Nest DC

Absolutely awful and unprofessional company.
Let’s start with Steph Witko. Steph held an open house last week (June 2016). The house was beautiful and the two staff members working with her were lovely. The house was over priced for the area (area comps were $ 500-​$ 800 less for houses that were completely above ground — this house was 1^st floor and basement). I expressed our interest in leasing the house but asked if there was any room for negotiation in the price since it was clearly listed for a ridiculous amount. Steph apparently took personal offense to my question and snapped at me in the middle of the open house. «Clearly it’s well priced because look at all of the interest!» She scoffed at me in the most unprofessional, nasty and rude manner I have ever experienced. If I was the owner of this house in Logan Circle and learned that the person representing me was that rude to potential clients, I would have fired her on the spot.
I have also reached out to Lydia to see a house. I had to contact her 4 times before she finally responded and informed me that I could not see a house that I was interested in viewing. This was apparently because she needed to give the tenants notice, even though they were aware of the fact that the house they live in is available for rent. She said I could see the house in two weeks (when I was looking to sign immediately). Why does this make sense? She then called me back 20 minutes after hanging up the phone, saying that she wanted to talk to me about a house I had contacted her about. I had to remind her that she just spoke to me. Complete lack of organization, total disregard for tenant needs, and doesn’t seem to care to move a house for an owner.
Not only are they lacking in basic communication ability, but every agent that I have ever met at an open house or private showing has looked like they rolled out of bed to go to work. Get up, get dressed, and get going.

I’ve been a tenant at a property managed by Nest for over 2 years now and have had a great experience to-​date. They schedule seasonal walk-​throughs to ensure the house stays in good condition. They are quick to respond to maintenance requests, and the professionals they send to take care of the fixes consistently do a good job. Online portal makes payment of rent and communication easy.

Great property management group! Nest DC is the third property management group that has taken over the house I rent and it is the first one to actually do their job. They are professional and timely with responding to requests. All maintenance requests are handle in a timely manner and usually within the next day. Their staff is friendly and the web portal is easy to use and navigate!

We use them for property management. Stay away. Very disappointing. They act like they are a young start up, with a cool vibe. They end up being inexperienced and shockingly bureaucratic.

I have been working with Nest for over a year now and have had nothing but amazing service. My unit was rented quickly, the new tenants were happy and taken care of and all of the communication with the Nest team has been professional and timely.

I had a particularly bad experience with Lisa Wise (owner) and Tyler Seeger (some gofer). I found them over the course my lease to be serially dishonesy two Crooked and dishonest — I have contacted dozens of former tenants/​read reviews that suggest, in my opinion, that Nest DC and Lisa Wise engage in a deliberate pattern of under-​servicing units at the expense of tenants, relying on the asymetric balance of power and the threat of not returning your security deposit. Do not rent from Nest. Do not use Nest as an owner. And if you find yourself in a nest apartment, do anything you can to get out of your lease.
When faced with a Unilocal complaint the owner Lisa Wise will misrepresent the facts of the matter. Look forward to her denying everything, claiming they did a bunch of stuff, offering a phony apology, etc etc etc.

I’ve been living in a row house that NEST manages for about a year now. I find working with a property management company, they are much more responsive than a random landlord would be and they always fix any problems the house may have. Their customer service is great. Any issues we’ve had from a burst pipe to a broken laundry machine, NEST sent someone within 48 hours to respond. And they make swapping housemates very easy as well. I like working with them and find them trustworthy. I’ve been really enjoying my stay in the house.

I have lived in a Nest property for over three years. They are very responsive when we have problems and are proactive with biannual inspections to prevent problems (checking air filters, making sure outdoor plumbing is turned off in winter). The staff are also really friendly and the rents rate is more than reasonable.

