Anyone use Evolve management?

[Angeline Rebottaro]

Hey guys,

About to get our 1st STR listed, and we are 4 hrs away. I am wondering if anyone uses Evolve management, and would love your thoughts. I wondering if it's worth the 10% to save me the hassle of managing myself. Considering I'll be a ways away with a learning curve if we do it ourselves.

Thanks!!

[Brian Graff]

If you want renters that will treat your cabin like a cheap motel, Evolve is the company for you! Six months in and I am very disappointed with the number of rentals and the terrible quality of renters. Regretfully we listed our breathtaking brand new mountain modern waterfront cabin with them. Evolve is everything that gives short-term rentals a bad reputation and is getting us banned in many communities. We have many friends that have short-term rentals for several years that they managed themselves through AirBnB and/or VRBO. Hardly one had a bad experience, yet we have had several in our first couple of months with Evolve.

• Evolve is simply an intermediate host that list your property on other sites and takes all the control away from the homeowner with very little benefit in return.
• Evolve nor the renter are held liable for anything, no deposit is required only a $14/night worthless $3000 insurance policy. The only one that stands to lose is the owner. A renter can destroy your house, and just walk away without even getting a bad review!
• Owners cannot screen renters nor does Evolve. Anyone can rent your cabin! The party mansion loophole! Yes our house fell victim to this through Evolve!
• The only information the owner gets about guest is number of guest, first name, fist letter of last name, and phone number.
• You can’t leave reviews on guest nor read their reviews.
• If a guest leaves a review and you respond, Evolve rewrites what you say.
• Evolve writes your listing, you have no say in it. They also pic the photos. If you disagree, they review it but usually sides with their editors.
• 60% of guest I would ban for violating policies like number of guest, smoking, throwing parties, shooting pellet guns, violating noise ordinances, or damaging the property. Actually, you have no way to ban anyone; if they rent from you again and you cancel, you will end up paying a cancellation fee.
• If a guest cancels one week out and you can’t replace them, you get nothing. They get no penalty for cancelling on you, they get a credit with Evolve to rent at a later time.
• Customer Service: It is nice you can get a person on the phone, but there is no escalation path at Evolve, tough luck if you don’t like the “I’m sorry you had a bad experience” script they read from. They are very nice but have no power to do anything and usually don’t.
• They do pay to have a professional photographer come out and take pics, but you can hire one yourself for less than the $250 they claim to spend, so don’t think they are doing you some big favor.
• They are so afraid the of getting a bad review they will not charge the renter for bringing extra guest or other policy violations like smoking or pets.
• Evolve ignores the 8 people occupancy maximums and rented our cabin to a party of 10.
• We found and manage our own cleaning, lawn care, and taxes. What does Evolve do to command the highest fee in the industry? Recently they were forced to manage taxes so look for a fee increase on that in 2022.

Frat Party House:

Our house sleeps 8 people but the bunk room is meant for 4 children, not 4 adults, this did not stop Evolve from renting to 8 adult male college students that threw multiple parties and absolutely trashed our brand new $1/2 million dollar cabin! When we first saw the listing, we contacted Evolve and they told us not to worry, besides we are fully insured. If we cancelled, we would have to pay a fee. Neighbor’s reported as many as 12 people sleeping overnight and people smoking and funneling beer up to 4AM! We contacted Evolve and they said there is not much they could do, we might as well call them ourselves. They gave no good advice only to report damage for insurance. We had just spent $40k to furnish this new cabin, $3000 insurance is a joke! In the end insurance payed zero! There was food and trash and cigarette butts all around the house, the house smelled like vomit and beer. The hot tub had to be emptied and scrubbed down, refilled and shocked. There was blood and dirt all over our new living room couch. The entire underdeck area had to be bleached and pressure washed because the food left attracted animals, especially birds and mice, to come and crap on everything including all over our new outdoor furniture, fireplace, bar, and concrete area. When I went to claim this on Evolve I found out you can only use receipts from contractors or actually money you spend to replace something. The 5 hour round trip and 12 hours spent cleaning and repairing, extra supplies and extra cleaning fees can’t be claimed for insurance. They refused to charge the renter for the extra people, the renter never got any negative feedback or anything for doing this to our house!

My neighbors were kind enough not to call the police, video, or send pics into the local paper, this could well have been a political nightmare. I wanted this escalated to the executive team because many cities in our state are starting to ban short term rentals and these kind of policies will surely help them paint STR in a negative light. I would think they would want to know this, but there is no way to contact them. Beware!