on repairs and maintenance and renewals with tenants.
I would go elsewhere for property management

Property Society found tenants who infested my house with fleas, left gouges in the nice wood floor, and killed my lawn from lack of water.
I provided the tenants with an unlimited supply of felt pads and a note to please put felt pads on furniture to avoid scratching the wood floor, but it still didn’t work.
John mentioned that I could not require the tenants to water the lawn. If that’s the case, I’ll never rent a house again. Lawns are expensive.
It took me months of hard work and hundreds of dollars to recover the house from their tenants, and all I got was their deposit.
When I first met John, he told me to visit the house once a week to water the lawn. What’s the property manager do when the owner doesn’t live in town?
Their painter charged me $ 1.8K to splatter paint all over the wood floor. It’s very difficult to get off, but it saved the painter a few minutes of setup time.
Property Society is probably the best property management company in Austin, but they are still bad, especially at regulating tenants. A lack a of management with a nice website.
In general, renting a house will beat up and decay a house. Renter’s have too many rights, when they only risk $ 1K to destroy $ 130K. Don’t rent your house unless it’s already run down, and in a hot location.

There’s too much to give you the full story with the nitty-​gritty details, so I’ll just note a couple of the WTF moments.
— First day walking in their office they wouldn’t give me a copy of their lease to take home and review. That’s illegal. I had to pull teeth to get her to take out a copy of the lease so I could show her that it was illegal (usually written on the page you sign). She still refused saying it was their policy, reminding me that property management companies think they are the law.
— They were supposed to send a cleaner out to the house before I moved in, and told me they did, but they didn’t. There was still construction debris everywhere.
— They came into my house to look at a minor maintenance issue (that was incorrectly filed, it wasn’t an issue with my place) without giving any advance notice. We weren’t home, so they came in ignoring the fact that we have 2 dogs that are territorial and then failed to leave a notice that they came in. Could have ended very badly.
Really, we had a pretty bad experience with them because of the manager. She was petty, ignorant, and always rude. I literally had to hang the phone up on her because she was WAY stepping over the line and getting mouthy (all because I wouldn’t do what she wanted, despite the fact that I was legally in the clear). I had to make them pull out the lease we had with them on multiple occasions to remind them of their obligations and my rights.
The kicker is that we were only with them for 5 months! I’m glad we didn’t have to get to the renew/​contract-​end date with them. =)