Meridee Escalera was amazing to work with. We called multiple realtors for a property we came across on a SUNDAY and she was the only one who answered. She seemed to be available day and night for any questions and response time for text or emails were usually always within minutes. She is extremely professional, knowledgeable, efficient and personable. We highly recommend her and will definitely use her again for any future acquisitions. read more

I worked with Meridee to purchase a multi family family property in Tallahassee. The timing wasn't the best as I was having surgery the day my offer got accepted. Needless to say, we still managed to close within 3 weeks, because Meridee stayed on top of everything and was engaged throughout the process with my lender and other relevant parties to a mortgage. I love that she never forced anyone on me, but provided a list of options in each category (survey, insurance, inspection, plumbing etc.) and was open to me using those not connected with her. I've since closed and she's now my property manager, and I'm so happy to continue working with her. read more

ABSOLUTE SCAM. THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY. DO NOT RECOMMEND AT ALL. It boggles my mind that they are realtors and provide "customer service" to anyone. The experience while residing at the property: My fiancé and I rented a property through Meridee Escalara and coordinated often with both Meridee and Ethan Conrad. They were not warm and fuzzy to say the least. I felt as if any communication received by this team was condescending and frankly made me uncomfortable. The experience leaving the property: We left the property in better condition than when we moved in. (Mind you, when we moved in, it was gross... dusty, grimey and random crap all in the backyard that we thought the owner wanted to leave there). We knew the place was going to be short-term, so we never hung up a thing on the walls - we were charged fees for that. We were charged fees for the crap in the back yard. Additionally we were charged fees for various random things that I know for a fact were a scam. I fought hard to get our deposit back that we deserved, yet they still would not return the amount we were owed. We feel violated and scammed by this company. I very highly do not recommend, unless you don't care to be treated poorly and/or want your deposit stolen from you. read more

Cannot believe i am leaving a yelp review but I also have never delt with such a rude company not interested in actually growing as an agency and gaining reputation but rather is after quick short-term profits. From the second I called this agency, I was ready to fully go all in on a property being advertised as a lease beginning July 1st, with the opportunity to sublease sooner. When I called the agent had no interest in speaking to me and ended the call before I could even process that she was about to end it. She then replied to a few of my texts but shut me down because I did not want to take a sublease and was only interested in moving in July 1st as advertised and as she had told me in the phone the current tenant who is trying to subleases lease ends at the end of July which also would be an ok date for me, though she didn't ask that! She explained on text that they could not hold it the property, but I don't care who is subleasing or if your company chose an unreliable tentant, I am not subleasing my other apartment to move in July 1st, I am going to pay for two apartments in one month, so why does this guy get to just bail on his lease and now that is going to prevent me from getting a property I really liked and was serious about. The entire time they were trying to offer me a property IDENTICAL on the outside with NONE of the interior benefits of the property I wanted and was not bothered to hear my reasoning as to why I don't want to tour it but would PAY MORE than asking price for the one I want to which I got the lovely 3 word reply of "No thank you". After I told them that I would be leaving a review the agent responded "we are a company and cannot negotiate or hold properties." I think that line tells you everything you need to know about living at one of their properties. They don't care who you are or what your life is. As someone who makes WELL over the income requirement, perfect credit no debt, perfect landlord references for years.. if it was this hard for me to get anyone's time of day at this place I can't imagine if you were less than financially perfect trying to live here. I understand companies needing to make profit, but if I put my life on the line to protect your city in order to make my income, you would expect those cities to be able to provide me housing even at the jacked up rate because atleast I am fortunate enough to be able to pay it. I even offered to sign a two year lease on the property I want, guaranteeing this company atleast $34,800 of on time if not early rent over the next two years, not including the above asking I offered, they could hire an entire person with that money but would rather have that one month rent RIGHT NOW instead of just the next month.. they must be struggling financially but I'm sure I will find a safer place at a more competitive rate with a management company who gets excited when a viable tenant reaches out to them and offers to work with them in order to create benefit for all parties involved. Would give negative stars if I could. From a business and moral perspective absolutely awful. read more

