Warning against use of Turnkey Vacation Rentals to manage properties

Paul368
Level 4
New Orleans, LA

Warning against use of Turnkey Vacation Rentals to manage properties

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.  

110 Replies 110
Ellen763
Level 1
San Diego, CA

This is a scamy company, I strongly recommend not booking with them. I booked through their site and my reservation was canceled without a reason. When I contacted the company to have it reinstated they tripled the price and told me they changed the rates. I consider it the company's responsibility to honor the rate they post on their site. I strongly recommend booking with another company.

@Ellen763 "...strongly recommend booking with another company." Even better, steer clear of places that are managed by big management companies. Home owners who manage their own listings (or have a competent co-host) and have a history of good reviews, have a vested interest in being appropriately responsive to guests.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

My initial reaction on reading this thread was, the mind boggles. Why hasn't the US corporate watchdog shut this company, Turnkey Vacation Rentals  down?

It is hard enough trying to get the STR market to run smoothly without companies like this coming along and pulling the rug out from under our feet. Thank God they are not active in my part of the world.

The public deserves protection.....where are the authorities in this?

 

Then I decided to look Turnkey up on the internet to gauge just how bad this company is, and one of the first sites to come up was, Trustpilot. Now I know nothing about Trustpilot  except that it is a review site and Turnkey actually seem to come out reasonably well. They are one of the better overall reviewed companies. From 2,950 reviews 66% of respondents classified them as 'Great' to 'Excellent'!

A still substantial 31% put them in the 'Bad' category, but they fared much better than I expected they would after reading the posts here on the CC.

Turnkey Rentals.png

 

Some companies have an infinitely worse review rating than Turnkey......

 

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No I don't know if Trustpilot accepts incentive reviews, where some sort of enticement has been given for a positive review, but looking at that review site I wonder why Trustpilot's result vary so significantly to ours here on the CC.

Airbnb gets painted in a much worse light when you look at a site like Airbnbhell. I wonder if we only hear half the story on these threads. 

 

Cheers........Rob

@Robin4 Well, of course there aren't likely to be many hosts or guests who would bother to post here just to say what a great experience they had with Turnkey, unless they had been incentivized in some way to do so. 

But 31% bad ratings doesn't sound like anything for a company to be proud of. And even a broken clock has the correct time twice a day.

Austin127
Level 2
Arlington, TX

Man i'm torn between building my own team or trying to hire turnkey after reading this thread. If you actually go through and lookup up reviews (galveston area) from guests they really aren't bad at all. Looks like some inconsistencies with communication and some overpricing that lowers the value score which really isn't a deal breaker considering the time Ill be saved.

Franklin75
Level 2
Newton, MA

@Austin127 , @Robin4 

As an owner who used Turnkey for 3 years, I can give them a positive review. Early on the reps were not skilled, but over time TK built a competent team. For the last year and a half they were responsive and on top of details. At one point they weren't communicating well with our trusted cleaner, but after bringing it to their attention they resolved that quickly, and she continued working with them, including new jobs they got for her, which we appreciated. 

 

The local team (Cape Cod, MA) took great care of issues at the house. For example, when the fridge broke they helped get a rental fridge quickly (during covid, when none were available for purchase). They arranged trash pickup on changeover day without charging us, because town pickup was a couple of days later (we rent Sat - Sat) and guests were unhappy arriving with the trash barrels full (even though they were outdoors, and the house was spotless). When the water heater broke, they arranged a plumber and got it fixed without us having to do anything. 

 

We chose to end our relationship with TK this year because we found we can rent our property for full months with free listings on craigslist. We were not happy with the large fees TK charges us and then how many more charges they add for guests. To net our weekly rate, guests were paying nearly twice as much. Still, guests were willing to pay it, and we were fully booked during the whole season (it's a summer rental).

 

Turnkey treated us well for over 3 years. Their policies were clear and transparent. After the initial growing pains, TK did a good job for us, netting us good revenue while taking care of all the hassles of arranging rentals and issues at the house.

 

At least in the Cape Cod market, Turnkey provides good service, and are good to work with. 

