Property Management Companies

[89coupe]

Hey guys,

I'm part of my condo board and we are in the process of firing our current property management company and looking for a replacement.

Can anyone here recommend a top notch company?

The company we are firing is Larlyn

[armae]

We are currently using PEKA, http://www.peka.ab.ca. They seem to be pretty good.

[89coupe]

Originally posted by armae
We are currently using PEKA, http://www.peka.ab.ca. They seem to be pretty good.

What type of condo complex do you live in? Number of units? Type of building? Amenities?

[armae]

Originally posted by 89coupe


What type of condo complex do you live in? Number of units? Type of building? Amenities?

I live in Tara Springs. Not sure how many units there are but it's a townhouse condo. http://www.partnershomes.ca/images/taraSprings/floorplans/Amenities.pdf

[R-Audi]

We use Larlyn.. what kind of issues have you been having?

[89coupe]

Originally posted by R-Audi
We use Larlyn.. what kind of issues have you been having?

The list is a mile long but the main concern is, slow or no response to major repairs and concerns that have been brought to their attention.

They have gone through 3 property Managers in the last three years at their company. They have some issues.

The VP District Manger came to our last meeting and had no response to our concerns or questions. Just sat there basically mute.

[S-FLY]

I absolutely DO NOT recommend Emerald Property Management. They have horrible service and will not return phone calls. I have no idea why large buildings use their services, but we've had nothing but trouble with them.

We've recently switched to Ultimate Property management, which seems to be much better, but I still have a couple minor issues with them, however nowhere near as bad as Emerald.

My condo is a small operation, 12 units and 2 individual buildings downtown.

[Rav4Guy]

We use CRESI (Consolidated Real Estate Services Inc). Property Manager has been great to us. Last one there was a :banghead: . Let me know if you want her contact info and see who she can recommend for your building.

[89coupe]

Originally posted by Rav4Guy
We use CRESI (Consolidated Real Estate Services Inc). Property Manager has been great to us. Last one there was a :banghead: . Let me know if you want her contact info and see who she can recommend for your building.

Sure, that would be great.

[Pacman]

May as well stay away from Condo First as well. They are useless and incompetant.

[HRD2PLZ]

We use Diversified and I wouldn't recommend them. Our property manager is slow to respond and doesn't follow through with issues that he says he will.

We have been looking at York West, which has come highly recommended to me.

[HRD2PLZ]

Originally posted by Pacman
May as well stay away from Condo First as well. They are useless and incompetant.

Condominium First is THE absolute worst! We were quick to get rid of them in another building I have.

[shadowz]

Try MCM Property Management ask for Stephanie 262-7955

[01RedDX]

.

[Canmorite]

Originally posted by armae
We are currently using PEKA, http://www.peka.ab.ca. They seem to be pretty good.

I can vouch for them. Lived in an larger townhouse community in Banff that was run by them. Good stuff.

[Dave P]

Aim Real Estate Managers

[B20EF]

We use ACMS-Accredited Condominium Management Services

They've always seemed reliable, I know my 233 unit condo is just one of many for them

[TomcoPDR]

Originally posted by HRD2PLZ
We use Diversified and I wouldn't recommend them. Our property manager is slow to respond and doesn't follow through with issues that he says he will.

We have been looking at York West, which has come highly recommended to me.
Yea those guys are a bunch of :nut: I've been taking care of my parent's condos since I was in high school, the one signing for condo fees. Then they announced this gay ass rule that any rental units are subject to damage deposit from the owner (landlord) to THEIR management company; to earn interest :rolleyes: . (let along these are OUR units, and we've retained D.D. from tenants)

So I wrote cheques corresponding to the units, then they kept sending letters (saying we owe them D.D. $$ since they're rentals)... I got to the bottom of it... turns out because my name (on the cheques) isn't the registered owner of the units (in my parents), they "misplaced" or didn't know where my cheques went (even though funds are withdrawn and I clearly wrote down in the subject line "Owner's damage deposit for unit ###, 123 Ave, Calgary", etc...)

Marched to their office on 16th Ave when I was 16 :D, demanded satisfaction, manager at the time Doug Wavrok (matter of public record anyways) was being an ass dink totally disrespectin', so I gave him the "do you know who I am" speech (even though I'm nobody :rofl: ) What a dink, and he pretends he doesn't know what you're talking about, plays dumb and shit. (i.e. "What money?, I don't see any credit entries for those units, who are you again?? etc..."


Originally posted by 01RedDX
C-Era has been decent in my experience. They manage a number of fairly large complexes and are very quick to respond to problems.

Yea Gail Byman is really nice over there www.cerapm.com

[HRD2PLZ]

^^^ Doug Wavrock is no longer with Diversified. I never worked directly with him, but some other members of my condo board have and they hold him in the highest regard.

We are just at a place where we are not sure if its worthwhile to change, what guarantee do we have that our new management company isn't going to suck like our current one? That was our dilemma.

[TomcoPDR]

Originally posted by HRD2PLZ
^^^ Doug Wavrock is no longer with Diversified.

Yea, we're talking about yearssss ago... back when Calgary housing (espeically Condos) weren't really "hot" and it's like "you own condos, big freakin' deal, they're worthless"... so being a kid, based on that experience ALONG (so yes, it's bias), he failed me. :( (never gave a rat's ass in spending the time figuring out where MY money went, even though I have legit reasons to be related to a condo project they were managing at the time)

Anyways those were years ago, things change I know, I'm sure I'm just as old and senile as most of the property managers out there so I'm sure I've started seeing things their view.

