"I have a close friend who is renting her house in Northern Virginia and it is simply unbelievable how lazy, incompetant, naive, and/or all-around worthless her property management company is. She tells me things that they do or don't do that I simply don't understand but that leave her paying out the asphalt.
Even though I have quite a lot of experience being an arms-length landlord, I basically had to admit to her that I couldn't give her great advice because you AM folks have spoiled me.
I mean, you guys have given me bad news (some of which costs me a lot of money I'd rather not pay), but that is the risk of the venture. What's important is that I have never had any reason to believe that you were not dealing with me honestly, with integrity, or with my best interests in mind. Similarly, I haven't gotten any indication that you have ever treated the tenants without due respect.
You guys have always been responsive and transparent with me. You lay out sound options for me to choose from when it comes to such a decision being made. You've honorably and contritely corrected mistakes when they occur and have professionally and patiently explained things to me when I misunderstood them. And, even though I've been working with you for over a decade now, I don't think I even fully understand what you guys have to deal with on the tenant-, legal-, and bureaucratic-side. I just know that I'm glad that you and your team are dealing with those things and not me because I have a great amount of trust (through reasoned observation and experience) that you guys are able to deal with them and do so well.
I'm now looking to move from the east to the west and a big part of my problem set is whether to sell or rent my current house. In many ways, I want to keep it to rent but I just don't think I would be able to find a NoVa version of you guys.
Not only have I heard horror stories from my friend about her current experience but I even heard horror stories from my dad growing up about his experience with the property management company renting out our home before I was born. I, myself, had a bad — albeit brief — experience with the company I had before being transferred to you guys. I also had the experience of renting my old TX home, which wasn't altogether bad (it was a fundamentally good company) but it wasn't you guys so it was annoying dealing with them.
You've ruined me by setting my expectations unreasonably too high.
But, all kidding aside, I bet yours is a pretty thankless job where you're normally caught in between two groups that probably always think you're in cahoots with the other group (or something like that).
So, I just wanted you guys to know that at least some of us out there really do appreciate what you do and how you do it and feel blessed that you're taking care of my future."