Windermere West Sound-Kingston Review

We moved into a new rental last year with a different property management company and within a month it has been transferred to Windermere property management. Bobbi Alger was assigned as our property manager. While initially she seemed professional and attentive her true personality came out when we needed assistance. In March when the Covid crisis shut down jobs my husband and I both lost multiple jobs and all of our income. We have three children and we re unable to continue paying the higher rent due for this property. After repeatedly asking Bobbi to discuss some options with us and the owners we were met with this is our policy, this is how we do things at Windemere. There was no grace for Covid even though we had heard that they were rental assistance programs and federally mandated protections for renters, Windermere did very little to assist us. They offered us a $500 deferment on our March rent but at the cost of signing another one year lease with them. They made no other offers to assist us. So because we were scared and didn t want to have our children homeless we accepted the only offer they provided. When it became clear that my husband was not going to be able to work again in Seattle Washington and that we would no longer be able to afford the higher rent of this property we reached out again. We let them know that we would no longer be able to afford the property due to the lack of employment. We said we would do everything we could to help them get new tenants in and we would move out as soon as possible. We were even assured that there were a few tenants who were already looking at the property by Bobbi. There was no walk-through offered for our move out and we actually had very few communications with Bobbi about the procedures and requirements for our move out. So we did what we ve done with every other rental. About halfway through July we got told that no tenants would be moving in and that we would be forced to pay the whole month of July. In addition we were served with many other fees. We were charged for cleaning, yard work, garbage removal, several items that we had already paid for or made arrangements for. The total for the entire month of July was over $5000 in charges. Every attempt to communicate with Bobbi was refused, she wouldn t take our calls, she would only send short but frank emails that stated their policies and that no provisions would be made for us. I m sure some of this had to do with a stressful time that our country is going through but I feel like under the circumstances exceptions should ve been made. Also take photos of everything you do before move out otherwise there s no way to prove that you did anything.

We currently rent from Windermere and our manager and her assistant are AMAZING! They address issues right away, they are professional and courteous. I have only ever dealt with private owners, so i was nervous about using an agent considering all of the negative things ive heard. This group has been so wonderful. We would recommend them to anyone and would absolutely use them in the future!

Hi Tori. You emailed me last week. Pretty much saying the same thing as your reply below.

I had an encounter with your groundskeeper on the morning of 3/17/20. She accused me of running over the sprinkler heads at X Lane. I was parked on the street. It had rained earlier and there were clearly no tire tracts from my car to the lawn. I took several photos. I explained that the pest control man damaged the sprinklers and had offered to pay.

Dawn Clay emailed me back. She accused me of threatening the groundskeeper. She made veiled threats about pressing charges against me.

I forwarded Dawn's emails to you several times. When you did not reply I forwarded my emails to Windermere's headquarters in Seattle. When HQ did not respond I wrote a review on Yelp. My review was deleted. Yelp canceled my account.

You probably have already contacted Google Review and are trying to get this deleted. I just hope they have the good sense to maintain their primary directive.

Businesses like yours undermine the purpose of consumer crowdsourcing platforms. I don't understand why you and your employees exert so much energy into threatening and censoring consumers instead of just doing your jobs.

Awesome job! They made the entire rental process seem less! I would use them again and again and recommend them to anyone seeking professional, responsive service!

Reading their responses to the negative reviews is uncomfortable. I couldn't imagine actually renting from a place that's so defensive and dismissive of people's comments. Tip for Windermere: stop replying why you're not wrong to each negative review and take it as constructive criticism.

Not only was the agent 10+ minutes late to the showing, but the showing was so rushed I feel like they didn't care. I felt very much like an inconvenience to them.

We have worked with Windermere Property Management Westsound for a few years now. Vendor perspective:
The property management team are very organized, professional, and care about the quality of the work delivered to their properties by the vendors. This is a huge benefit to the property owners as well as their renters/ tenants. Its clear they try to take care of not only their owner clients, but also their renters.
We try to align ourselves with property management companies who realize the value of quality.

I don't recommend this company for those looking for a rental. They aren't friendly (just short of being rude) and they don't return phone calls. Also, when you find a listing of theirs online and you are interested in it, they encourage to go straight to putting an application in on it. Don't do it. Always check to make sure it doesn't have other applications on it or else you waste $40 and it pulls on your credit report. You won't get your money back and they won't call you with other potential listings.

Not really nice to people on section 8. Not everybody is rich and not everybody is nasty. You should treat everyone different. They made us feel like we should live out on the street. Like you said to us it only takes one person to ruin it for you. Telling someone that their not good enough to rent from you really hurts. I'm on SS and i allready now we don't have much money. But like i said in your office you don't need to be nasty. We're on section 8 because of abused from my x. And it's already hard to go from a nice home. To almost begging for a place to live. And you treated us the same way he treated us.

only a shady realtor would submit an ad such as Windermere posted on 6503 Bondale Lane, Silverdale.
"All bedrooms are spacious." that goes far beyond stretching the truth. Master BR might squeeze small night stands on each side of a Queen bed. I would hate to see what you consider small.
"fantastic 2.5 acres." Really? Beyond the usable .40 acre, is such a steep reavine, most would not feel safe letting the kids outside alone.
And finally, the pictures. Every picture of this house is an absolute fabrication of the lack of physical space. Like I said, Shady best describes this particular realtor. I hope he/she is not representative of the local group of the Windermere team.

Unfortunately, as much as I love Windermere Real Estate my property management experience was not the same.

We lost our jobs due to covid. Not only did we not get a dollar of assistance we were met with Bobbi A. who was indifferent at best. During our move out week we did not receive a single email or phone call to assist during our transition to homelessness. This resulted in extra fees as we were not 100% clear on move out expectations (like do you want the garbage cans left in garage or on the street).

I do not hold anyone responsible for the calamity of Covid. However, we literally begged for months for mercy and they still charged a $825 lease break fee despite our repeated appeals.

That showed us what mattered most to Windermere. Not people, just properties. It felt like being kicked while being down.

I have been a landlord before and totally have empathy for the business side as well. However, we gave 2 months notice that we would be unable to pay and a trust fund owns the home, not a person.