Ewing & Clark

The apartment I moved into was not cleaned before we moved in. Madina, Ana and Ridge all told me someone would come to clean multiple times for weeks before I gave up when no one showed up. The leaky roof of our place was moldy and partially falling through the bathroom ceiling. This was not repaired after we requested multiple times. Agents show up without advance notice and communication was frustrating. Blame was passed between agents in group chats very unprofessionally. We were even given the wrong lease to sign.
This company has been difficult and unprofessional from the beginning.

Our family owns a small commercial building in Belltown that was managed by another large well known property management firm in Seattle that had allowed the building to be under represented in this district. Slightly over a decade ago we interviewed a number of candidate management firms to improve the buildings performance and selected E&C. Within 2 years the building had an entirely new tenant population with a substantial increase in revenue. They carefully selected each tenant and handled the negotiations throughout, with constant consultation with the owners. Since then they have performed to a high level. I retired from a Fortune 100 company as Director Real Estate and am qualified to make these judgements. It is the small issues they attend to that make them stand out, but large or small they exceeded my expectations and I have referred others to E&C — something I rarely did in my prior position.

I own a condo in a small building managed by E&C.
I can’t imagine a company doing a more unprofessional job than this one. I’m not sure what kind of a resume is required for managing properties with E&C but it can’t be much: calls are never answered; answering machines tell me that I’m calling after business hours (at 3 pm on a Tuesday); I can’t rely on our manager to relay any information to our board; we are billed for services in amounts we don’t recognize and which aren’t itemized in any fashion on the billing statements and when we try to call and question (that is, if we ever get through to anyone) we’re treated rudely or with rank incompetence; building protocols aren’t observed re. voting for building upgrades and related assessments because the manager’s fees are tied to improvements via flat fees and percentages of expenditures… the list goes on and on. This is a terrible company and I have no idea why the building continues to use them other than it’s simply easier to suffer rather than do the legwork and find someone who can do the job.
We call them Useless & Clark. Avoid them.

If we can give a -, we would give A LOT.
Dealing with Ewing & Clark is often a big hassle. They are more professional for commerical buildings/​properties but not for condo communities.
The manager for our community is awful. No one can trust her at all. She is not very professional either. Can’t trust what its website mentioned: «her goal is to continue to successfully manage condominium associations while giving excellent customer service to all of her clients. She enjoys working with a variety of clients and dedicates all of her time to assisting them with all of their management and real estate needs. etc». She is very rude, mean and She is extremely terrible at communication. Totally awful at communication. She is not very honest either. Almost everyone in the community complain about her. She can’t provide complete details to residents well when needed. She can’t take care of issues well either. Only nice to residents who are on the board or who would say nice things about her. She often has an excuse for being late to the meeting or not taking things right. She doesn’t reply emails or phone calls well. When people complain about her or when she does something not suppose to, she argues back. Shame on her. Our community hires her to help out not to make it worst. The reason our community has E & W is because someone used to work for E & C and he was one of the board members. Most people did not know about it until a while ago. Sadly that many residents are renters and not much they can do. Shame on her to be our community manager and no one at her work wants to take her mess. She should be out of the community completely when she can’t do her job right. She should be shameful when she is not being very responsible and respectful.
Her boss knows the issue but does nothing for last few years. It’s not very good to have an employee likes that. Not sure why Ewing & Clark doesn’t fire her when so many complain about her. Not sure how she can become the director for all. Although she got an assistant to help out now, but nothing change to be good yet. Her assistant can’t make much decision and still have to go through her. Everything is still the same sucks. Sadly our current board members do nothing to take care of the matter well either. We have too many renters in the community too. That’s why Ewing & Clark and her still «survived». Other experts we talked to and no one recommended Ewing & Clark at all.

My HOA currently uses this company to manage our 20-​unit condo building. I’m the board president, and I was on the selection committee.
If you’re looking for frustration and constant headaches, miserable customer service, irritable people and poor communication … this company is perfect for you.
I hope this written review helps you … we were warned by another HOA not to engage Ewing & Clark, and I only wish we had listened.

Overall, I had a great experience with Ewing and Clark. They were professional, up front, and accommodating. They always gave their 24 hours notice before entering my unit and effectively communicated any maintenance items that they needed to complete while in there.
Best experience I’ve had renting with a property management company in Seattle.

AMAZING COMPANY!!!
I’ve dealt with a lot of property management companies in my day and to be honest, I don’t expect much.
However, I’ve been using Ewing and Clark for the last 2 years and they have been more than fair, kind, trustworthy, and professional.
Not only is their staff incredibly good looking, they have GREAT customer service! I am forever loyal to this company as they make my life SOOOO much easier!
Thank you!

As someone who has rented from over a handful of rental properties, this is the worse one I’ve come across yet.
I do not recommend you rent from this company.
The day I moved in, the Property Manager, Merrily Jacobs, had another property to attend to immediately and left extremely quickly. While I don’t mind, it has been her of treating pretty much all my concerns here– always in HURRY to move on.
When I complained about a cat urine smell, stains on the carpet, mold in the closet, and a few other issues– it took two months for them to do anything about the mold and the other stated issues (such as the broken cabinet door and ceiling bathroom).
After receiving an unlawful notice to terminate my tenancy I went and got a lawyer.
Needless to say they landlord was found to be in violation of several tenant laws and I am still here (one of them being unjust cause for removal).
I have also had an inspector come to handle the issues with a window that doesn’t fully close, black mold, and a bathroom that has erosion due to a leak in the ceiling. It has been two since the landlord received a notice from the state to fix the issue– they haven’t yet. This just shows their inability to care for their tenants.
The company that owns this building Ewing and Clark has been in business for over 100 years BUT this landlord has given it a bad name– now their inability to handle the issues with my bathroom and window makes me question if they are getting too big to care about their tenants.
As previously stated, I do not recommend you rent from this company.

