Warning against use of Turnkey Vacation Rentals to manage properties

[Paul368]

Hello, 

I have been a host for six years across two cities, and I wanted to put out some information about my experience with Turnkey Vacation Rentals in Nashville, TN. This company was a complete disaster for my listings, and I would never recommend any host use them. I have a TON of things to say, but I'll try to list the basic issues with their "service."

1. They advertise a "hands-off" and "worry free" service for absent landlords. It was anything but. They couldn't even handle basics like getting the lawn cut before it was 3 feet tall in mid-summer, causing mutiple terrible reviews. I had to check up their work constantly, and they showed no care at all to making sure guests had a good experience and would leave the listings with good reviews.

2. They similarly advertise high-quality vacation listings, but they were awful at basic things that give guests a good experience. Replacement towels and linens were of really low quality, and not maintained well, despite these expenses being charged to me. They didn't even try to use good products when they weren't paying for them! Again, no care given to providing a good guest experience, and the listing suffered for it. 

3. They never held guests accountable for damages or even apparent theft. Items went missing from the home, including a full bed frame. Curtain and bathroom hardware was pulled down and shoddily replaced multiple times, but no guests were held accountable for these damages, and I ended up eating the costs.

4. Becuase the reviews suffered so terribly, after buring through my old airnbnb reservations that were already in place at handover, they had one good month of revenues (when their listing was new), and then after that, reservations tanked. I had 3-4 days out of two months reserved when I finally fired them. Now I'm having to cover the mortgage at this house with no revenue coming in for two months wheil I wait to get a long term tenant in place.  

Bottom line, this company is unprofessional in many ways and not to be trusted with any property that is nice enough to be a good airbnb listing. Plus, there is no bond or deposit in place to ensure their care of your property or business reputation. Use their services at your own risk.  

[Sarah977]

@Adam1073  Your employers have given you an utterly useless task. Consumers, especially on this forum, are thoroughly fed up with corporate PR damage control. Companies who deal fairly and ethically with their customers don't have the need to do such things. 

[Donna893]

This company is a nightmare.  My husband and I traveled 9 hour to our booked condo in South Padre Island only to find out that Turnkey had LOST the management contract.  We arrived to a maintenance man changing the locks on the condo.  Note, we had been in contact with Turnkey earlier by text for check-in information.  We stood outside the complex until someone finally was able to DOWNGRADE us to another unit.  We really had no alternative but to take the deal.  We were told the unit was $50. less per night and it was a nice unit but over the hot tub and public beach entrance.  We really wanted the privacy of the unit we originally rented.  We received a $43 refund and NO follow up after two emails to them.  They promised to follow up but did not.  They really didn't care.  Donna

[Adam1073]

Hi @Donna893 -- I work at TurnKey Vacation Rentals and am so sorry for the frustration you experienced, both with your stay and our communications. Your experience does not appear to live up to our service standards, and I assure you that we do take this seriously. Could you please email us at reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com with your booking information so that we can investigate and get back to you?

[Sarah977]

@Adam1073  These guests said they already sent 2 emails to your company which went unanswered. Why would they waste their time emailing yet again? 

Damage control is not a substitute for good customer service, a concept many companies these days seem not to understand.

[Adam1073]

I appreciate your concern @Sarah977 as it does appear that our communication processes broke down in this case. We never want this to happen to any of our guests and understand the frustration this can cause. But over the course of handling more than 100,000 checkouts this year, we have experienced unique situations when our processes did not work as designed or could be improved. This does not happen often, but when it does we take it very seriously. I'm currently working with our team to investigate what happened, improve our processes and try to find a positive resolution for the guest.

Rest assured, we do not seek to find any substitute for good customer service, which is why we take this feedback to heart in our efforts to improve.

[Jean687]

I had a luxury property with Turn Key and agree with everything above.  They do not screen renters and do not oversee the guests or have anyone local that takes any responsibility for anything that happens.  It was a very bad experience.

