J Keller Properties

My husband and I had a wonderful experience working with J Keller Properties to help us buy a house. Jon was our buyer’s agent, and made what can be a stressful process easy and enjoyable. Jon really took into account what we were looking for and never pushed properties on us that were outside of our search criteria, and he gave us honest assessments of the properties we viewed. It was clear to us early on that he was committed to helping us find the place that was right for us, and wasn’t just trying to make a sale. Jon was very responsive, clear in his communication, and organized. He was patient, encouraging, honest, and a great advocate. He also gave us excellent recommendations and referrals for other service providers — he’s clearly very knowledgeable and well-​connected in the Ann Arbor housing world. Any time we had a question or concern of any kind, we brought it to Jon and knew that it would be taken care of.
We also had the privilege of working with Drew for a brief period of time while Jon was away on vacation. Drew was also extremely helpful, responsive, personable, and went out of his way to make sure we felt taken care of. We felt like we were in good hands throughout the entire process.
I can really only say good things about Jon, Drew, and the entire team. I would definitely recommend J Keller to anyone looking to buy, sell, or rent!

I thought I had a signed lease before they told me the owners decided to back out of it last minute from signing their part of the contract. It left us scrambling last minute looking for a new place to live which is very stressful.
Drew is a very nice guy and tried his best but I think next time they should button down their processes much better.

J. Keller Properties is a fantastic company both for property management as well as buying/​selling a home! I’ve worked with them for both and have nothing but positive and professional things to say. They are super respectful, professional, fair with costs, and very direct in all communications. I can’t recommend them strongly enough!

J. Keller is awesome! They are probably the only property company in Ann Arbor that doesn’t try to swindle their clients. They have been extremely responsive whenever we have had a maintenance issue. Their staff is always friendly and respectful. Usually I dread having to call my property company, but the staff at J. Keller is always a pleasure!

Long story short Jon and his representative Drew pulled a house out from under me and 3 others in my group. We are responsible young professionals (all in our late 20s early 30s) and we have a good track record of renting in this town. We submitted applications, put a $ 2000 deposit down on a rental and without warning were informed that the property was rented to someone else because we didn’t submit proof of income fast enough for them. They did not issue us a deadline and were very friendly and chummy in person so we thought it was not an issue. They did not send a single email, phone call or text message to ask if there was a problem, or to notify us of a deadline for submission. Instead, they just rented the property to someone else even though we had agreed in person, on paper, and by email to rent the property and had given them a deposit for the lease. Bad form, absolutely the wrong way to do business. It is my opinion that they probably found some other party that would pay more to rent the property than they had posted it for, and they decided to dump us so they could make a few extra bucks. This is the only reason I can justify for their lack of communication, because if they had given us a call to ask if we still wanted the property, we would have said yes and submitted everything they asked for immediately. It would have just been so easy to fire off a one line email. Jon himself asked me to remove this review, but I don’t see why I should do that, as nothing I have written here is slanderous, misleading, or false. It is simply a description of my experience. If JKP is interested in maintaining their 5star rating on Unilocal,then they should offer 5 star business and 5 star communication.

I rented for 1 year from J Keller and it was an absolute pleasure. Maintenance and other requests were filled in a timely manner. Very professional and responsive to tenant needs. I would recommend J Keller to anyone looking to rent in the Ann Arbor area.

«You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.»
― Anne Lamott
This is long because there is a lot to share about my experience. I am not normally a person to write negative reviews however I think it is important to warn/​inform others.
In particular, I am posting this because I felt bullied and powerless in this situation. I feel that businesses like this can take advantage of us, especially single women. I want to stand up and speak the truth, so that others can make an informed choice about with whom they are doing business.
These folks do not follow through on their promises and are not to be trusted, despite the positive reviews and ratings, which they solicit after they hook you into a place with great service initially. Then it all changes once the lease has been signed. This has been the most disappointing experience I have had in 20+ years as a renter. They consistently did not follow through on maintenance requests, and finally said I could get out of my lease because they hadn’t fixed my deadbolt for almost a full year. However, they went back on their word and wanted to take my entire security deposit, despite their failing to provide a safe and secure residence for my family.
I eventually was forced to escrow rent for the needed repair, yet they still didn’t do it, despite promising over and over. They said it wasn’t high priority because I didn’t have a police report, because no one actually got in.
Here are some more but not all of the experiences I had in my time with them:
When I moved in, I paid a hefty cleaning fee and yet the apartment was filthy. They also wanted to charge me again upon moving out.
They said they would paint the place before I moved in, but they didn’t paint the ceiling and there are old paint marks from the previous paint job everywhere on the ceiling and there was still paint drips in the shower when I moved in. They also did not patch water damage above and around the tub.
When my new place requested a VOR (Verification of Rent), they took over a month to complete the request, even with several reminders.
When I wrote the owner Jon with my concerns, I did not even receive a response, much less an answer to my request.
They have no consideration for information confidentiality. When I was finding a new tenant to take over my lease they forwarded me a prospective tenant’s personal financial information! This happened twice, with two different prospects, it was not an isolated incident.
During a phone conversation, When I said that I felt shafted because they went back on their word to me, Max cut me off, talked over me and when I simply said «you are not listening to me», he hung up.
Their lack of follow through and ethics deserves a rating of zero stars. Please save yourself from the pain and suffering of attempting to work with these folks.

I am writing this long overdue review for J Keller Properties. My partner and I have been with J Keller for almost a year now, and it was one of the best and luckiest decisions we made. We had previously been with another property management company for ~5 years, and we lost A LOT of money while with them. We are very trusting, but over time we couldn’t trust them, as they’re accounting was horrible. Hey couldn’t understand the simplest of requests. They used antiquated systems, and we would get statements 1 – 2 months late. It was just horrible. We knew it was time to change, and to be honest we didn’t think there would be a huge difference between management companies. We interviewed 5 places. One place has been in the business for a long time, but he was too arrogant, and the others were nice but didn’t seem to do anything extremely special. We settled on one, not J Keller at first, and then Jon convinced us to just give his company a shot so we switched last minute. We were impressed by his motivation and professionalism.
We can only thank Jon tremendously now for convincing us to go with him because for the first time in years we are in the black. He is honest, organized and uses updated technology for accounting. His team is excellent at communication, and we trust them 100%. We were at API t where we couldn’t afford the losses we were taking when with the other management company, but we have now decided to keep the properties since with J Keller they are in excellent shape, and we finally have cash flow.
You have to be crazy not to go with J Keller, and I say this after being a landlord for over 10 years and having worked in the Ann Arbor real estate business. I know who the other companies are, and J Keller is head and shoulders above them all.

I have nothing but positives to say about Jon Keller and his team. I currently own 3 investment properties around the University of Michigan campus, in which J. Keller manages. Since taking over the management responsibilities my properties are as profitable as ever.
Jon’s team is polite, respectful, and understanding and do their best to make being a real estate investor as stress free as possible. They are always available to discuss any issues that arise with the properties.
I would recommend J. Keller Properties to anyone looking for a management team in the Ann Arbor area.

Excellent property management. J Keller took care of everything from beginning to end and made everything a pretty easy process. I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for housing in Ann Arbor.