Creative Housing

We've been renting from Creative Housing in SC for almost a year now, and it's near impossible to get anyone on the phone. Messages for questions or repair requests go unanswered. The only way to get a response is to luckily get someone on the phone and then they *might* help you in getting the right people to respond. Calls returned from their repair and HOA people start out with a nasty attitude and turn into an attempt to shut down the conversion by yelling over you. Avoid this company at all costs.

Don’t ask Barbie to have something fixed. She will have a tantrum and not renew your leasse. Paid on time for almost a year. When I called to complain about an issue her reponse was basically that she was going to make us move out. I’ll sue for descrimination if she does. She needs to be bought out. The other lady is nicer.

We had been using creative housing for years. We live in California and our properties are in S. Carolina. After years of Barbie, Peyton and Joanne dodging calls and erasing my emails... they had an opportunity to step up to the plate when a 5 year renter left one of my properties. The renter had given plenty of notice, but there was a ton of damage done to the house. She had 4 cats, all of which were illegal. There was a foot by foot gash in the dry wall by the front wall, and a 3 x 4 foot stain in the carpet. The entire place smelled musky and like animal urine, all walls needed to be re painted. Creative Housing did a walk through and the renter had hidden problem areas with pictures and rugs. Instead of doing a final walk through when all of there stuff was out, Barbie decided to refund 100% of this deposit (only $1000) back to the renter. So now I'm footing a huge bill to fix the place. So tired of this, Barbie holds no responsibility. I take 100% fault in employing her for more than 3 years. Renters and Owners Be Aware! And she'll never return your phone calls.

We rented from Creative Housing for 13 miserable months. I've told everyone how we were treated like second class citizens. The worst part of our experience was calling Peyton to tell her there was a dead animal in the chimney and it needed to be removed immediately. She laughed at us and got an exterminator to the house 3 days later (there were 2 dead raccoons). Terrible property management group.

Renter Beware!!! This company initially appears to be professional, until it is time to deal with promises and commitments made by the staff. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ensure that you receive an initial walk-through, and make them write down and sign all issues in the house. We were not offered this upon move in (big mistake on our part!). When it is time to move out, they will not offer a walk through. DO IT, and when you do it, make them fill something out stating what they saw. We are currently battling issues over our deposit from the previous house, and being accused of leaving the house "filthy", which was never mentioned during the walk through. When we approached them about getting an itemized list, they, of course, were not able to provide it at the time. Promises have been made in the new house of theirs we moved into (definitely would not have if we had known they would turn into witches!) that have not been kept, and no certain answer has been given. Barbie's suggestion to us when asking for a time line of getting issues resolved was to move out. VERY unprofessional. Take your time and money somewhere else!!!!

I concur with everything other complainers have stated about Barbie MacDonald and her team at Creative Housing, LLC. She did not return phone calls in a timely manner, lied on several occasions, and charged me for things I did not approve. We live a 1000 miles away from our property in Mauldin and it flooded four times this summer with the heavy rains. The best she could do was send Roger over with her go-to carpet cleaner. She completely dropped the ball when the going got rough. I thought I hired a management company to be there for the possible bad situations. The opposite was true. We would get a doomsday phone call and then we would spend a week trying to get details. They claimed to call contractors for us, but would not leave a message. Weeks dragged by. She would tell us how horrible the tenants were and tell them how unresponsive we were, pitting us against each other. Meanwhile the carpet padding and walls stayed wet and got stinky. The tenants were screaming mold. Barbie was no help. She would only assure me she was doing everything her insurance company would do. She even lied and said she had called two companies out to do waterproofing at my property, but that they said they "could not do the work". BULLSH...I was feverishly trying to find out exactly what was wrong and who the best contractor was to fix it once and for all. Was it the foundation? Would indoor waterproofing work? Would it need a french drain? Every contractor was so busy because the whole town had flooded and it rained everyday in the area making the *** to get repairs done 4 weeks or longer. To make the tenants (who refused to break the lease and move out) comfortable, I Hired Rainbow to come out and knock holes in the walls, roll back carpets, and remove trim work and run fans and dehumidifiers for a month to save the house from molding. The icing on the cake was the EMAIL I received early one SATURDAY morning while my whole family from out of state was at my house getting ready for a family wedding. Needless to say it ruined my day. She emailed, not called, to drop us from her client list because we were taking too long to fix our house. I was devastated to think my property was 1000 miles away flooded with a family living in it and she had just shoved us to the curb. She cannot handle the 400 properties she is already mismanaging and you should not trust her with your precious investment. we have had a nightmarish time as landlords from day one. She is a ***