[4DoorGTZ]

Originally posted by HRD2PLZ


Condominium First is THE absolute worst! We were quick to get rid of them in another building I have.


Can you elaborate? They manage my building and for being brand new they sure seem money hungry to pad the reserve fund, some of their math boggles me. $52/mo for condo fees on a heated underground parking spot waaaaay far from downtown, actually closer to downtown okotoks then downtown calgary.

[tylere]

We use Rancho and so far they have been pretty good, granted its a brand new building and they have only been managing it for a year.

[HRD2PLZ]

Originally posted by 4DoorGTZ



Can you elaborate? They manage my building and for being brand new they sure seem money hungry to pad the reserve fund, some of their math boggles me. $52/mo for condo fees on a heated underground parking spot waaaaay far from downtown, actually closer to downtown okotoks then downtown calgary.

Condominium First always gets the initial contracts for the Pointe of View buildings. They don't have a fantastic reputation in the industry among Realtor's. In past experiences, they weren't proactive enough in their management of buildings. One of my buildings was managed by them for a few years before the board finally terminated them. This was my first hand experience with them, it could possibly be different now.

Most buildings start off with condo fee's too low to adequately sustain the required maintenance. Its a well known fact that condo fee's are generally increased once a building is turned over from the developer to the owners and the newly formed condo board.

[89coupe]

So it looks like we are going with C-era

FYI, York West has some lawsuites filed against them for fraud.

[Kloubek]

I'm on the board at my complex, and we use Munday Management. She's awesome. We went through a couple, cuz they sucked. DO NOT USE YORK WEST - THEY ARE HORRRRRRIBLE.

[4wheeldrift]

Originally posted by 89coupe
So it looks like we are going with C-era

FYI, York West has some lawsuites filed against them for fraud. My building is managed by C-Era and they're doing pretty well so far. Our resident manager is super nice and very helpful, they're pretty quick to get stuff resolved.

[Bimmer88]

What's currently managing my father's company is based out of Vancouver, not sure if they'll manage for you guys here in Calgary.

http://www.ranchovan.com Try them out if you like.

Here's Local Info:

Rancho Realty (1975) Ltd, Property Management Div
5508 1 Street Southeast
Calgary, AB T2H2W9
Phone: (403) 253-7642

Also try this if you like, and list of property managers.

http://ab.allpages.com/calgary/real-estate/real-estate-services/real-estate-managers/

[revelations]

********VERY OLD BUMP, *********




Just wanted some more ideas out as our board is thinking about switching. We are presently with Cera and have had our share of issues left unresolved unfortunately, over and over again.

The board is willing to pay more and get more however so a pricer management company is fine.

Acclaim seemed to have some good reviews.

[TomcoPDR]

Acclaim's got pretty good updates running the Mosiac on High Street.

[AudiPWR]

C Era property management has been great with the assistance of my condo on the river after these floods, and I have had nothing but good experiences with them before.

Check them out on Facebook, they've been updating their properties hourly to help out residents. I would highly recommend them.

[n1zm0]

Not a very old bump from the last obit of conversation but I just submitted some RFPs to Acclaim, Montgomery Ross and C-era for my 11-unit townhouse complex (it's small I know so this makes it even more difficult to find a company that will take us on), anyone know of any other good ones? I tried some searching through BBB for some, but I prefer any suggestions coming from experience, such as those on beyond.

[Mitsu3000gt]

We use MCM as well and are very happy with them. We switched after bad experiences with our other company.

Condo fees went down, and they are handling things WAY better, addressing things our old company never did.

I do not recommend Gateway Property Management. They handled our building's flood 2 years ago very poorly, and were unresponsive in numerous requests to have things they were responsible for taken care of in the building. It was difficult to get a hold of anyone who could help as well. MCM has gone about fixing those things without even anyone asking. Their employees so far have been awesome and easy to get a hold of.

+1 for MCM

[88CRX]

My board recently switched from Gateway to Acclaim. Its a rental now but when I was living there I found it difficult to get any information out of Gateway regarding ongoing repairs of the property.

[S-FLY]

Tower 1 of my complex uses Gateway Property Management. When Tower 2 was built, the developer switched to First Service Residential due to the problems with Gateway. No issues so far with First Service. Very good communication.

[A790]

Connelly & Co has always done right by me :)

[sexualbanana]

Just out of curiousity, do some/most/any of these problems stem more from a shitty building manager than a shitty company, itself?

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by S-FLY
Tower 1 of my complex uses Gateway Property Management. When Tower 2 was built, the developer switched to First Service Residential due to the problems with Gateway. No issues so far with First Service. Very good communication.

Who do you deal with from First Service?

They manage my building as well and I've found their service god awful.

For anyone who didn't know, First Service Residential is the newly branded "Condo First" that many people disliked.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Interesting to hear about several others who dropped Gateway for the same reasons as us. I'm glad we're not with them anymore.

[n1zm0]

Thanks for the feedback all, MCM and Asset West were super fast to respond to my RFP inquiries. Emailed Connelly & Co and Acclaim too.


Originally posted by sexualbanana
Just out of curiousity, do some/most/any of these problems stem more from a shitty building manager than a shitty company, itself?

For my case specifically we are self managed, which worked great for us before, but the woman running it left last year - handed me the presidency (I was the vice-president before), taught me the basics and I realised idgaf about running the complex by myself (2 others on the board with me are as useless as tits on a bull), so screw them all, I'm sending it to a condo management company.