John C Formant Real Estate, Inc

We moved to DC from New York, and after dealing with management companies there, (even in so-​called «luxury» housing), I had very low expectations. Heat going out… fixed sometime during the week and then breaks again. Plaster crumbling along an exterior wall… a landlord shows up with a bag of plaster and is astonished we don’t know how to do the repairs ourselves. Constant electric brownouts in new construction… don’t run the dishwasher at the same time as the washing machine.
But I now realize that I should have aimed higher before. We moved into a house managed by John Formant, and every part of the experience has been smooth. All of my concerns before move-​in were addressed, and, now that we’ve been living here a year, I’ve really had the chance to see what a difference that can make. When our heat has gone out, they’ve had a boiler repairman there within hours. When our washing machine broke – repairs came the same day. Plumbing leaks – again, fast service.
I never knew it could be this easy.
I also really appreciate that they have their own consistent repair team on staff. The people who’ve come to fix things are the same people every time. They know the house. They know us. It makes it so much easier!
Practically speaking, there is also always a response from the Formant emergency number within hour, even on weekends. They have an online payment system that is automatic for rent deductions, and an online repair request form, which always gets a fast response. We have no complaints!

I have been working with John C. Formant for over 30 years. I have always found them very responsive, very helpful and more than happy to accommodate my requests in a very timely manner.
My experience has been quite satisfactory.

I am a tenant of one of their rental properties. I have had two situations and Michael and his team were quick to respond and saved the day. Our pipes burst one Friday evening and someone was there within the hour to fix the problem. I also recently locked myself out of my apartment on a very, very cold early morning. Michael responded and Todd, an agent, was at my house in a half hour to let me in. Most agencies won’t respond so quickly at 7 AM, but John C Formant was on it. Thank you to Michael and Todd for not letting me freeze to death for my own careless mistake.

The agent I worked with, Fern Pannill, was very nice, which was a highlight but a bad move-​in experience soured me on John Formant.
I was handed the keys upon lease signing and assumed the apartment was move-​in ready. Fair assumption, right? I arrived with my movers and there was a large painting tarp smack in the middle of the living room with buckets full of cleaning supplies, paint brushes, and other sundry items. The movers were gracious enough to move the things down two flights of stairs to get them out of the way so they could move my things in.
Once they moved me in, I started unpacking and found more surprises. The stove and oven were absolutely disgusting and the inside of the cabinets were filthy with pools of congealed food that I had to scrub vigorously to remove.
I don’t blame John Formant for the fact that the former tenant was inconsiderate and gross, but I do blame them for not ensuring the apartment was move-​in ready. As part of the services listed under «Tenant Screening and Lease Preparation» on their website, they list move-​in services for the tenant. A basic move-​in service would be to ensure the apartment is clean and document its condition as such for the tenant.
In this, they failed.
Also, my mailbox key was not part of my set of keys and it took weeks for me to get the mailbox key. Annoying.

These people actually said that when it comes to real estate there’s no such thing as ethics. It’s also clear that they adhere to this lack of any kind of values system in their dealings with buyers and sellers. Do yourself and others a favor by not supporting a business that believes there’s no room for ethics in their practice.

While we were able to find an apartment using this service, I’m unsure whether or not we would use them again.
They definitely have a lot of options in terms of places to rent, but once we had our application submitted they were a little slow on the response. Considering we were required to give the first month’s rent with the application, I would have preferred a faster response time when they have that much of my money in their hands.
We worked with Pete Frias, he was a really nice guy and showed us quite a few homes. He was in a rush so I did feel like I was a bit rushed going through each apartment and didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to look through the apartments and really get a feel for them.

Warning!!! These guys are SHADY. They collect an entire month’s rent at the signing of the APPLICATION, before they hand you the key or sign the lease. How this is legal in DC I don’t know… I just got out of horrible experience where an incompetent clerk convinced a former house-​mate (good riddance!) to sue myself and another person for her share, after this nutcase voided the freaking lease!
Suffice to say, the freaking idiot lost and the foul-​mouthed clerk got a verbal smack down. There are a lot of rental options in DC, just avoid this one.

Here is a sample of the kind of customer service you can expect. This comes in response to an email where I suggested that they offer a more secure way to pay rent after the SECOND time they misplaced one of my checks within a week:
RJ,
With all due respect, I receive more than 200 rent payments here each month and have no problem posting the receipts. We very rarely «misplace» or «mishandle» payments that are made out properly.
If payments are mailed via the US Postal Service and addressed properly we usually get them without issue.
All tenants are very welcome to hand deliver checks and obtain a receipt from me DIRECTLY, from 9am — 5pm Monday — Thursday and from 9am-​4pm on Friday.
Your check is NOT here, you may put a stop payment on it and replace it with a new check at your earliest opportunity. Please do remember to include your late fee.
Regards,
Erin
I’ve made one late payment in five years, so this is what you can look forward to as one of their highly valued tenants.

The people at John Formant were incredible for my apartment search. I worked with Margi, and she was great — finagled it so I could move in a few days early and was super friendly and attentive. Really, I have zero complaints. I was prepared for a high-​stress moving experience — very thankful that wasn’t the case!

I rented a capitol hill place from John C Formant for a year and it was very difficult to get them to deal with maintenance issues. Whenever an issue was brought up with them, they would blame the problem on the tenant without even sending someone over to check the problem out. Every time there was a maintenance issue, it took weeks or months of emailing back and forth to get the problem resolved (including major problems like water leaks in the walls). It ended up not being worth the time and worry and we moved out.
Formant works for the building owner, not you, so don’t rent from them unless you are prepared for them to always take the owner’s side in any dispute — which usually means attempting to blame you and charge you for maintenance problems which you did not cause.

They’re getting better. The trick is to e-​mail them rather than call, and you’ll get a response the same day. It still takes a while for contractors to come out sometimes, but at least they’re communicating now.

The staff were at least friendly. However, when the ceiling in my apartment fell down in the bad storm last February, they did not ever repair the damage. I left in July with cracks in the ceilings and walls, lighting not working in the bedroom and bathroom… Not the best rental experience in my life.

I have had a number of ok experiences and some not so ok. However, my neighbor downstairs (apt) is very unhappy with JFormant. They tend to ignore him altogether… to the point that if he needs things done to his apartment he will ask me to contact them for him… it may have something to do with the amount you pay in rent. .it’s the only thing i can glean. They tend to handle my requests in a timely manner, but they don’t always follow-​through with everything you ask.

I’m surprised, and sorry, to hear that so many people had a bad time with John C. Formant. I’ve been renting with them for 2 years now and I’ve had a good experience. I really liked the agent who showed me around their properties the first time. I felt like he treated me like a consumer with many choices and gave me a professional opinion in evaluating places, such as the cost/​maintenance trade-​off and, in measured but sufficiently descriptive language, the reputation of different landlords. I’ve also worked with the same agent in looking at purchasing a house. We were at it for a good 4 months and he was very helpful, patient, knowledgeable, and I felt treated with respect. Ultimately I decided that DC prices are still too much for me and I’m still renting with the company. I would happily recommend them to friends and acquaintances who want to live on the Hill.

Yes this guy is slick, he wanted me to hand over my routing number for direct deposit. He failed to mention to me that he was also a commercial
real estate developer.