Huffington Magazine Issue 75 | Page 56

IMPOSSIBLE LANDLORDS complaints. The rush to buy up as many homes as possible has stretched resources to the point of breaking, these people said. “Complaints were coming at us like out of a fire hose,” said a former Invitation Homes employee, who worked in the property management division and routinely fielded maintenance requests. Initially, the former employee said, the company took care to make sure renovations were up to snuff. But before long, the task of overseeing dozens of independent contractors tending to thousands of homes spread out over huge geographical areas became simply too much, even though the company was hiring staff as quickly as it could. Call centers were overwhelmed. “Getting someone on the phone was next to impossible,” the employee said. “I have no doubt the customer experience was compromised.” Other ex-investment company employees spoke of increasing pressure to fix up the homes cheaply and quickly. A former inspector for American Homes 4 Rent who worked in the Dallas office said he routinely examined homes just prior to rental that were not habitable. Though HUFFINGTON 11.17.13 it wasn’t his job to answer complaints, he said he fielded “hundreds of calls” from irate tenants. “I didn’t know what to tell them,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything about it. It was like pulling teeth to get [the company] to send out a repairman.” In an email, B.J. Poznecki, a construction superintendent for American Homes 4 Rent — which has spent more than $3 billion “If we had known the problems that we were going to have we would have never rented from these people. I really don’t think they care.” in the past year to acquire about 20,000 houses — said that buying and renting single-family homes on a large scale is a new business model, and as such “systems, process and procedures” are evolving. Poznecki said the Malibu, Calif.-based company just opened a new call center that handles all incoming maintenance calls, which he said will improve the customer experience. American Homes 4 Rent is “working around the clock to help us achieve our goal of excellence in the shortest