Casa Buena Vista Rentals - San Francisco, California

heath H.

I'm a travel nurse here in the Bay area to help with COVID. My contract was cancelled early because San Fran was not hit as hard as expected and many travelers were let go. I booked my June and July rental in early March. I let the property owner know well over 30 days in advance about my situation. The host has refused to help, despite me offering documentation. I can't believe front line workers are being treated like this by greedy companies.

Jamie S.

I had a wonderful experience with Casa Buena Vista Rental! It was a really user friendly process and the location was great! We stayed for the Outside Lands Festival. For my daughters sweet 16! What a great spot. It felt so safe in the middle of a big city. Plenty of breakfast and coffee places near by! As well as Whole Foods! The house we rented was spacious, updated, and just had a wonderful SF feel! We loved it. Couldn't have asked for a better price or service! So thankful the Sweet 16 was a success thanks Casa!

Taylor P.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! Credit Card RISK!

We have had a horrible experience with Casa Buena Vista Rental. The company procedure for processing rentals is archaic and could put your credit card details at risk. In order to simply inquire about accommodation, you are required to provide Credit Card details. You may, or may not, hear from them, but we found our card had been charged for accommodation that was 'unavailable' months after we inquired about it.

We have spent two months trying to get a full refund. They have a clause in there website that allows them to make these bookings, then refund the money whilst keeping a $250 cancellation fee for themselves. I dont know how many scenarios like this they pocket, but we still have not been able to get all of our money back.

Jan, the owner, seems charming and reassuring IF you can get through to him, and although he tells us verbally over the phone we will get out money back, he will not put it in writing, or simply make the transfer. USE WITH CAUTION at least until they have changed their procedures to take your credit card details until after accommodation has been properly inquired.

My partner and I are frustrated with the process, method of correspondence, and level of small fraud that we have dealt with and have to go through our Credit suppliers to pursue this further.

TL P.

Full Disclosure regarding my review: Professional Full-Time Active Real Estate Agent plus owning several rentals (long & short term). So I'm confident of what I am writing in my review!! Beware and proceed with caution! One week prior to our arrival (reservation made 5 months earlier ). Casa Buena Vista informs us that our 31-day rental would not be available due to HOA restrictions. To rectify the problem we were offered another property, located in a totally different area. Having pre-purchased theater, sporting, concert tickets.... etc. We really had no other option but to take their offer. Being assured that this property was much larger (sleeps 6, remolded kitchen...). Not realizing that this was the beginning of our frustrating, disappointing experience.
1: Arriving at the posted office address to pick up keys. We immediately realize that there is no office there, and its been for some time. So we call and are provided with their new address. Their website as of today still shows the wrong address?
2: Picking up the packet with keys. We are informed the garage door opener is not working but will be provided to us within a day or two.......we never ever received the opener. Did I mention our stay was for 31 days?
3: Entering and inspecting the property. We notice its interior & contents were definitely tattered & worn.
4: Well stocked for guest up to 6 people....that's a joke. Dishes cracked, odd number of glassware and kitchen in bad shape. Master bedroom had 1 set of sheets, 1 set of towels for imagine 4-6 people? 2nd bedroom- 2 prison cots, and living room said a pull out bed, no it's just a couch. Thank goodness it was only going to be the two of us for the entire stay. We asked the agent for an extra set of sheets, a few more bath towels. The agent texted back that the owner responded with "Too expensive, One set was plenty". We ended up buying our own sheets, towels, blow dryer, basic kitchen/bathroom amenities.
We are the owners of various rental properties (25 years) and found this entire experience unacceptable. Communication/services and follow-up was terrible! Stay away from this agency.

Sarah B.

DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY. This company has been the most unprofessional I have ever dealt with and has caused me a major headache. I booked a condo on booking.com with them back in November 2021 (Pandora Alley is the booking name) and cancelled in December.

The booking wasn't until May 2022, so I gave lots of notice upon cancelling and had free cancellation through booking.com.

The person running this company thinks he is above the rules put in place and does not care about his customers at all. He told me that he would not give me a full refund and was so rude to me via the booking.com messaging portal. When booking.com finally contacted him that he needed to refund me, he shorted me $76 and told me it was on me as a "credit card fee" and tried to blame it on currency changes.

It is absolutely not on me as the customer to take a loss because you can't get the American to Canadian currency correct. If that's an issue, you should not be running businesses in another country.

I'm so extremely upset by the handling of this. And that months later I am still dealing with this through booking.com and I am still missing money. I hope this company gets shut down for unethical and unlawful practice.

DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM.

Tom S.

