Every agent is different and every person's experience with the same agent will be different. This…read morewas my personal experience.
With my respective agent, I was being pacified and coddled for 8 years. If I thought outside of the box, my words were twisted sometimes or I was dismissed or yelled at over email or even by phone once in awhile. Some emails from time to time were purposefully made with bigger font and then smaller font switching back and forth. Relatives of mine do not have that technological foresight.
Instead of just saying politely we cannot do that service etc, I was made out like I was trying to purposely weaponize
the process on my agents. I did not feel
emotionally safe. A "simple" I'm sorry but I don't think we can help you with this aspect, this is all we can help you with, or here is who you can ask would probably have been okay. My culture and respective layers of relationships to this agent forced me to stick with the same one instead of switching. Also my relatives lack of understanding of the more complex social dynamics at play was that much more detrimental to my emotional well being.
I almost lost my job because I was expected to take phone calls without appointment during my work hours at times - numerous times, and it was a big intrusion in my life. Many jobs expect you to be able to do everything in your one lunch break whether it's 15, 30, or 60 minutes and I care about my regular job. So I can't simply flex and take a call at a reasonable lunch hour, and then during another part of the same day, take another call a few hours later on without making big sacrifices somewhere. This was all explained to the respective agent beforehand.
If I was making my main income off of this, this type of demand would be reasonable but that was obviously not the case.
I was not permitted to have a new contract which allowed new tenant to pay a rent fee having electric all inclusive because the contract would be worded in a way that I would be forced to reimburse the tenant the difference between what I charged them for and what it actually cost. The reasoning for this lack of flexibility was that according to the agent, this was not part of the culture of the building even though each landlord-tenant agreement is technically separate from each other in the same building. Whether this is actually true or not, etc., I am not sure.
I was nagged to death to have the place repainted every time which is not sustainable if the prior tenant only lived a year or two. I believe in a level of sustainability. If we tried and it couldn't be rented out, then okay. There was one time that t I was "given" a choice and I had said no. My "no" was not accepted without additional pleading.
I believe I even had the foresight to think that the association could add common utility charges on the landlords beforehand. No such thing would be added to the standard contract nor did I have an option to maybe pay for such a clause to be added. I don't know if this is a per agent thing or a company policy but my opinions and thoughts were completely dismissed and didn't matter until maybe after the fact.
So I had to be responsible for that portion of the new additional charges. As a result my contract fee was waived for an updated contract but I was upset to even be put in that situation.
For paperwork, even things that definitely
Could have been done in advance were done last minute or only if I asked such as pro-rating the electric bill for a property that the agents themselves have worked with in various capacities and owned for decades.
To minimize conflict, I would minimize questions I had because it was considered a bother sometimes. Typically I would email so that an answer didn't feel rushed. The agent I worked with probably didn't have good tech skills and maybe I should've been set up to work with her partner more, who was more tech savvy and seems to understand how to be respectful to others.
I was asked at some points why I was feeling this or that and was cut off many times when I was asked this kind of question. If you're going to ask me a question such as why is managing the property difficult, and then you don't let me fully answer, it's fully disrespectful and completely demeaning.
Even after requesting for appointment to be made or texting first before calling (due to my job), I got harassed so much that I had to block my own agent's number. Finding tenants was expertly done.
My physical boundaries were not respected 2-3 times during closing. i am not your relative, best friend, and just because one is older than me doesn't give you the right to treat me as a child.
If a similar situation happens to me in the future, i will block so and so's number sooner and switch even against my relatives' wishes.
In short, I was not a human being. Just a modern landlord slave with minimal creativity and understanding involved.