I dealt with E&C for 18 months, and they were always quick to handle apartment-​related requests and answer whatever questions we had. And they were always straightforward, fair, and predictable, which is more than I’ve sometimes experienced in the past. Overall, a good property management company.

I am very happy with Ewing and Clark. While my husband and I were out of the country for a year we decided to hire an agent from Ewing and Clark to lease out our home. The agent was very helpful and kept in touch with us regularly through email to keep us updated on our property and asked our permission before allowing tenants to make any changes. We have a nice home and have standards reguarding the tenants that would rent from us. The agent was able to find responsible and respectable tenants.
We decided that we loved our time abroad and wanted to make Europe our new home. After the tenants’ lease was up the agent listed our home for sale. Given the market we thought that it would take longer than it did to sell. All in all we were very pleased and would recommend Ewing and Clark to anybody who is looking to have somebody else handle their property.

The worst. I actually had an agent offer to fire herself saying the $ 400 a month she made off of my properties wasn’t worth the effort. Am I her only client? There may be some good agents, but management is lax and if you get a weak one-​look out. We had a house destroyed (over $ 12K in damage and eviction fees) because the agent let them lie and not pay rent for 3 months before alerting me and starting to do anything about it. If your place has any value, don’t let these guys handle it.

This review is for Ewing & Clark’s property management service. I’ve worked with two property managers there — Alex Lee and Merrily Jacobs. Alex was great (and is the reason that I’m giving Ewing & Clark 2 stars instead of 1 star). Merrily… not so much.
I had a good experience with Alex. He was responsive and helpful. It was generally pretty hassle-​free experience, and I was happy to refer him to other friends who needed a property manager.
Then, about two years ago, Alex left (at least the property management side) and I was assigned to Merrily Jacobs.
There were various minor issues with Merrily’s property management service.
1. She didn’t send me a copy of the lease when she got a new tenant.
2. Her emails were riddled with grammar /​punctuation errors. For example, she frequently (25 — 50% of the time) failed to put a space after a period. So it isn’t that she doesn’t know grammar rules — she just doesn’t care. Straight up sloppiness
3. When the unit needed to be re-​rented or a tenant’s was up for renewal, she didn’t really keep me up to date on the status of renting the unit.
4. It took her quite a while to re-​rent the unit as well, and there was little communication from Merrily during the process. I’m not even sure if she was really actively advertising the unit… maybe she was, but she didn’t really communicate what was going on.
5. She extended the tenant’s lease by a month without talking to me or asking my permission. She knew that I was strongly considering selling the unit, so she should talk to me before making changes with the lease.
She wasn’t terrible, necessarily, but I also didn’t get a great vibe from her. If a friend asked me for a recommendation on Merrily, I would’ve said to look elsewhere.
But okay, moving on.
I decide I want to sell my unit. For pretty understandable reasons, I did not wish to use Merrily as my real estate agent. I’d prefer to use someone who (1) I know and trust and (2) I haven’t had an actively bad experience with.
So, I tell Merrily that I’m going to sell the unit, and that’s when all hell breaks loose. It’s my *very* distinct impression that she’s pissed off that I didn’t hire her to sell the unit and she’s doing *everything* she can to make things as difficult as possible.
1. Ewing and Clark’s standard property management contract tries to force you to list your property with them for sale, if you sell it. They require you to wait *SIX MONTHS* after terminating your contract with them before you can lease with someone else. Seriously? [I fought and won this one.]
2. Then I wanted to stage the unit and start showing it, since the tenant moved out 2 weeks early. She said no. I have a hard time believing this was for any reason other than to piss me off. [The lease actually stipulates that I have the right to show the unit — though staging is debatable. Certainly, the tenant doesn’t care if we put stuff in a unit he’s not living in anyway.]
3. I agreed to credit back the tenant’s remaining rent so that I can start staging the unit, and now there’s new delays. Even though the tenant moved out a week or two ago and his lease officially ends in three days, she hadn’t scheduled a time to visit the unit and get the keys back. Really?
4. She ended up delivering the keys *a week late*. This is AFTER refusing to let us stage the apartment in advance because the «tenant had a right to quiet usage of the unit» (even though he had, in fact, completely moved out). So he has a right to «quiet usage of the unit» (that he’s not, in fact, using), but I – the owner — don’t have the same rights after his lease was terminated?
5. She let the tenant paint the walls blue /​purple, and never notified me of this. This includes re-​painting beige /​maroon walls and painting over a mural. In fairness to her, this was the extent of conversation:
Merrily: «If we could paint it out to a off white that will go with the furnishings of others it would be a large help in finding a suitable tenant. «
Me: «Sure, that’s fine.»
Merrily [later, after finding a tenant]: «It worked! … We only have to repaint the bedroom»
Somehow, now, my walls are blue. Given that I had a pretty elaborate mural painted on one wall, I would’ve expected to be *at least* notified of this. Not specifically told that we wouldn’t have to re-​paint it and then discover that it was, in fact, repainted. And repainted blue, too.
It feels like Merrily is intentionally making my life as difficult as possible. That is unprofessional at best and unethical at worst.
I hope the other property managers at Ewing and Clark are better. As I said in the beginning, Alex Lee was great.