Let me start this review by the take home message: DO NOT deal with those people from Casa Buena Vista rentals. I often travel for professional reasons and always try to take better advantage of what different cities have to offer by renting small condos/apartments for a few days instead of hotels.
After a little searching, I found this condo through flipkey, which was managed by Casa Buena Vista rentals. While the place itself was disappointing (a separate review is needed for this), the worst was having to deal with these people managing the property. They charge you 25$ for getting the keys to the apartment in the first place, and whether you are 2 or 6 people, will only give you one set (ask for more). The guys you deal with (in this case Jan and Jesse) will make you feel like anything you ask for is a drag.
Now for the worst: check what they have charged you, ALL ALONG THE WAY. They made repetitive ‘unintentional’ billing mistakes, before we occupied the place, during our stay, and after our stay for the final bill. I had to explain to them several times, including via a detailed excel spreadsheet by how much they overcharged us. Oh, and do NOT expect an apology from them. They are probably way too cool for this sort of thing. Overall, if I had to sum up Casa Buena Vista in three words, those would be:
UNPROFESSIONAL, UNSCRUPULOUS, UNAPOLOGETIC.

Jeanne F.

I was baited to book with Jan of “Casa Buena Vista Rentals” in San Francisco, through the Airbnb platform. He created a fake listing called “Richmond Garden Suite” and after accepting & confirming my reservation, through the airbnb platform, he contacted me through private email and told me it was under renovations and offered me another option “Ashbury Garden Studio” otherwise known as “Charming Unit in the Upper Haight”, on the airbnb platform.

My reservation on the airbnb platform was not corrected or updated, even though I inquired about it numerous times.

I am now unable to review the Richmond Garden Suite, presumably on Fulton Street in San Francisco, where according to my airbnb reservation I stayed, because there is no such place, so I did not stay there. It is a fake listing with an address that does not exist. You can search on google maps or you can go in person like I did, and inquire to nearby neighbors, and you will discover there is no such property # on Fulton Street.

I can review the Airbnb host Jan. He is an elderly white male, with white hair, who runs “Casa Buena Vista Rentals” in San Francisco. Read the airbnb, google, yelp, Facebook reviews carefully for all his properties. He is immoral, unethical and corrupt.

You pay all the extra fee’s associated with a stay through airbnb, but you will NOT receive an airbnb experience.

After the hassle of checking in (there is no self check-in as represented in the airbnb listing, I had to contact host and wait 25 minutes for him to show up with a key) to the Ashbury Garden in San Francisco, I contacted the host identified as Jan for 4 days straight about many problems. He did nothing but blow smoke back at me.

After a long day of traveling to get here, I had to go shopping for basic essentials, like toilet paper. I had to clean the unit and change the sheets. The ceilings & corners of the unit were full of spider webs, as it is a garden level unit.

There was no basic supplies in the unit, not garbage bags, tissues, shampoo, dish soap or sponges. There was not even any sanitizer to spray surfaces, during the pandemic.

There were no spare sets of linens; no extra sheets or towels or bath mats in the unit.

The photo of the garden on the listing is a major misrepresentation. I chose this listing because of the outdoor space, to access during the pandemic. I was very disappointed. There is no patio table, chairs or umbrella as shown in the photo. The garden was only occupied by a dog, who was not mentioned in the listing.

I also choose to stay here because I prefer a bathtub, but the tub does not hold water, as the mechanism was broken and there was no plug included.

Normally basics are included in an airbnb stay, but after checking in here, the host offered me his linen cleaning service for the month, for an extra $150. This is not mentioned in the airbnb listing. He offered another option to take the linens to an indoor, public Laundromat and wash myself during the pandemic.

The owner of this unit lives upstairs, but is hands off and not interested in airbnb hosting. Everything goes through the host Jan. When the internet or power goes out, you have to contact & wait for him.

There is NO self check-in or lockbox on the property as represented in the listing. You are given one key to share among guests. This is a safety issue.

After questioning his misrepresentations on the airbnb messaging platform, he became aggressive and accused me of “creating your own truth and spinning reality”….. which was basically what he was doing….so I had to stop all contact and wait until I was safely checked out before putting through a formal resolution with airbnb.

Is this the new normal? The system is not working, if trust can be broken like this.

Michelle D.

The property we stayed in for a long weekend was great -- clean, comfortable, beautiful rental all around. The check in and check out process was easy and efficient. The communication I received from them was clear and came quickly. The only issue is that I didn't hear from Red Awning about the deposit yet and some ETA on that refund would be preferable. Assuming I get that back quickly we would return and I would recommend.