You can rent from Berkshire... if you want to risk them not fixing major issues at your property that are even structural issues that are safety risks. Our unit was over 3 years out of compliance with the city inspector. I even had to help with the repairs as I didn't want to lose our house. After several years, we will never ever rent or later buy from them. Ever. Not worth the price we paid to have such problems. Oh and have fun with new staff every year too. Some very very lazy and others nice and try to help but they don't last. read more

Berkshire has a huge footprint in Kalamazoo. Many homes are for sale by Berkshire. My experience was pretty bad. Although they did help to sell the house, my agent and buying agent were both from Berkshire and they were miserable. I chose my agent because I thought she would work hard for me. Not so much. I asked for her recommendations on any updates or fixes to better help sell the house, she had nothing helpful. She really seemed like she was barely 1/2 there most of the time. I would email her and she wouldn't respond. Then she said she wasn't getting my emails. So I started texting her. The day we were supposed to find out if the buyer qualified, I heard nothing. So I texted her "this is the day", still nothing. So I call her and leave a message. Nothing. Hours later I get a text back "I'm BUSY!". Wow. Then she sent me documents to sign that had me paying fees that we didn't talk about nor did I agree to. When I couldn't get a hold of her, I emailed the buying agent instead. Who was another winner. The buying agent (Berkshire agent) actually said my house sucked and if her client didn't like it so much, she'd recommend walking away! Imagine, she just risked pissing me off and she told me how much her client liked the house! What a dummy. So why make any concessions? My agent's initial price recommendation was really low. At least 15% lower than what we wanted. And we ended up getting our asking price. This is where having two agents from the same Berkshire firm is sticky. Were they working together to get the buyer the cheapest price? Think about it. 3% of the sale price is nothing in comparison to $10,000 saved on the actual price. Maybe it's best to go with a lesser known RE firm to avoid collusion. They did get the sign out front rather quickly. But when they took photos of the house, the photos made the floors look dirty and were really not very flattering at all. Then they took pictures of the basement that was currently being cleaned up. I was told they would leave those pics out but they didn't. And to my surprise these nasty photos of the basement with dirty floors and cat boxes and other clutter showed up on the website. They really made the house look bad. I had to take my own photos after the basement was cleaned and demand they replace them. My agent said they may not replace them because they have to take the pictures! But they did. The photos overall were amateurish and looked like they were trying to make the house look bad. They took pics of garbage bags on the side of the house. I worked my rear off to get the house in great shape to sell. My agent did next to nothing and she was a miserable person to deal with. At 6% of the sale I think I was over-charged by a lot. The house sold within 4 weeks of listing. And in the end she made some snarky comment about how she sold it. Yeah. Right. read more

I had a terrible experience renting from Berkshire Hathaway. Terribly slow at fixing major problems, response time is poor and often nonexistent, and moving out was awful. The homeowner was paying Berkshire to work with us, but at the very end of a multiple year lease, she took over herself. She nickel and dimed us, taking our entire security deposit, and then some. We made allegedly-approved improvements to the shabby backyard, and were forced to pay $500 to put it back how it was before. We left the home move-in ready. We were charged for new blinds that were never replaced, despite new tenants being moved in. Berkshire did literally nothing to help us. I am disgusted. I thought I was working with a reputable business, but it was a slumlord in disguise. I highly recommend staying far away from this dishonest operation. read more