I was placed at a smallish property with no staff which I knew was going to be challenging. What I didn’t expect was receiving no training of any kind, no support from anyone at a corporate level, and zero notes about anything regarding the property and/or resident situations. Found fair housing violations everywhere and after reporting it all to my superior, I was asked to just carry on like normal and if any resident(s) found out, we would deal with it then. That doesn’t work for me, but I was still able to take this property’s 60 day pre-lease from 84% up to 98% in the 2 months that I was there. When I informed corporate that I was giving my two week notice, they asked if I could give them a month’s notice instead, and I stupidly obliged, thinking that I could pad my leasing numbers a bit more to increase my quarterly bonus.
My VG bosses and the property’s ownership group was thrilled that I was signing leases at a hectic pace, dealing with giving testimony under oath at the local courthouse for evictions in my very first week, and that resident’s were reaching out to them to say thank you for giving them a competent property manager. While all of this was going on, I also had to move furniture, office desks, commercial printer, and the like from the model apartment I worked out of - into the tiny clubhouse nobody used - to make that into the new property’s leasing office. I had to connect all the wiring and do the internet installation in the new leasing office since Charter Spectrum left after only completing about 45% of the transfer.
In my last week working for VG, my boss sent me a message, asking me to complete my and my maintenance supervisor’s bonus worksheet and to send it back to him by end of day. I did what he requested and was told I would receive this Q2 bonus on the next paycheck. I asked other PM’s in VG about it, and was told by all that I would be receiving the bonus since I was working there when Q2 ended. It was going to be a bonus amount around $3,300.
I received an email from an HR rep about a week and a half after quitting which had a pdf attached. In that attachment, it states if you aren’t working at VG when they finally payout bonuses, then you won’t receive the said bonus. I asked my previous boss about it, and he told me not to worry about it and that I should be receiving it….he’d check up on it for me. After not hearing back for a week, I reached out to VG’s HR dept. They said I wouldn’t be receiving the bonus due to me not being employed by them when they finally paid out that quarter.
If I haven’t lost you all due to this extremely long review, then just know I could list dozens of more cons for this company. I’ve been in property management (assistant manager and property manager) for over 12 years now, and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Everything that was told to me about the job and the property, which wasn’t much info at all, was a complete lie. For them to take no action after I uncovered the multiple fair housing violations is downright unacceptable. Talks with ownership and VG corporate members were gross. The rent at this property is very high for the area that it’s in, and prices were raised something like 3 times in just the span of a few months. And even after the latest price hike, they were discussing about possibly pushing it further since I was able to sign around 26 leases in 2 months. Just zero regard for any struggles that hard working people are going through, or even for their own employees as well.
In closing, I have zero respect for this company as a whole. The corporate division of VG is absolutely rotten from bottom up. I will say though that I met several other amazing property managers which I was able to contact for help once in awhile during my time there. I cannot recommend to anyone working at Village Green. In my mind, they’re just a bunch of cold-hearted, law breaking, manipulating thieves who treated me like dirt. It actually makes me feel a little ashamed at myself that I didn’t just walk out and quit when I discovered what was going on.