Kayla272
Level 1
San Diego, CA

Wish I could leave less than one star. I booked a 5 bedroom home with Air BnB who contracts with Turn Key. The house was booked 6 months in advance for a 30th birthday on one of the busiest weekends in South Lake Tahoe. I received a notification two months before the trip, that the house was canceled because “the house doesn’t rent anymore”. Since we are now only two months out, there are no available properties to accommodate 10 people. After 10 text messages, they finally offered ONE 3 bedroom house an hour away. They had nothing more to say besides “we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience”. What kind of rental agency cancels a home with no explanation? Fortunately I only had to pay half up front, which is being returned. However there are no options to book large enough homes, even through other platforms. They did not even offer compensation for a future booking. Truly unbelievable the zero customer service support they provided. Essentially stranded 10 people who already booked airfare. 

I wish I would have done my research before signing with this terrible company.  I signed almost 2 months ago and had the “kickoff call” and nothing  has happened yet.  My place has not gone live yet,  I have placed unlimited calls just to get few calls back with no real answers of what’s going all,  no one knows if pictures had been taken or when the new lock will be placed,  nothing. Communication is non existing, period.  But yet my brother went there last week and found a loose lock hanging  from the door which basically anyone can take, brake and brake into my place.  The cleaning company has been apparently there because the linen was in place.  No one told me anything and I can’t get a hold of no one.  There is a number for emergencies that NEVR EVER gets answered to.  It is just simply a disaster.  Of course I will be canceling the contract today,  with no 30 days notice as nothing has been accomplished from their side according to the terms of the contract.   What a waist of my time and money as I could had already rented my place these last two months..... 

Hi Patricia -- I'm with TurnKey Vacation Rentals and am so sorry for the experience you've had, which does not sound up to our standards for service, particularly in onboarding. Could you please email us at reviewsupport@turnkeyvr.com so we can investigate? Thank you, and again we apologize for your frustrating experience. 

No @Adam1073, this IS the way you do business.

 

Turnkey Vacation Rentals

Tilghman Beach & Racquet Club Condo

207 N. Ocean Blvd.

Unit #144

North Myrtle Beach, SC

 

We arrived at 10:00 PM on July 3rd, 2021 to find the unit so dirty and gross that we spent the next 6 hours mopping floors and washing bedding in order to feel comfortable enough with the cleanliness to sleep in the beds.  We spent the next day dealing with Turnkey, supervising cleaning and maintenance staff, obtaining cleaning supplies and cleaning the entire unit. 

 

On Sunday July 4th, Turnkey sent a maintenance man to replace a battery in a smoke detector.  We didn't know that this person would be arriving and were surprised when he walked into our unit.  We were on the balcony.  He had no uniform and wore no shoes.

 

Next, the cleaning crew arrived.  They swept and mopped the floors and cleaned the bathrooms.  After sweeping, the gentleman deposited a large furry lint and dirt ball into our trash can.  He mopped the floors and let us know that it took 3 times because the water was black the first 2 times.  And this after we mopped the night before.

 

We took pictures and emailed them to the site supervisor Lexi.  After this email was sent, we received no texts, no emails and no phone calls.  I texted and called Lexi several times and received no response.  (What could she say?  There was no defense!)

 

We asked for $525.00 dollars for the lost day, our cleaning efforts which did not cease until late in the day on July 4th and cleaning supplies.  We thought this was more than fair.  They apparently disagreed and informed us that we would receive a $430.00 credit in 3-5 days.  We received that credit on July 18th and a final phone call on July 23rd stating that $430.00 was all we were going to get.

 

Among the issues were:

  1.   Screens on the front porch were ripped and hanging like something you might find in an abandoned home.  
  2.   Floors that were so nasty they were slippery like a greasy floor in a poorly kept fast food restaurant.  
  3.   No furnace filter because the old filter was so dirty that it had been pulled out of the air handler.
  4.   Stains on the sheets and bedding.  When we stripped the beds we found sand and hair between the top sheet and the fitted sheet and between the fitted sheet and the mattress cover.  I would expect this at a run down $29/night motel not a $3,000/week condo.
  5.   Food remnants, crumbs etc. in the silverware holders in the drawers.  Yes, we washed all of the dishes and cleaned out all of the drawers.
  6.   Dirty/stained shelf liners in many of the kitchen cabinets.
  7.   Furniture so dirty that we bought a king size comforter to throw over the couch so we wouldn't have to touch the couch.