Just moved in to a home managed by Nest and it has been an awful experience. The home, which is otherwise beautifully renovated, was no where near rental ready on move in day. Locks on the windows were broken, no keys were given to us for the back doors and the house was not clean. They sent a tech over who assured us all windows locked but several locks still don’t work. Then 3 weeks into the lease they charge us a late fee because they said we didn’t pay the pet fee. We were never given notice of a pet fee for our dog and there was no mention of a pet fee in the lease. Tyler, in particular, has been unprofessional and dishonest in his dealings with us regarding these issues. UPDATE: The Vice president of Nest has emailed us saying that if we agree to delete this review she will waive the pet fee. Effectively trying to bribe us, to fix her employees mistake.

Love Nest!, They manage the Monique and have done a great job and have been very attentive. The whole team is great, but Chelsey and Patrick particularly shine. Thanks guys!

Terrible. The house was in disrepair and filthy on move in day. Owners’ belongings in several drawers and cabinets. Dust and dead bugs on windowsills, mold/​dirt under appliances, debris on the floors, food caked up on the sink drain. Leak in the bathroom sink. 80% of the windows had broken locks. Driveway was covered in mounds of old slimy leaves. Missing outlet covers. Tyler was non responsive to inquiries about the move, forcing me to email/​call several times for answers. Multiple Nest employees told me that no one at Nest has a supervisor/​manager. Nest moved the owner’s furniture out the day before move in and left it on the sidewalk in front of the house. 10 days later, it still hasn’t been picked up. I had to stay home to supervise and let contractors and techs in for 3 days, (bc we have a dog) and Grace (Nest VP) refused to give a rent concession for the ordeal. Does the owner know they operate like this? Awful property management company.
UPDATE: The «owner» of Nest has replied to my review below. Ironically this is the first time I have heard anything from her. But her comment is inaccurate and false. Contractors and techs from Nest spent 4 days coming in and out of the house after we moved in working on the broken windows, changing the locks, fixing a leaking sink, replacing outlet covers and removing all the debris and leaves from our driveway. And to date the windows are still broken, the dryer has to go through 2 to 3 cycles to dry clothes, and we still have no key for the basement gate. And now they are trying to force us to pay $ 175 pet rent, which was never discussed and is no where in our lease.

Fantastic group. Thanks to Mike Finkelstein, we have a beautiful place with little to no problems with the apartment. Any issues that we discovered in the first week were fixed within two days. They are professional, responsive, and really easy to work with — I’d definitely recommend Nest DC to close friends and family. Looking forward to working with them moving forward.

I should have paid more attention to the recent bad review about nest, instead of their global high score.
I had to send 2 reminders to Tyler in order to set up and appointment with him. After not following up with me, he finally decided to answer and confirmed he’d meet at the proposed date and time. But never showed up.
I called nest and after I explained to the person that I was waiting for him, she just laughed at me on the phone which really shocked me. Then she told me that it was probably my fault because I had not confirmed the appointment. I set up the appointment, he confirmed, what am I supposed to confirm? Confirm his confirmation?
Their website and philosophy statements are really attractive but they clearly lack the 2 most important qualities of a property management company: reliability and good customer service.

I had a pretty good experience with these guys as a tenant for almost 2 years. Also, my apartment was quite well maintained so I didn’t need to contact them very often. I liked their rent pay online system with automatic withdraw, which I know is very common, but now that I have an old-​school landlord who asks a check every month I feel that pain.
Anyways, they were pretty responsive to me.

I needed to move and I had little time to find a place. Since Nest specializes in finding great housing I called to inquire about available properties. I needed something very specific: 1 bedroom, not on first floor, no pets, near metro, and in the city. I was rudely told that they could not guarantee finding me a building or unit that was no– pet since in DC it was «the thing people want» (meaning pet friendly). As someone with allergies and no pets my experience is the opposite, landlords appreciate if you don’t have pets. But hey more power to Nest for telling me like it is. A couple of days later I found a fantastic place on Craig’s list where the landlord is delighted to rent to a pet free person.