Compiled reviews found online about this company paint a picture that should warn you NOT to deal with this company. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ After having our townhouse on the market for three and half months, we decided to look for property management companies to rent it out until the development is finished and we aren't competing with a builder to sell our place. We called several property management companies and decided to go with Barbie and the team at Creative Housing. She was the cheapest in town (8% flat fee) and boasted of her ability to advertise. What wasn't to like? Well, we are now three weeks into the marketing, have had a few showings but no action; all this in spite of lowering the rent by $100/month. So, we decided to list an ad on Craig's List this past weekend with some picture to see if we could jump start the process. We got several promising leads but couldn't get anyone from Creative Housing to show our place on short notice. So, we showed it ourselves and sent all the info to Barbie's team thinking we were helping the process. Well, that seemed to rub her the wrong way because she wouldn't return our calls and, after several emails back and forth, we severed ties. I do not recommend using this company to manage your property. They will try to hook you with lower fees and talk about how they are so much more educated than others in the field. The reality is they don't even list the rental on MLS and take FOREVER to get back with you. Worth the extra money to go with a different firm that is customer oriented, uses technology to its fullest and is interested in running a solid business for both owners and renters. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Renters Beware After being shown a house that this company had listed, I decided to rent it. We had agreed on the length of the lease as well as the price. I took my application fee to the office and was told I would need to wait to put a security deposit down on the home until the results were back on the credit check. The next day I left a message with the office that I would bring the security deposit by close of business that day. When my husband was bringing the check, we were told that the house had already been rented. The company never told us in any message that there was another interested party and that we should bring the deposit sooner. Had we been told this, we would have left work and brought the check immediately. Having a background in leasing and property management myself, I have never come across such dishonest and unethical behavior with a company. They completely leased the property out from under us. We never even received an apology. To make matters worse, they refused to refund our application fee. They never had written consent to do a credit check either. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING PUTTING YOUR HOME UP FOR LEASE WITH THIS COMPANY, DO NOT! There are many more honest companies out there. I wouldn't recommend leasing a home with this company either. If this is the way they treat potential renters, I can't imagine how poorly they would treat someone who was locked into a lease. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ BUYER BEWARE ! Creative Housing LLC was managing the rental of 2 homes I own. We were very disappointed with the job that they performed for us and on behalf of the tenants in the homes. They are extremely non-transparent and unprofessional in their business dealings. They don't return phone calls and emails and have produced very questionable invoices for very questionable property repair work. As a tenant if you are encouraged to leave a property to rent another that they are managing, you should be very suspect of the reasons why - it may be that the landlord is asking for proof of work done or other items and they just want to remain unaccountable. Based on my own experience and having read some of the reviews here, it is clear that Creative Housing is serving neither the tenants nor landlords well. Perhaps they are taking us all for a ride. BUYER BEWARE! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Everything about this company is horrible. Barbie and Peyton are very unprofessional and complete liars on so many levels. When you first move in, they're nice but when you leave or have a complaint they are rude and don't return phone calls. I left my place spotless and they still came up with bogus reasons why they only returned 1/4 of my deposit. Do not rent from Creative Housing!! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Don't expect to get your full deposit back. We leased from this company for over a year; never late or missing a payment. The owner of the property told us (contrary to the lease) to contact her for any repairs and tried to talk us into buying the house from her without a realtor. When it came time to vacate the property, the owner lied and said she never said those things. We didn't get our full deposit back. When I called CH about it (several times without a return phone call), they said that the full deposit was not refunded because of carpet cleaning that had to be done. We have leased properties several times before and have never had any of our deposit withheld--and we certainly never had to have the carpet cleaned before we vacated the property. In addition, at the final walk-through, nothing was even mentioned about the carpet's condition or that it needed to be cleaned in order to get our full deposit back. These people are very deceptive and should not be trusted. It is interesting to note that the three "excellent" ratings out of the five below are all posted on July 1st and that they are similar in so many ways: listing "Peyton & Barbie," using CAPS on several words, listing "Great Experience," etc. I wonder if these posts will be deleted now that I've brought attention to them. