GC Realty & Development, LLC (r)

I don't normally write reviews. But if I had a really good experience, I take the time to write one. I haven't had any transactions with GC realty yet. But I used their rental reports feature once for my condo and Shea got in contact with me to see if I had any q's about it. That's how I know him. He's very knowledgeable from a rental property pricing/investing standpoint. I have really high standards when it comes to selecting businesses and vendors and Shea met my standards on the initial convo. If I expand my rental portfolio one day, I will definitely select him to manage my properties. He gave me really good points on how I should set my rent price. Then he helped me with a referral for commercial real estate agent. His name is Duke (also works for GC Realty). He's just as smart as Shea and I'm saying that from our first conversation. They both went beyond my expectations and gained my trust in taking care of what I need done.

The GC Realty team is absolutely the best ! In a very short time, they have taken an absolute nightmare of a property, which has both residential and commercial spaces and erased all of the headaches. They're organized, efficient and experienced. They are totally transparent and their responsiveness is without compare. They maintain an open line of communication so you know everything that is happening. No issue goes without being addressed. Its almost too hard to explain, how they have smoothed out and corrected some very serious problems. They have literally saved my property. I can't recommend them highly enough.

I will never rent here again. They had nothing written in the lease that explained parking rules. They did not have lights outside for the whole first half of my living here. Overpriced for ZERO amenities or appliances of any kind on our property. There are NO security measures of any kind (including cameras, regular tow patrols, visits to the property, etc.). I highly doubt they background check these people considering my neighbor was evicted a week after I moved in during a drug bust. They don't have any on-call management or assistance on week nights or weekends... totally unacceptable considering how many issues occur on your property that seemingly never get the attention they deserve. This company is avoidant and negligent until something happens that negatively impacts them. I never heard from anyone before leaving my third bad review on Yelp that finally got their attention... but my calls, texts and emails didn't? What does it take for the company to have some regard for it's tenants? I cannot wait to leave here and never give them my money again.

I'm sure some of their propertys are great but I can't recommended any location in Westmont. The managers don't care about building maintenance or the residents. They rip art off the common area walls,take 8 months to fix the lock to the front door of the building....or just anything in your apartment for that matter. The last picture is a bonus, it's molded wine covering the wall cause they don't have anyone to clean their buildings. We broke our lease within the terms of our contract and now they want to say how they are looking out for us. P. S. Watch out for any bug infestations they're known problems through word of mouth from residents who have lived there prior.

Look deeper; don’t believe the hype. Although GC Realty has glowing reviews online, if you look deeper and if you check with the Better Business Bureau, you will find many people have had terrible experiences with them. More on this later. My wife and I have been with GC Realty for a few months. In this review, I will cover 4 domains of repeated incompetence on the part of GC Realty: 1) GC Realty mismanaged our funds – consistently overcharging costs and underreporting financial details, 2) GC Realty mismanaged our properties, 3) GC Realty’s contractors have consistently done extremely poor work on all our properties, 4) across the GC Realty staff, we have consistently experienced extremely poor communication. Because of space, I'll only address points 1 and 2. In terms of mismanaging our funds, GC Realty’s practice is to send separate invoices to track expenses rather than providing us a spreadsheet with income going in and out. These invoices are vague and confusing in a way that feels deliberate. So we had to create a spreadsheet ourselves. Doing so revealed that $2800 in reserve funds is unaccounted for. We overpaid into our reserves and these funds just disappeared. GC Realty has repeatedly refused to account for the expenditure beyond saying that the funds were absorbed into other expenses with zero details. As far as we can tell, they literally stole $2800 from us. GC Realty also charged us for things that were not our responsibility. For example, we were charged a large sum to replace a lock that a GC Realty employee had broken forcing their way in after a tenant locked himself out. First off, our leases specify that it is the tenants’ responsibility to call and pay for a locksmith if locked out. Second, the GC Realty employee should not have forced their way into the apartment and broken the lock. GC Realty should have been responsible for the cost, not us. Then there are a large number of invoices that charge us exorbitant rates. One invoice charged us $160 to change a lightbulb. Before GC Realty took over, I paid a handyman $30 for the same job and that is only because it requires a ladder. Another invoice charged us $485 to snake a minor clog in a drain. And yet another invoice charged us over $500 to change a handful of locks at one building, and we still cannot get a straight answer on how much we were actually charged per lock. In terms of mismanaging our properties, there have been major security issues. First, all of their contractors and vendors have the codes to all of our lockboxes with keys to each building and apartment. And one of these contractors left the codes on all four lockboxes at one property, meaning each lockbox was completely unsecured with the keys inside. The lockboxes were unsecured like this for hours or possibly days before we noticed. Additionally, GC Realty installed multiple new locks on various units incorrectly. Because of this careless work, those units were completely unsecured because the door knobs did not latch and could be easily swung open even when “locked.” Other locks they installed simply wouldn’t turn at all. And after being assured that these mistakes would not happen again, a couple weeks later the same exact thing occurred throughout another of our properties. Most egregiously, a GC Realty vendor was caught rummaging through our personal belongings in the basement of one of our homes (where we store all of the items from my old apartment) and was caught stealing at least one item – possibly many more. The contractor was only supposed to be turning on the furnace – that is it. The incident was witnessed by someone who has done maintenance work for me for years. Then there is the fact that GC Realty put us in extended violation of the law by failing to turn our boilers on – even though we verified with them multiple times that this would be done promptly. I only found out the boilers weren't on because I happened to be visiting one property after a freezing cold night.