RED FLAG CITY... They wanted an application fee of $35 per adult BEFORE even showing the property. "View the virtual tour and drive by the outside. Once your application has been approved, we can schedule a time to show you the property in person." No. Virtual tours DO NOT GUARANTEE the CURRENT condition of a property. Those photos could be 20 years old and 40 tenants ago. Viewing the outside of a property DOES NOT GUARANTEE the CURRENT condition of INSIDE the property. They could paint the outside and mow the grass. Inside still may look like a war-zone! This is a scam. This is one way that companies collect money for properties they do not own, manage, or have any legal right to rent. This is also a way for companies (and the people working for them) to collect every single bit of your personal information that would allow them to steal your whole entire identity. Although Destination Real Estate is a real company... they are not professional in any manner, and the SLEW of horrible reviews only solidifies that I was correct in NOT applying before viewing! read more

Absolutely horrible service. I was really interested in renting a place through Destination Real Estate. They assured me that although there was another application in place that I should still apply with my roommates. We bit the bullet and paid the $35 non refundable fee to apply. Well a few days passed and we hadn't heard anything yet. We called and called and called and got almost nothing in return. Finally two days passed and we called again asking for more information. Turns out they were going to make us each fill out our own application and have our cosigners fill out one as well. That's $75 for each student that needs a cosigner to apply to a property but we would have never even known because they would not return our calls. We ended up not getting our complete application in because they never told us about the individual application requirement until it was too late. read more

I had owned a rental property for years prior to hiring Destination Real Estate to manage. They took over and quickly cleaned up the mess the previous company left the home in. Meridee and her team were extremely responsive and professional in their approach. The fees were inline with the industry and any issue we had was quickly communicated to me with various options on how to resolve. During my relationship with Destination Real Estate, I do not believe I had any gaps in tenants renting the home. I had two tenants over the course of 5 or 6 years, both long term renters with payments made on time! When it was time to sell the property Meridee listed the home and facilitated showings with the tenants. Overall a great job! read more

If your African-American don't even consider them, after calling them about a property rental they originally said someone was approved, two days later it took me calling back for them to say the person no longer wanted to move in, so I went and applied and paid my application fee. I called them back only for them to say it'll take a few days and when I finally called back they said they were going wit someone else who applied after me, so was it discrimination yes I feel like it was and further action will be taken. read more

Where do I begin? If I could leave this real estate/property management business ZERO stars, I would have. I rented from them for close to 2yrs and when it came time to receive my deposit, they took $771 from my fiancé and I. We left the place better than we received it. The carpets were filthy, the house clearly needed to be completely repainted but we thought "oh well, it's only temporary." We should've never given them the benefit of the doubt. This business is only out to make money and will tell you anything and manipulate any situation in order to do so. Between being ignored about serious maintenance issues (which resulted in a ceiling falling completely in all over our belongings) or claiming that you owe late fees when you have the receipts and bank statements to prove otherwise or just withholding important information that renters should be aware of, this business is terrible! When we wanted to renew for another 6 months, we were told to wait to sign it until the 60 days before move out mark but when that day came, we were told that the owners have wanted to sell for awhile and that we needed to move out! This would've been fine if they had been straight forward with us when we told them we wanted to renew in the first place! If you don't want to take just my word on it, google them and see the google reviews from all the renters! They're almost identical! I added this business to yelp JUST so I could hopefully prevent any other renters from experiencing what we did. DO NOT RENT FROM THEM! read more

This was my first time going through a real estate plus paying an application fee for each person applying. The customer service was ok, they answer and respond in a timely manner. The house was small but it was nice for a small family. I was disappointed that I paid all this money, just to be informed that I had to pay this large deposit to live in this type of neighborhood. I was amazed that they check my background to live in this community, which wasn't a safe nor drug free. I felt like a lot of details were left out and I freely handed out money just for them to ask for additional money. This might be a great and legit company but they lost my trust as a client. I don't mind paying a large deposit in an area where I feel safe and secured. read more

Don't expect to get your security deposit money back. Roommates and I were charged $1,760 for extremely minor repairs on a run down piece of crap property. They work with horrible landlords. Should be illegal to rob the amount of money they let the landlord take from us. Ethan Conrad did a good job nonetheless so credits to him. But, even he knew how psychotic the landlord was and I am ashamed that he didn't stick up for us in the end. Step it up, Ethan. read more