McLain Properties

Obviously this rental agency has some great people working for them, based on past reviews. Unfortunately, i didn’t get the pleasure of working with any of them, I worked with Laura.
This is our experience with Laura. My daughter is looking for an apartment. She is a full-​time student so I help her with her rent. We found an ad posted by McLain properties for an apartment in Oceanside. We called and left 2 messages with Laura before we heard back from her. We scheduled a time to view the property and she was late. Laura wasn’t kind, she wasn’t even friendly. She mentioned twice (once on the phone and again during the showing) that the apartment was a month-​to-​month tenancy. We walked through the apartment, we told her we liked it so she told us to go to the company website and fill out the application. Both of us would have to fill one out, my daughter as rentor, me as co-​signer. We both would have to pay the application fee. We heard back from her about 4 days later, she said that the owner usually doesn’t accept co-​signers but he approved us. He would require us to sign a 1 year lease in order to rent the apartment. We would have never applied for the apartment if we knew there was going to be a 1 year lease obligation. When I called and asked her why they are changing the terms of the rental, she said that the owner has every right to change the terms whenever he wants. She was snotty and rude on the phone. I requested that we get a refund for our application fees because we were not given the correct information when we applied for the apartment. We applied for a month to month lease, not a 1 year obligation. Laura should have talked to the owner about a prospective tenant with a co-​signer, he would have told her that we would be required to sign a 1 year lease, Laura would have told us this BEFORE we applied and paid $ 60. It really feels like a bait and switch scheme. She told us that they had already collected 2 other application fees on the property. They shouldn’t keep an application fee that was obtained by one of their rental specialist giving false information to prospective tenants. I am sending my husband to the office to try to recover our application fees. I don’t want to deal with Laura.

Great Staff! They are eager to help clients with their needs and very friendly.

The staff at Barbara McClain are always so helpful and professional. I have used them several times for vacation rentals and they are always very accommodating. They meet my families needs every time. I have recommended them to many friends and would recommend them to anyone looking for a great vacation rental. It’s always nice to work with a company who takes pride in their work.

The staff at Barbara McLain properties have been the most helpful professional Leasing agent. They have handled our property in Carlsbad for six years. We will continue to use them. For they are top notch!!! Very proactive! Always handling any situation which arises. My husband and I highly recommend them!!! Our property never sits unoccupied with qualified tenants thanks to Barbara McLain properties!

Note: This is an opinion against a realtor working for them, not against the realty company themselves.
My husband and I would NOT recommend using Laura Latronica as a realtor. The other realtors in this company are nice and helpful. We were applying for a rental house, and Laura was very hard to reach on the phone (first red flag). We were told specifically that the owner liked us and they would not accept any other applications. She said that the owner wanted to consider us and liked our credit scores. And that they will continue the process with us. Once we paid our application fees, we were texted (not called) that we did not get the house because the «landlord told her that her family needs the house». I tried calling and texting back, no response. We looked online that night for more houses, and 2 listings posted AFTER the text was sent showed up… same exact house, same listing, same realtor, but asking for $ 50 more a month. Weird, right? I contacted the company the following day and Donna (very nice!) said she would look into why we didn’t get the house since our credit was over a 700. Finally, I received a call from Laura and she said she posted it before she got the call from the landlord (time on posts are accurate and were after the call from the landlord and the text that we got). However, it wouldn’t make sense since the landlord rejected us and came up with the excuse in the same call (Laura was contradicting herself saying she didn’t know of the rejection until after the landlord’s phone call, but she relisted the house up online beforehand). In my opinion, not only was she vague, short, and rude on the phone when I was asking questions about why the landlord didn’t like our credit score or us in general (remind you, over 700 score), but she kept talking over me. I did mention to her, politely, to next time call her clients in situations like this because texting is not professional. She told me that she has a life outside of work and didn’t care to respond back to my text or call. In my opinion, she is definitely not a good realtor because she couldn’t take 5 minutes out of her night to call us and explain, or wait until the next day to call! As I told her to not get our hopes up next time and basically tell us «you’re the only applicants», she hung up on me. I was not yelling on the phone, but rather telling her that she should’ve handled the situation differently.
So if you’re looking for a house, DO NOT USE LAURA LATRONICA!!! In my opinion, she is unprofessional, rude, and a liar. She forgot to meet up with me to go over paperwork until late one day, and she ran late to the house showing appointment. My husband had to repeat himself over 3 times regarding to his paycheck. However, do not put blame on the realty, for they did help us in this mess. Thank you Donna for your help! She got my fees refunded and she is handling the situation. Great customer service on the realty company side!

This was my first time renting on my own. I loved working with Barbara McLain, especially Sue! She made me feel super comfortable about the whole rental process and was very punctual when responding to my questions! She has made my experience amazing and I would for sure go through Barbara McLain reality again!

I just wanted to say that this is a great Realty company, they take pride on the homes that they show. What I absolutely loved about the properties they lease and/​or sell is that some of the homes they are strict on no pets and no smoking. That is my kind of property! Marina is a great agent and really goes the extra mile to try and get you a home. If your credit is not great, they will work with you by arranging automatic payments and/​or asking for a co-​signer. Great company to rent/​buy from.