Murphy & O’Brien Real Estate

Working with Murphy and O’Brien was a nightmare for me and my husband. Here is why:
1. While living here we had 3 sewer back ups. Raw sewage was coming up through the shower and the toilet and when we called the management company the first time they said they could not have anyone there right away, let alone the next day. So we took it upon ourselves to get a 24 hour roto rooter guy come. The last time this hap
2. We found huge rat droppings in our basement. When we called initially MO they acted as if it was our fault inferring we were leaving food around. Again, it took forever to get the problem taken care of. They sent their maintenance guy who had no idea what to do and said to call an exterminator. The problem was that the house was so poorly taken care of that there were several foot wide holes in the walls. The maintenance guy did nail some plywood over obvious holes though. The exterminators came after not showing up twice.
3. There were also mice living inside the house. Again, the exterminator failed to resolve this issue. There were still mice living in the house when we moved out. I know because we left rat poison out for the mice and rats and there were gnaw marks and mouse droppings left on the bars of rat poison.
4. Argentine ants (the ones that come up when it rains) were all over the house because of all the cracks and openings to the outside the house had. We set out bait traps and killed the trails of ants with a spray bottle of rubbing alcohol but they came back every time it rained. We asked MO to send someone to resolve the issue of ants getting into the house. They sent the maintenance guy and he caulked along the floor of the bathroom as well as OVER the traps we had set into the garage permanently setting the ant traps in place.
5. They also did not even know the terms of the lease they gave us. It specifically stated that after 12 months, rent goes month to month. When the renter is ready to leave they can give 30 days notice and there should be no issue, if you stay half the month, you pay half the rent. I let them know in August we would actually be moving out in September. Initially, when we went month to month we gave them a potential move out date in October. MO said we had to stay through October. We sent them a copy of their own lease and they replied «we will accept half a months rent for September.» Uh, yeah you have to because that’s what the lease says.
6. Getting in touch with MO with issues is just a nightmare and they really don’t care about their renters. They’re rude unresponsive and I will never ever rent from them again.
7. When we finally moved out they basically tried to unfairly keep our security deposit. The owner Luke was extremely rude and unprofessional in my opinion, because the house was extremely poorly maintained and he claimed that the house’s poor condition was our fault when we moved in with it that way.
Here’s also a good read:

We just had the absolute most disappointing experience with Luke (the owner) of Murphy O’Brien. Rarely do we encounter unethical people in business but unfortunately these guys are among the worst. Not only are they extremely disorganized (Gail from the office calls us weekly thinking we are a different tenant) but now that we’ve moved out, they’ve held back more of our security deposit than we agreed upon. During our final walkthrough, we aligned on a dollar amount and we trusted they would honor it. Instead of doing the right thing and having a professional conversation to work through any remaining items, Luke has handled it by repeatedly «hanging up on us» as his preferred method of communication. If you have any opportunity to NOT work with these people I’d highly recommend it.

I’ve been a tenet of Murphey and O’Brien for 3 ½ years and have been really pleased with their professionalism, responsiveness and friendliness. Gale who works in the office is always friendly when I stop in to pay my rent. John the housing manager is very nice and can often be found at the building cleaning and organizing the communal areas of the building. The men that provide maintenance for the building are efficient, friendly and willing to assist with small things like changing light bulbs and changing fire alarm batteries.
I highly recommend Murphy and O’Brien propery management.

Had to come on here and write a review because I couldn’t believe what I was reading when I happened to find my landlord on Unilocal.I have been a tenant of Murphy & O’Brien’s for 4 years now and they have been truly been great to me. I pay my rent in person every month and Gail who works the front desk is always a pleasure to see, and John who oversees the property and the person who rented my unit to me has always been extremely professional and very nice, even when I was receiving numerous noise complaints a couple years ago.
As far as repairs go, I don’t think I have lived anywhere else that address issues in my unit more prompt. I can’t reach the lightbulbs in my apartment and every time one goes out, all it takes is one phone call and my light is working the next day. Even the people who come in and do the repairs are friendly and always respectful of my space.
The shading structure in the back yard allowed rain water to seep through the vines and leaves that had collected on top, essentially draining mud water all over my car. I called and expressed my concerns, and let John know that I had to pay $ 100 to have the dry water marks cleaned off the body of my car. Not even two weeks later, they were cleaning the top of the shade structure, removing the overgrown vines, and putting a permanent water tight seal over the entire thing. That was a huge undertaking and I never expected them to do something about it so fast.
I honestly don’t know what else to say except for that I would highly recommend Murphy O’brien as a great property management company and that I am so thankful I have a great landlord in the insane SF rental market.

