ERI Property Management

A friend, an out of state investor, used their management services. Over approximately 5 years of her Hills income property being «managed» by ERI, she experienced:
–significant gaps in tenancy
–2 different tenants stopped paying their rent
–no compensation/​withholding of down payment for tenant caused damage, such as gouges in wood flooring, replacement of wood plantation shutters with cheap plastic ones, tenant painting interior (prohibited by rental agreement)
–more serious damage to the property that was made worse by lack of management oversight and adequate maintenance, such as: significant rat infestation in the basement (undetected for years and then addressed inadequately, so infestation continued), roof leak (property manager oversaw inadequate patch job, which led to more water damage).
After experiencing all of this, I have no idea why she continued to employ ERI, but I’m sharing my lesson learned: DO NOT use ERI property management services. Frankly, our friend’s experience scared us off of owning investment properties at all.
If for some reason you do consider using their services, I recommend reviewing their contract with an outside party.

I find Sasha to be extremely helpful and professional. Her open houses are welcoming and informative. She answered all my questions and helped me make an informative decision on my rental. I as well as Jill am surprised at the negative reviews and believe it’s due to people not getting what they want most likely due to their own negligence.

This property management company IS absolutely terrible, unprofessional, and a scam!!!
I also don’t know who could have possibly given 5 stars either. Must be someone who works for the property management company and wants to mislead. DONT BE FOOLED, they are not 5 stars.
My experience with them was super sketchy. Most everything negative that other reviewers already mentioned also happened to me.
They don’t return calls or emails for a long time, up to a week. The woman in the office is really rude and doesn’t know whats going on. They ask you for a «hold deposit» of $ 400 or more BEFORE they confirm or not if you have been offered the property or not. And they say it will make your changes better. .so sketch. Which, by the way folks, HOLD DEPOSITS ARE ILLEGAL! They need to be reported on this.
They have you go through a process of coming to see the place and paying $ 35 to have your credit run. They run hard inquires on your credit (as opposed to soft inquires), so beware of that, the credit check and background check they run will stay on your credit report for up to two years.
Even if you have excellent credit and steady income they will not pick you. I was in a pool of six other applicants that applied to one of their properties. After paying $ 35 and submitting paperwork, they said they gave the applications to the owner of the house, Mary, to make the final decision on who they would pick as the new tenant. And when she decided they would get back.
Before that, Sasha, who showed the property and acts as though she’s the rental agent, said the REAL rental agent (supposedly Samantha) would make the final decision. After several unanswered or unreturned calls and emails, nearly two weeks after having submitted an application they sent emails to me, and presumably to everyone else in the application pool, asking for hold deposits. And that if we gave a hold deposit they would take the ad off craisglists and other advertising sites and offer it up to us. They really make it sound like you are chosen so they are deceptive that way.
I refused to do this unless I knew if I was actually the only one chosen. I checked back on the craigslist ad every day or two to see if their ad for the property was still active and it was, they kept reposting daily BUT WITHOUT OFFERING NEW OPEN HOUSE TIMES AND DAYS — which is what they are advertise as doing at least once weekly. Apparently, no one fell for the hold deposit scam. They only took the ad down when they decided not to rent it to anyone.
After a week and a half I finally got a email saying that the owner decided to rent out the cottage to the current tenants of the main house and no one out of the applicant pool was chosen. When I complained how poorly they were managing things and I asked why the owner decided this and why none of the applicants where chosen. I was told that it was ultimately up to all the tenants to decide. Again, that was contrary again to earlier information about how the decision process was made.
Something else that I found weird was that at one point I was told that Mary, the «owner» of the cottage, actually had a phone extension line at the ERI Property Management company office. So she works there? I don’t know. But at the showing of the property I was told she doesn’t live in the area.
It was all very unclear and by the end of it I was really upset, ready to go pick up my paperwork, and insulted that they would waste everyones time, not only tried to scam me, but the 5 other applicants, and others before and after us. BEWARE OF ERI PROPERTY MANAGEMENT. THEY ARE A SCAM.

From a prospective tenant’s standpoint, ERI’s business etiquette was absolutely atrocious.
We fought an hour’s worth of traffic to make it to one of their open houses in Berkeley, only to find that it was hosted by a young woman who knew absolutely nothing about the property.
While the house itself was very nice, the agency requested highly sensitive personal details (bank account numbers included) in its rental application, as well as money up front, and in return provided absolutely no details on lease terms, availability, utilities, nature of credit checks (hard or soft), etc. The hosting agent could not even tell us where the attic entrance was. We had to search for it ourselves (never found it, though could see the window from outside, and the ad on craigslist said attic included). Multiple follow up phone calls and emails were never returned.
I will avoid these people at all costs going forward. They are precisely the type of agency that you don’t want to deal with as a renter… particularly in this tight market.

The actual management are wonderful– they are quick to respond, extremely helpful and nice, and promptly respond to calls and emails. They are very nice and understanding and have catered to all my needs, I wish everyone I rent from is this wonderful.