If you’ve been searching for Strata Management Services, then there is a good chance you’ve been using Google to help you in that search. And if you’ve been using GOOGLE, then you no doubt have noticed that most property management companies don’t have great GOOGLE reviews! Why is that you ask? Is it because all property management companies are horrible? While that’s certainly a possibility, the reality is that’s just not true.
In many instances, bad reviews just mean that the property management company is doing their job properly. Remember that strata management is not a popularity contest! 🙂
Here are a few of the top reasons that BC Property Management Companies tend to get bad reviews
- They aren’t asking for good reviews! Most people won’t hesitate to leave a bad review if they have had a negative experience, but won’t leave a good review if they have had a positive experience. This is simply human nature. Even if 99% of their clients have had a great experience, bad reviews are likely to outnumber good reviews UNLESS the management company is specifically asking for good reviews.
2. Expectation management. Most strata owners don’t really understand the role of the Strata Management Company. Just the other day, we received multiple phone calls on our emergency line about a defective air conditioner within their unit. When we nicely explained to them that we only take care of common area maintenance issues, and that strata lot maintenance is to be handled by the strata lot owner, they rudely hung up on us. No bad review, but they certainly felt that we weren’t doing our job.
3. Strata Management company = the bylaw police. The Strata Council is the executive committee, and advises the management company what to do when it comes to bylaw infractions. The management company then carries out the orders, which can often result in bylaw letters, fines, and even lien filings. The owners don’t always understand that this is the role of the management company, and that the management company is not free to make decisions when it comes to bylaw issues. This can very often result in the owner blaming the management company for issuing fines, and ultimately ending up with a bad review. Think of it as similar to the police. Lawmakers create rules (laws), and the police carry out the enforcement of those laws. No one is going to give the Police officer who just issued them a speeding ticket a good Google review!
4. Rental management. IF the management company offers rental management in addition to strata management, then you can expect that they will have some negative reviews. Remember that the client is the rental property owner, NOT the tenant, and when it comes to fiduciary duty, the management company has to do what is best for their client owner. As a middleman, the rental agent is very often responsible to carrying out evictions, withholding security deposits, etc, which can result in unhappy tenants who are more than happy to leave a bad review. This bad review simply meant that they were doing a good job for their client, so make sure that you dig further into these reviews.
5. Hostage crisis. A sad reality of the way people operate today is to fire off a negative review to a company, and then call and try to negotiate, using the negative review as leverage. This situation is all too common in our industry unfortunately. If an owner feels like the Strata Council has ignored their concerns, or treated them unfairly in any way, they will write a negative review, and keep that negative review intact until they get the result that they want. This puts the management company in an uncomfortable position of having to push the Council in a direction that may not ultimately be the best thing for the strata corporation.
Not all Google reviews should be treated equally!
As you can see, not all bad reviews are the same, so don’t use Google reviews as your sole guide when trying to determine which strata management company to hire.
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