I understand as a property management company, we are not the only customers or tenants they deal with, but their lack of communication and follow-​up was less than stellar when we lived in our apartment for a year.
We had numerous issues with some appliances in our apartment (AC unit, dishwasher, and stove). The dishwasher took almost four (4) months to fix — submitted a work order on August 18 and replaced by December 4. However, when the dishwasher came, the wrong part was delivered, they left a mess of cleaning supplies, debris and a note that said, «sorry for the mess,» with no explanation except that the contractor tried to reach us to tell us the situation. They were apologetic after the case, but I have a feeling if we had not emailed them, we wouldn’t have gotten a response or explanation.
Nest was always responsive with the initial repair request, and then there’d be radio silence for about two weeks, unless we emailed them to ask what was going on. Even if there was no update, it would have been nice to know that a maintenance person at least came out to the apartment to make the assessment instead of letting us wait around 2+ weeks, wondering what was going on.
Not sure if this is common practice for Nest, but it’s been frustrating, in my experience, to say the least. When we shared our frustrations from the dishwasher incident, we got a canned answer back from them about being «thoughtful and kind,» even though we were more upset about their LACK of communication than demeanor. They said they were waiting on the owner, but it still doesn’t excuse no updates or communication. It made us believe that we were pushed aside, and after we asked about our issues, they scrambled to get everything together. It’s nice that they are friendly, but friendliness is lost in translation when we aren’t even getting emails from them about updates.
I wish I could rate this boutique property management company higher, especially since I had higher hopes when we first signed a lease, but given the frustration, lack of communication and my expectations for better customer service, I can’t.

I contracted them to find tenants and manage my condo in Petworth. After 2 months I began to get worried about how few rental offers I had been getting. So I went to see what they had up on Zillow, Trulia, Craigslist etc. and found to my horror they hadn’t advertised the property in any of these places like they had promised. The only place where they were getting any traffic was though their website.
After I called to them about this, they finally started advertising and found tenants. I had specifically mentioned that any dogs/​cats would involve a pet fee. The agent goes on to sign a contract without telling me about three pets, nor charging any fee. I dropped them as my agents after wasting several months of my condo sitting in the market vacant.

I have lived in DC for about 5 years now and have rented since living here. I have worked with apartment leasing offices as well as individual landlords. So far, Nest has been my most positive experience when working with renting a unit. They are extremely professional and were always timely for appointments. They have an excellent selection of apartments that are continuously updated on their website. The application process is more extensive than any other leasing office I’ve dealt with, however I’m fine with it as they are clearly very thorough and try to find a good fit for owners of the units.
During our initial walkthrough, they took a video which was then emailed over with all of the details of the unit. Very helpful for future reference.
The online site for payments and maintenance requests are simple and easy to use as well.
Overall, I’m very happy with my initial Nest experience!

This group is BEYOND unprofessional. Not only was my «agent» more than 45 minutes late for my showing, but she lied to me regarding interest in the property. I will never work with them again.

I have dealt with a lot of property management companies. As a repeat condo owner and someone who rents out a property, I had gotten to the point where I was accepting mediocrity as being «good enough» when it came to property management companies, because I didn’t think a decent, high-​quality, affordable management company existed.
And then I found Nest DC.
After being burned badly by my last management company (lots of crazy mistakes, including my rent being deposited into another owner’s checking account), I waited 9 months before writing this review. I wanted to make sure that this truly was a decent management company. And it is!
Nest DC managed my 1BR/​1BA condo in the Petworth/​Brightwood area of NW DC. Upon signing my contract with Nest, they had a tenant found and secured within the month. Nest DC relies heavily on email and their portal for managing things, and this is a WONDERFUL feature for people short on time and not living close by. Their communication has been top-​notch. Every time I send an email to someone, I get a response (this was not the case with my last property management company). They send a statement each month and will communicate if issues arise, such as repairs.
In the 9 months I have been using Nest DC, I have been very satisfied with the service. They have removed a lot of worry related to owning a rental property. I recommend them without reservation to anyone looking for a property management company.