The Villages Hometown Property Management

My family and I traveled in from Wilmington, N.C. to visit both my parents and grandparents (who both own homes in The Villages). We decided to rent a pet-friendly home since we would be visiting for about a week. Marsha is who we dealt with and both times over the phone was incredibly short, unprofessional, and lacked customer service. We needed my parents to handle our check in process since we would be arriving after 5pm on our check in day, we were told to send an email allowing them to do so. Shockingly, the email was never communicated so that was an additional layer of unnecessary stress. The home itself was great, still a little confused about the two days in between pet-friendly homes for cleaning & sanitation as our home was loaded with cat hair ... even the vacuum cleaner we had to clean out and re vacuum the entire home before we could manage staying seeing as how we all are allergic to cats. The lack of customer service was mind blowing. I still have such a hard time understanding why a person would choose to be in a position that deals with hospitality and customer relationships with such a transparent chip on their shoulder.

I have stayed at a short term rental and have now rented a long term rental as well from The Villages Hometown Property Management and could not be happier. Michelle Bauders found me the perfect home to rent and was so helpful every step of the way as I moved back to Florida from out of state. Once I was ready to move in (the home had been vacant for a few months due to the coronavirus) Mike Weston was my contact for any home maintenance issues. Mike has been wonderful and even a small issue he responds immediately. Thank you to Michelle and Mike for making my move to the long term rental a great experience. I would highly recommend The Villages Hometown Property Management!

I was shopping in the Brownwood Square and went into the sales center to use the restroom. I was told the public restrooms were down the street. I am a fulltime resident in the villages and have used the sales office restrooms before. So much for Florida's Friendliest Hometown.

This company is expensive for the services we received. We contracted with them to rent a villa that we owned in the villages. I found them very difficult to work with as well as not very good about returning calls. When we decided that we wanted to sell the property at the end of the tenant's lease we let them know well in advance since the tenant wanted to extend the lease. Once the tenant knew we would be selling, she found something else to rent but needed to take it before the lease was up. We were willing to let her out of the lease if she agreed to allow showings of the property. We thought this would be a win-win proposal. The management company flatly refused to propose this to the tenant or work with us on this. The are very rigid.nnWe ended up taking the property out of the program on August 31st but they did not refund our owners deposit until May 6th. It took 8 months to for them to process a check.nnI am sure there are less expensive management companies that are easier with which to work.

Second year renting from them. As a renter, you can’t see the house nor do you know what amenities are supplied. With two dogs, we need grass or stone for them as we don’t want urine/feces to stain homeowners’ concrete . Pictures supplied don’t give adequate portrayal. You also don’t know where the house is except for a general area. With VRBO etc. at least you can see reviews of the house you want to rent. This year we arrived to find the following: dog urine stains on carpet, furniture. Cabinet next to toilet stained with urine or vomit . Coffee table leg broken (we fixed) Master bedroom comforter smelled so bad it wasn’t usable. Vacuum cleaner was full of dog hair and roller brush clogged with dog hair and had to be replaced (have pictures to document all these claims). Kitchen had no bowls, food storage containers, pots/pans not usable. The ceiling fan chains are broken and to use ceiling fans, you have to stand on the bed to grab what’s left of chain....how safe is that!? Here one month and still not fixed. Table lamps didn’t work and it took two weeks to get extension cords. Opened windows and sills were caked with black mold/dirt. No rags for cleaning, no mop/bucket to wash hard surface floors. Carpet is so dirty our white dog is gray. No outdoor furniture to enjoy outdoor eating. Final straw smoke alarm low battery starts chirping so we call maintenance. One battery is replaced ...not all and when we asked why, was told they only replace the one chirping. Next morning at 5am, another one starts chirping and dogs are terrified.If we were short term renter no big deal but we’ve spent $14,000.00 for a four month rental. There seems to be no consistency in amenities (kitchen supplies and outdoor living specifically). We are renting seasonally to determine which village we want to buy and going forward will likely seek to rentnfrom VRBO, real estate agency (plentiful here).