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I wouldn't recommend Creative housing to anyone. The Owner Payton is very rude and disrespectful just like her team. I ask to cut my lease by a month so I could move to German for my new job. They were more worried about the money than anything. After I turned in a letter to move they wont fix anything and don't return phone calls. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL and BAD BUSINESS PRACTICE. STAY AWAY in my OPINION To my fellow Germans: Warnung! Die Deutschen kommen in South Carolina für Expat oder etwas, Bitte bleiben Sie weg von Creative Gehäuse ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I lived in the Townes of Cherrydale, in which every ad states assigned parking. Yet when I move in and complain to them about the lack of parking, they said there is not assigned parking. False advertising. I had to laugh too, the 3 bed 2 bath unit I rented for $850 just a couple months ago is now listed at $925! Their maintenance man Roger is about as useless as they come. When I moved out, they charged me for carpet cleaning, which I expected. Word to the wise, get it done yourself for much cheaper. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Terrible company to rent from unless you are going to never use the residence you get from them! 1) We gave them a $985 deposit (one full month's rent). They took $375 when we moved out for "paint". The homes are painted with a very cheap, flat paint that can not be cleaned or it strips off to the wall board. 2) No emergency phone number for after hours emergencies. Our heat went out during one of the cold spells last winter. This occurred during the night and there was no way to contact anyone for help. Have a special needs child and this was very difficult on her. 3) Asked for assistance finding a carpet cleaner (twice) and was told from the office that they didn't have anyone to recommend. Then they wanted to charge us for that , but reconsidered billing us that too when told we had asked for references. 4) On the exit walk-thru we were asked for remotes for the garage and explained that those had been asked for twice by us and the man doing the walk thru (Roger) acted like we were lying. 5) Difficult to get work orders placed. Did several when taking the rent in and those things were never fixed and my husband eventually gave in and did them. 6) Fortunately they did not raise our rent when our lease ran out, but we would have had to move because this was extremely expensive for our family of 1 income. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I WOULD NOT ENCOURAGE ANYONE TO DEAL WITH CREATIVE HOUSING. THEY EXPECT TO PAY DEPOSIT AND THEN TAKE YOUR DEPOSIT AWAY STATING YOU DID NOT LEAVE IT TO THEIR SATISFACTION. ********STAY AWAY******* ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Owners beware of this company. They are in it for the money and not the management. They also have only a D+ rating with the better business bureau. I wish i would have done my homework. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I would not recommend to rent from these people they say they are Christians BUT if they were truly Christians they would not do their renters wrong. they are money hungry and incosiderate!!!!! I BELIEVE THEY USE THE RENTERS MONEY TO PAY THEIR OFFICE RENT!!!! DO NOT RENT FROM THEM!!! they appear nice at the beginning but are NOT!! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I have to agree with "Fulf guy" I too rented from Creative Housing and stayed in one of there units or 3 1/2 year they wanted to go up on the rent around Christmas time. i told them I couldn't pay that much the rent was high enough. They unit was nice, but they had ONE MAINTENANCE GUY THAT FIXED EVERYTHING ...AND HE DID KNOW HOW TO FIX NOTHING. I would try to go see Barbi and she was never available to see and they never have me my lease after my first year. And every-time I tried to get one they tell me I need to see Barbi and they will mail it to me. They never did!! SO when they tried to go up on my rent, and I asked alot of questions within a week later I got a rule to vacate letter. There was nothing I could do because I didn't have a lease and they gave the run around trying to get one. I WOULD ADVISE NO ONE TO RENT FROM THESE PPL ..When I tried to go and talk to them OOHHH guess who was there then BARBIE ..AFTER A THESE TIMES SHE WAS NEVER THERE ... AND SHE TOLD ME TO GET OVER IT AND GET OUT. THEY ALSO DID THE TENANT UP THE STREET FORM ME LIKE THIS . RENTERS BEWARE!! https://plus.google.com/106320****101********/about?hl=en http://local.yahoo.com/info-4493****-creative-housing-greenville?csz=Taylors,+SC http://www.yellowpages.com/greenville-sc/mip/creative-housing-1371****?lid=1371**** http://www.bbb.org/nw-south-carolina/Business-Reviews/property-management/creative-housing-llc-in-greenville-sc-1100****/Complaints#breakdown

We have rented from them for over two years and it is always a struggle to get them to fix anything, IF, you can get them on the phone. I have made three attempts to get them to come out and fix leaky windows that the water pours in from when it rains. Considering that it has rained for weeks now this is a lot. It has caused water damage to my furniture and drapes and I am sure eventually will damage the wood floors. we are paying $2000.00 our rental and I we dint like the neighborhood we would not renew.