Boardwalk Realty & Management

My husband and I needed to find a place to rent sight unseen on a specific timeline. I thought the smartest thing to do would be to go through a property management company, figuring that since they are a company, they would hold up their end of the deal. I realized that renting sight unseen was a risk, but it was our only option and Boardwalk’s employees were pretty responsive. I didn’t, however, ever receive pictures or video of the property that were current in spite of my requests for them. Everything they sent was dated from years before. I asked for a new video, but they could not provide one for whatever reason. I asked if the property smelled of pets, and if all damages to the property would be fixed before our arrival — they said they had no knowledge of the place having any smell, and that yes, they would absolutely have any damages fixed before we arrived. Finally, we had to make a decision as our lease was coming up, so we went ahead and signed a lease and gave the deposit — $ 500 for pets, $ 1000 for security, and $ 200 as a non-​refundable «administrative fee».
We wanted to move in around the first of the month, but they asked that the move-​in be pushed to the 5^th to allow for cleaning and repairs. When we arrived from our weary travels across 2 state lines, we laid our eyes upon our dilapidated duplex. The yard was full of weeds, the wood siding peeling and falling off, the door stained and dirty, the storage units in back full of someone else’s junk, a cooler full of sitting water and mosquito larva, broken blinds, broken doors in ALL rooms, etc. The worst of all was the stench of pet urine mixed with carpet cleaner chemicals that you could smell from the street. Shelves had been ripped from the walls, so there were holes and huge patches of paint torn off. The counters were dusty to the touch, and a door knob that had rotted fell off in my hand when I opened a door.
The person who was there to do the walk through with me told me their cleaner had billed them for 24 hours of cleaning — which if I were them, I would fire those cleaners immediately as there was dirt all over everything. I did not have super high expectations of this place, but I had expected it to at least be clean. Apparently the tenant who had lived in this tiny 2 bedroom, had lived there for at least four years with 4 or 5 kids. The management didn’t even bother to use the time they asked for to prepare for new tenants. It was destroyed, and they new they could get away with it because I had already signed the lease. They did apologize for the state which it was in, and said they would work to make it right. But when they told the actual home owner that repairs needed to be made, he refused, and said if he were to paint and replace the carpets, we’d have to pay $ 100 more a month. This was not was we signed up for, and we did not feel that we should have to pay a $ 500 pet deposit for a place that was ALREADY ruined by pet urine. It was unjust.
We refused to move in, and decided we’d rather be temporarily homeless than work with a company that had completely lost our trust. They strung us along for about a week as they struggled to decide how to handle this. After back and forth with various people at Boardwalk, and my threatening legal action, they decided to give us back our deposit in full. I will say that they admitted fault and apologized numerous times, and were never mean on the phone. I do appreciate that they at least let us have our money back so we could move on and find another place. They did the right thing in the end, but everything up until the end was a complete and utter failure on their part. If you are going to work with these people, just be sure to see the property in person before you do.

I haven’t done business with this shady company since late 2012 and today I received an email from their representative. The email looked legit asking for me to review an unattached doc that was submitted through Google doc. It took me to a Google DOC login and I logged in and see no DOCS. I called the office and they told me one of their associate’s email was HACKED. How do you still have my email when the last transaction we did was back in 2012ish? So now my gmail has been compromise and I have to spend the last hour changing my gmail password and relocating my precious files and deleting my files. Clients and former clients BEWARE of this company. A company with weak IT structure is a weak company. I have dealt with this company in the past and this company is UNETHICAL how they dealt with my situation. Long story short, moved out of state and had this company managed my property. Soon to find out that the tenant lost his job and the owner was biased and favored them to stay, being out of state I was so stressed. After the tenant finally moved out, I drove down from Cali to their office on a Monday morning to ask for my keys and they didnt have my keys! Overall, this hacked email woke up the sleeping DRAGON and I am furious that they still have my information kept in their system. DELETE ME off your system and please keep all us updated with this HACK.

I have to mention that since posting my last review, the response time from Boardwalk staff has gotten better. They also have also implemented online rent payment, which has been nice. Hopefully the trend of improved service continues!

The previous reviews are spot on– stay clear of this company

Boardwak Property Management is honestly the worst property management company I have dealt with. The office was slow to respond and rude, they looked for anything wrong with the apartment and charged you when you moved out. Regardless of the time you spend cleaning. We spent a full day Saturday cleaning and we were still charged a carpet and cleaning fee. Whatever you do… DO NOT RENT FROM BOARDWALK PROPERTY MANAGEMENT. Absolute worst headache ive had dealing with a property management company.

If I had known how bad they were as landlords when we were out looking for a place to live, I wouldn’t have rented from them. I realize, as a renter, we are not their customer, but I feel bad for the owner of the house as their response time is deplorable.