All Forum Posts by: Chuck Hattemer

Hey Thomas,

I appreciate the advice, and yes I'm alluding to that but also some of the logistical and auxiliary issues mentioned in the reviews are exaggerated versions of the truth. For example, in a recent set of negative reviews, we received four 1-star reviews from the same group of tenants. These tenants had a pet in the property which was not allowed by the lease and during move-out we discovered pet urine had damaged the carpet so, on behalf of the owner, we had to replace the entire carpet at the cost of the tenant. They also mentioned being charged for an electrician call-out but that was actually not the case and we have written documentation showing otherwise.

We are actually going to be launching a new feature on our blog this week called the 'Transparency Report' where we break down each negative review into what went wrong, provide evidence for what was stated incorrectly, and also own up to what Onerent truly screwed up on. This is all in the name of bringing a new level of transparency to an industry that has resisted exposing the truths for too long. I expect there to be a wide range of positive and negative response to this campaign but the reality is, we want the world to know that we do not have the luxury to sit idle and let our customer service suffer. We have active investors in our company who hold us to standards of service and success--our resources are 100% focused on iterating and improving our product and while I won't say it's perfect now, I firmly believe we are on a track to set a new, higher, standard of service in the property management industry.

To your point on the law for WA state contractor warranty--you may be correct in that but I just checked with some of our vendors in the area and it seems that for small maintenance or touch-up projects, there is no warranty length required by law. Again, this is what our vendors tell us, not the lawyers so you may be correct!

Thanks again for the feedback Thomas and I'm sorry that the reviews left a bad taste in your mouth--I'd be happy to connect directly to dive deeper on more of the specifics if you'd like.

Hey Raj,

Very cool to hear you are making the decision to start investing in the local markets. These days, given current interest rates and stock market performance, real estate makes a lot of sense in terms of diversifying your investment strategy. I would agree with the others in the sense that you want to focus on your core competency.

Given your familiarity with the tech world, I would recommend taking advantage of the wealth of data and tools online to first find which areas of the South Bay have strong cap rates and active investment opportunities (they're all low compared to the rest of the country of course). As @Cindy Blanco mentioned, RE meetup groups are especially great resources and there is one coming up this week on Tuesday actually in San Jose at Harry's Hofbrau hosted by SJREI. Usually, there are around 100 RE investors there. Message me for those details if interested.

With all that said, If you spend your time up front with educating yourself on the right strategy and investment opportunities, then partner with someone for the transaction, then you may ultimately come out on top because you've taken a strategic approach and found the best deal in town. Plus, you may find a valuable investment partner at one of the meetup groups.

Once you close on your first home, if you plan to buy-and-hold, let me know and I'd be happy to provide some tips for managing the property.

Good luck!

Hi @Hanna C.

If you are searching for maintenance vendors, I may be able to help out. Are you searching for primarily licensed, insured, and bonded folks or just the most affordable in town?

I think Minh's got the right strategy for setting up an LLC through something quick and cost effective such as RocketLawyer. If you're looking for further advice, we work closely with Judy Tsai who specializes in the South Bay Area and she's been a huge help for some of our clients in the past. I can get you a good rate if it's something you'd want to look at.

Feel free to shoot me a message if interested.

Best of luck!

I figured one of these days that would come up. The reality is that a good portion of the negative reviews on our Yelp profile are the result of a situation in which our hands were tied and we fell victim to the tenant trying to use negative reviews as a point of leverage to make us give back a portion of security deposit that was rightfully deducted or other scenario.

Throughout the course of scaling a business in a stagnant property management industry, we run into a lot of complex and challenging scenarios involving someone’s home. Whether you live there as a renter or if you’re the homeowner treating it as an investment, we manage the day-to-day logistics. The home is a personal place and when there is an impasse between owner and renter, the atmosphere can quickly turn uncomfortable. As the property manager, it's our job to remedy these conflicts and ensure that both sides are comfortable with the outcome. Our team strives for perfection, but we can’t always deliver the desired outcome to both sides. Sometimes the issue at hand is simply outside of our control.

We like to think of it as a balancing act.

Balancing the needs of a homeowner vs. renter is arguably the greatest challenge for a property manager because, traditionally, the two have diametrically opposed beliefs. The homeowner is concerned with their investment’s performance while the renter is concerned about quality of life. In most cases, the better the quality of a resident’s home, the better an owner’s investment performs. The problem stems from the fact that sometimes, a conflict between owners and renters arises where each side wants something that can only be granted at the expense of the other side. This is the general paradigm for how landlord-tenant relationships are structured today.

We do have a significant amount of positive property owner reviews on other sites including Google and TrustPilot.

That's the most rational explanation I can think of. Thank you Thomas!

 We contract with large scale facility groups that service multiple of the markets we cover and who handle maintenance for large companies such as Nasa or Apple and large residential portfolios such as ours. We chose this model because we believe it's important for our team to focus on our core competency which is property management. Our vendors are all licensed, insured, bonded, and come with a 30-day warranty on their work.

@Julian Buick That's exciting to hear you may be picking some up. Queen Anne is a great spot to be involved in new construction. Not sure if you're familiar with this site or not but I would highly recommend  Seattle in Progress as a great resource for tracking new construction in the area. I'm sure you're already on top of it but just another free tool to add to the arsenal! In terms of the Podcast, I was on J Massey's awhile back--not sure about Marco Santarelli's however.

Hey, everyone, I'm curious on what are the best real estate meetup groups in the Seattle/Eastside area to attend or any significant events coming up in the next couple months? I'm also curious about learning more from local investors and groups.

I grew up in Seattle and want to find a great reason to visit, especially since I now have business up there. @Ruth Bayang I won't be able to attend the PacificNW Real Estate meetup group you mentioned but are there any others you'd recommend in the coming months?

Thanks!

Hi @Julian Buick We currently have over 200 homes in the Seattle/Eastside area, serving as far north as Shoreline, then east over to Issaquah and south to Renton. I'm actually a Seattle native myself! I'm a big fan of Kirkland--do you invest in the area? 

Hello all,

I'm jumping head first into the BiggerPockets community in an effort to better understand all the moving parts of the real estate industry and network with the thought leaders in real estate technology.

My name is Chuck Hattemer and I'm the co-founder of a technology-enabled property management company.

I found out about BiggerPockets from some of our clients and have found it to be a common point of conversation across different meetup groups and events.

I am looking to connect with real estate investors in the Bay Area, Seattle or San Diego.

I can't wait to get started!

Hey @Charlie Redding, very exciting news--where are you looking to invest in Seattle? When the time is right, it'd be great to speak about how you'll be handling property management for the building. We also have some multi-family partners in the region such as Jerrid Anderson over at Colliers who have a great handle on multi-unit investment activity in King County (not in the Lynwood area I will say). Anyways, I'd be happy to discuss further if you're open to it.