 

I could go on but you should get the point.  Be very careful when booking from Turnkey.  It was no way to start a vacation and they created quite a bit of work and stress for us trying to get this resolved. 

 

You can see by their reluctance to negotiate that they clearly don't care about their customer.Silverware.jpg

Patricia’s bad experience with Turnkey was similar to mine except I did not cancel soon enough. It’s a terrible company. Unethical and poorly managed. 

Krystle30
Level 2
San Diego, CA

I wish I could say that I had a fabulous trip but this was by far worst Airbnb experience since 2017. If the owner or Turnkey would have handled this in a manner where they valued your customer experience, time and money then the review would reflect differently.

Rented a house in Palm Springs, Ca. Upon arrival the A/C would not work; would not go below 80 degrees. Called Turnkey for help. Soonest could have someone come out was 9:30-11 pm at night which we were not comfortable with having someone there that late at night. So we had to go to Lowes to buy a fan. Magically the A/C began to work hours later as if someone had remotely taken off the master controls and set schedule or override.

The Hot Tub was a hue of green on the bottom from not being cleaned. Needless to say did not get in it. The Pool/Spa lights did not work. Again called Turnkey and put in a work order request. Before pool lights issues were fixed we had a kitchen sink flooding issue which we tried to make dinner. Again called Turnkey for yet another work order request. Still at this point not one representative from Turnkey bothered to physically come to the property, personally call with an apology or since or this being an urgent mater to show any ounce of remorse for all the issues been dealing with since our arrival.

Finally the pool man shows up 7-8 pm to let us know its a faulty switch and had to get approval before could come back and replace it. Which never got replaced while we were there. So they never completed fixing that issue. And we never received a call from Turnkey asking if that issue was resolved and addressed. So again no follow through from Turnkey just like with the A/C.

Get an update about the plumbing the soonest a plumber could be out would not be until after 11:30 pm at night. Once again not acceptable with us. This is our vacation which we had already waited for a pool man to come by since 8am now they want us to stay awake and let some strange man come into the house that late at night and be there for who knows how long to repair it??? Evidently this is acceptable behavior to Turnkey and the owner for the guest to have to accommodate this type of inconvenience and unprofessional behavior. I have never encountered a company where they expect and make it feel as if it is the customer's fault an issue isn't resolved because I do not find it professional or acceptable to have a unannounced, unaffiliated vendor come to the house that late at night.

We asked for late check out since we really had not been able to enjoy our time as we had hopped and the request was denied. Really?!? After all we had gone through? This place already had a later check in and early check out then most rentals.

I requested for management to contact us several difference times throughout our stay which never happened. When I returned home I had to call and demand to speak with manager. When finally spoke with the manager Kim she was the worst employee I had dealt with with Turnkey. And I had dealt with a number of different employees over the course of 5 days trying to get this resolved. It was clear that they do not pride themselves on customer service or experience. After all this the compensation for my inconveniences was worth to them $55.00. I spent over $1300 on a rental with a $225 cleaning fee with numerous issues and inconveniences with maintenance people coming ever day of the short weekend stay. $55 doesn't cover the cost of dinner had to order out since we had no working sink or the fan had to go buy to stay cool. Worst part of all I confirmed the owner was aware of this issue and didn't bother to reach out directly to us with an apology or anything.

Sara6719
Level 1
St. Louis, MO

Regrettably, we had a terrible experience with TurnKey as guests. I know to avoid their parent company, Vacasa, now as well. 

Joshua687
Level 2
La Mesa, CA

@Paul368 Thanks so much for this post! Yes, TurnKey is definitely a shady operation. They cancelled a paid reservation on us a day before the scheduled check in based on my race. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced discrimination perpetuated by TK. Please reach out if so.

@Joshua687  They told you it was based on your race? I find that hard to believe.

 

If you are just assuming that's why they cancelled, you can't accuse someone of discrimination based on your suspicions. If you read through posts here, this company cancels bookings all the time, regardless of the guest's race.