Century 21 Southern Star

This rental company, southern star property management or prestige management is the worst rental company I have ever dealt with. Needless to say that I had not dealt with a lot of rental companies. I moved to Alabama from Pennsylvania. I was a home owner in Pennsylvania and I thought I would buy in Alabama but decided not to. I lived on this property for three years and took very good care of the property. When it was time for me to move because we bought a home in North Carolina, they gave us a big runaround. First, they gave me this ridiculous move out instruction list. When I had moved in this property, it was not clean at all. My daughters spent hours cleaning this house. they stated they wanted us to power wash the house treat for fleas professionally, clean it, and a whole bunch of other things, including replace a drip pan for the refrigerator. That was not there when we moved in which I informed them off. I took pictures and videos of us cleaning that house and how we left it. At first Jennifer stated that nothing had been done. I had videos showing that the house was spic and span. Upon moving in this house I had paid a double deposit. I guess she assumed that she was going to be able to keep my $2400. But that was not the case I was ready to fight for my money. Jennifer is a piece of work. So she kept $25 for a drip pan that was never there. I am contemplating court action against her and the house owner.

My boyfriend and I contacted this company about renting a home. The property manager stated the home was available and we paid $50 for an application, just to receive an email saying we were not approved and we both have over a 600 credit score with no poor rental history, in fact this would have been our first home together. Judging from the previous reviews, We are grateful for being denied. Definitely contacting Fair Housing and reporting them because we both make over the average salary for the State of Alabama and they gave us a bogus excuse for why we were denied. I assume they needed the $50 for lunch.

We rented from this company for 4 years. We first had Nicole Rich as our property manager. Terrible. In the first year, a leak from the front yard from a pipe exploding left us with a $300 bill we had to pay the Water company for the gallons of water pooling in our front yard we got billed for before the Property Management company would reimburse us. Needless to say, six months later we were still waiting on our $300 bill after about eight emails and countless messages and texts to get our money. When we did finally get a check, we were still out about $75 because I guess they didn't feel like paying us the full amount owed? By that point we were so fed up, we just let it slide. In calling Nicole all those times she flat out, no joke, word for word told us "You're just a renter so you're not a top priority." While you may think that, that's beyond rude and obviously not an awesome thing to say in a customer oriented business. Our microwave would randomly turn on and off, and again, after asking for it to be replaced because obviously, a short can cause a house fire, it never was. Our house was randomly broken into a year ago. Bricks were thrown in the back master bedroom window. It took A WHOLE MONTH after multiple phone calls and emails for the window to get fixed. AN ENTIRE MONTH. Ridiculous. It's 100 degrees outside, my AC is being sucked out the window, and I was pregnant and had an 11 month old. By now, our new property manager is Lana Taylor and she's not any better than Nicole, unfortunately. We asked her to replace the locks on our house (wouldn't you if the robbers stole your house keys?). They never were, again after multiple attempts to get them changed. We finally got to leave (we are a military family) and upon moving were told that we needed professional carpet cleaning. That's fine. In our lease it also states professional house cleaning. My husband spent three days scrubbing the house so that there would be less to clean and hence, less for us to be charged. No such luck. Not only did they take out $175 for carpet cleaning, they tacked on a ridiculous $250 "deep cleaning fee." Deep cleaning for a house that was immaculate. As in the baseboards and each window blind had already been scrubbed. I'm pretty sure the house cleaning lady and property management company must be best friends because when we asked Lana for the receipt, she produced us with a generic, non-itemized paper, dated three weeks after we moved out (after the owners had been in, I might add, so how do I know they didn't trash the place and have us pay for it?). The house cleaner woman also mentioned that she mowed the grass, and again I'm assuming I'm paying for the grass to be cut and tacked in the $250 bill, because I totally called to ask her if she had cleaned our house. Ridiculous. When we did the house inspection and final outing, Lana was 45 minutes late for the 8am appointment, even after having emails sent earlier that week confirming the date and time. While the actual house was great, and our neighbors were awesome, and while I have never in my life left a negative review on anything like this before, I too would say DO NOT rent from this company if you can help it. Lazy and uncaring people do not manage houses well. I don't think that asking for a new microwave, or having your window be replaced in a timely manner, and locks changed after your house is broken into and vandalized and the keys stolen, are unreasonable requests. Terrible experience as a military family with this company. Sad for the next people that have to deal with them, but so happy to be gone from that company!! (There are so many other examples of crazy I could add from the past four years, but I just don't feel like it) It's just beyond frustrating to deal with this company. I'll leave it at that, but in summary, try to stay away!!

We have been renting with the Century 21 Southern Star for 3 years and it's been a great experience! From the beginning, our property manager Kim has been courteous and professional. She responded to our requests in a timely manner and always followed through with promises. She didn't get upset when I texted her phone during holidays. Our overseas landlord has been a saint! Microwave replaced, kitchen faucet replaced, counter re-caulked, loose stone reattached... The house was almost brand new and super clean when we moved in. No, I don't get perks for writing this. We honestly enjoyed our stay here and if we ever return to the area, we will not hesitate using this agent again. It is such a blessing when people you depend on do their job well.

I apologize for the long review...but I just need to tell about my experience...especially for the new military families that are moving here this summer. I had a terrible experience with this company when I took a trip to Alabama last summer to "house hunt". I had been researching homes and only had a few days that I could see properties. I emailed and called Southern Star and expressed my interest in a particular property one afternoon. By the next afternoon, I still hadn't heard from them via phone or email. I didn't want to miss out on seeing this property...so I went directly to their office. They weren't very friendly when I went into the office and they told me the property manager in charge (Kim Lambert) was not in the office. They had me fill out an application anyhow (and pay $25 for a background check). I really wanted to see the house, so I did this. I let them know my situation and that I would be flying out in a couple of days. After I filled out the application, they let me know that Kim would contact me. I called her cell phone and left her a message as well to follow up. Two days later...I still hadn't heard from anybody and flew back to NJ. I kept checking the site and the home was still available...so I figured they just hadn't been able to get back to me yet. Fast forward to the day I went back to work. I worked for a yearbook company in New Jersey and we were in the middle of production season. I am not supposed to answer my phone or check my personal email at work...but I had listed my work contact info on my application. It was a very busy day...but when things wrapped up in the evening and I checked my phone, I realized I had a message from Kim. I listened to it and she told me that everything was great with the application and that there was another couple that was interested...but she wanted to give me first priority since I came to the office first. I called her back immediately. She did not answer...so I left her a message telling her that we definitely wanted the property (even if it was sight unseen at this point) and I would just need to coordinate payment with them. I didn't hear back from her. The next morning I checked the site and the house was no longer on there. I called her and left another message mentioning this and that I am hoping it's just because we confirmed we wanted it. I didn't receive a call back...I received a text instead saying that she didn't hear back from me by 4pm same day (no deadline was mentioned in the phone call) and already let it go to the other couple. This was disheartening as I didn't hear from them for 2 days...yet I got a call on my cell AT WORK and was expected to respond over the course of a few hours. They had my work info and knew I had a job...yet she didn't bother trying to contact me at either my work email or work phone. I let Kim know that this was upsetting. She said she had been sick when I was in town. (There has to be another property manager that steps in to show homes when somebody is out sick...right?). She told me that if there was another property I was interested in...she could help. At this point, I was so upset by my experience that I started looking for homes not managed by Southern Star Property Management. I wish I would have seen the reviews on Google before contacting them. Other military friends I know who did go with Southern Star expressed that their needs for repairs/issues were not addressed right away this year. I know what happened was actually a blessing in disguise.