Wow i don’t know who these other people are talking about. Murphy come to the recuss as soon as we call them for any repairs… there rent is a little high. but place
are nice and clean, and John manager is wonderful, all you need to do is call him, and he sends someone running…

They manage my building and while they never answer their phone in person, they always call back that day and usually have someone come repair anything THAT DAY or even better, that night. In the final analysis, what you need as a tenant is someone who takes care of repairs promptly and so far they’ve aced that.

I had a great experience living in my apartment for almost two years. The owner, John, is courteous and I’m recommending my current apartment to a friend after I move out.

Terrible. We rented from them for 1.5 years, absolutely impossible to get them to pay attention to you when you need repairs. Have no sense of urgency about you suffering with broken stove or fridge — to them — these are no big deal issues. They also lied to us about owners of the house and their situation.

They are absolutely the worst — do not rent from them! Not only are they horrific when it comes to repairs and incredibly non responsive and hard to reach… they are so disconnected in their own office that when the secretary advised me to call an after hours plumber the landlord yelled at ME for listening to her and accruing the fee as opposed to using their maintenance man…(FYI said maintenance man had looked at said appliance 5 748 978 979 times and has never resolved this issue — M & O then sent a nasty email how the problem must be the result of our behavior and we would be footing the bill if it keeps happening… absolute rubbish!). THe joy of renting is to be taken care of by responsible property managers — these guys are the worst. avoid at ALL COSTS!!!

All I can do is repeat what has already been said. Avoid this real estate company at all costs!!! What it comes down to is that these people are just bad at their job. Not to mention they are absolutely heartless and couldn’t care less about their tenants. If you want anything done you essentially have to go as far as threatening to take legal action — which is RIDICULOUS.
My girlfriend and I moved out as soon as possible once our lease was over. Even when we gave our 30 day notice that we were moving out we didn’t get a reply for weeks. I feel bad for the building owners that rely on these people to take care of their property. Because of them, the owners lose good tenants and risk damage to their property due to the extreme laziness of the realty company. We once had a leak in our roof for weeks before they sent someone over to fix it. Even after they «fixed» it, it still leaked. So much for those expensive brand new hardwood floors.
Again, avoid these evil, awful people.

Absolutely terrible at resolving maintenance issues. Our apartment had a serious mold problem and they did nothing to resolve the matter. (See above pictures.) Now that we’ve moved out I’ve noticed that my allergies aren’t nearly as bad and I don’t cough up stuff in the morning (gross I know). Our neighbor’s refrigerator died and it took them over a month to replace it– you can’t imagine the smell. Avoid Murphy and O’Brien like the plague.

Pretty bad experience with these guys. Everyone seems nice and the building is decently well maintained… but we’ve now been without hot water for over a week and no one will return my calls. They’ve apparently gone in to fix it two or three times now, and wanted us to «come home and test it before COB.» What? They can’t, i don’t know, TURN ON THE WATER and test it themselves? Here’s a clue: hot water = fixed, cold water = not fixed. They also definitely furnished our brand-​new apartment with the cheapest possible appliances (including a weirdly miniature fridge and an oven that hasn’t worked since day one) and even less resilient paint. Nice floors tho, even if they did come with scratches we’ll probably be blamed for.
Surprisingly, i do like our apartment, and the Mission/​Dolores location is fantastic. But if moving weren’t such a pain i’d be out of there as quickly as possible, and would never rent from them again. The agent we’re supposed to work with probably wouldn’t notice — she basically told us point-​blank when we viewed the place that this job interferes with her social life and other job as a bartender.