JB

[Adam1073]

Hi @Jean687 -- I work at TurnKey Vacation Rentals and I'm sorry our service did not meet or exceed your expectations, which is always our goal. During the process of finalizing a reservation, we've implemented technology (including bank-level ID verification) that guests must pass in order to prove they are who they say they are. In addition, we do have local team members in each of our markets to provide personal attention to every one of our homes, and we have taken many steps to reinforce a culture of accountability. However, I do acknowledge that this was not your experience and would like to apologize again for this.

I realize that you have had communication with other members of our team, but if you could contact me at *sensitive information hidden* I'd like to look into your specific issues to see where we missed and to help us improve.

[Charles922]

Adam,

Do you still work for Turnkey? They mismanaged my account and stated that it wasn't available for rental for the 4th of July weekend, 2020. It was available and I lost the revenue for that time period. Turnkey recognized that it was their fault but refused to compensate me in any way. Do I have any recourse at all in this? If not Ill be canceling my account with them.

[Adam1073]

Hi Charles. Yes I still work for TurnKey and would be happy to look into this for you. Please send me an email including the name and email address on your account to reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com so I can investigate. Thank you.

[Sharon1142]

My experience as well. Turnkey was a fiasco. 

[Nicole1981]

It's Jan 2020. Is the Turnkey VR pitch for managing your property what you and your guests get? Also what brand of toiletries do they use. A small detail but if you have a high end 5 star I'd like to know.

[Tom2450]

Was considering TurnKey for a new property in a popular vacation town. Thanks to this thread I will no longer be considering TKVR. Good lord. Not only the horrible experiences, but the piss poor response attempts by a blank account named Adam. Thank the Lord I googled Turnkey looking for exactly this sort of background on the company ... yikes. Thank you all for your postings. 

[Andrew1858]

Worst Experience Ever. Don't rent this property !
This property is directly under the main runway flight path of WPB airport. The big Boeing 777's fly very close over the property 18 hours+ a day. And there's also a train that goes by all the time a block away. We couldn't stay even one night. TurnKey Vacation Rentals, the booking agent/property managers, where unwilling to move us to another location even after escalating to supervisors. And they lied to us after the fact as well. TurnKey also emailed that they don't pay the cleaning people if there's a bad review for cleanliness..that's terrible. VRBO did come through for us to assist after all other efforts failed and we really appreciate that they are a responsible company for this misrepresented property. Love VRBO. We will never rent another TurnKey Vacation Rentals property again.
#don'tRentTurnKeyVacationRentals #TurnKeyVacationRentalsBadCompany

[Nancy1315]

Would like to add my communication nightmare just trying to get a question answered . I was quoted one amount but a higher amount came up when I actually booked. They absolutely could not follow email thread and did not return call as promised. Highly confused and unprofessional.

[Christian2261]

I've had a similar, completely negative experience with Turnkey. I had great airbnb success renting out my townhome in Destin, FL, an incredibly popular vacation spot. When I had to leave Florida for work, I needed a manager that would allow me to stay hands-off and focus on my job.

Turnkey quoted me 35, 40, and 45k as their low/med/high estimates for a year's rentals. I should've paid attention to the "too good to be true" voice in my head, but I signed with them anyway. After a year's worth of gross rental/price mismanagement, they managed only 19k in earnings for the year, to include 2k in total rentals in June. June in Destin, FL! I was left paying a significant chunk of the mortgage out of pocket.

Aside from the huge rental losses, similar to other posters here, customer service and basic rental management was also an issue. We asked them to get a quote for repainting the home, and the lowest they found was 7k. My wife found multiple local companies willing to do the same work for 3.5k. They replaced our furniture covers with completely non-matching colors, treated a friend of mine rudely while he stayed there... when I finally told them I was moving on, they told me to wait "a few days" for a guaranteed revenue offer. Three weeks later, while I should've been listing the home for crucial spring break rentals, they offered me 31 guaranteed. Couldn't even match their low quote, let alone make up for their huge revenue loss.

I'm posting this in the hopes that other property owners seriously reconsider before signing with Turnkey. Look anywhere else for management if you want to make a profit, or even just cover your mortgage.