Elita Living Real Estate LLC - Seattle, Washington

C W.

Erica Vincent and her team at Elita have been managing my rental property for a few years now. The service and quality of responsiveness has consistently been excellent.

From repairs to new tenants, the communication has been timely, accurate, direct and solution oriented. My property is not your standard new apartment. Erica has helped me anticipate changes in the market, code requirement and how best to preserve the character of my property while continuing to ensure that it provides a welcoming, comfortable and compliant home for the tenants.

I value her expertise, her integrity and her efficiency!

Opal E.

I applied for the basement unit in a house that I found out was for rent when babysitting for the upstairs tenants. I'm really disappointed by how poorly my application was handled. I was rejected due to reasons that are not actually valid and was not given any opportunity to clarify prior to being rejected. The reasons given were that I was breaking a lease (I'm not, I'm month to month and am only required to give 20 days notice) and am lacking income, despite providing 6 months of bank statements showing income more than 3x the rent. Just something to be aware of if you decide to apply for any of their rentals.

EDIT: This response is such a joke. Like I said, the information was inaccurate and I have proof of the inaccuracy. I guarantee that I meet the rental criteria, I am not sure why I'm being gaslit about it. So unprofessional. If the third party is providing inaccurate information, you should consider finding a new one. My application shouldn't have been denied because your third party is failing to get the correct info. Seems more like discrimination in my opinion.

Julie L.

I rented from Elita living Jun 2017- Jun 2018 and had a great experience.

I was impressed with the professionalism of Erica and Kent. The move-in process was smooth and quick. The move-out process was easy, very fair and I received my deposit back promptly.

Service requests were always addressed quickly. Once request that stood out as very well managed regarded the water heater in the apartment. On Memorial Day evening, I noticed that the hot water tank was leaking. Within an hour, Erica called to determine the best solution. She made a quick decision and had service men dispatched that night. It was incredible for Erica to do that- ESPECIALLY on a holiday evening.

She and Kent are very knowledgeable about the ins and outs of home repairs, reality and more.

I highly recommend Elita Living.

Thank you Erica and Kent for a great experience 🙂

Megan K.

I recently rented a very nice 2 bedroom condo from Erica & Elita for a year. About 10 months into our lease we were told the owners were selling and we had to be out by the end of our lease.

We looked around and found a few places open, and when we asked if we could end our lease a month early due to the fact we had no chance to renew we were told by Erica that "it doesn't fit into the owners timeline" to do that. That doesn't even make sense as the owner was selling and it would just give them more time, but we said okay as we didn't want to break our lease terms and lose our deposit.

Come time to turn in our keys and it was a nightmare! After several emails we finally nailed down a time and when my roommate went to meet her she was COMPLETELY FOUL. We had never actually met Erica before and only dealt with her co-worker Kent (Who is lovely and professional); she didn't even introduce herself, didn't shake my roommate's hand when she offered an introduction, and tried to say that we didn't clean enough. EVEN THOUGH we left the place looking FAR NICER than when we moved in. We are stellar tenants, always pay the rent on time, and spent 6-7 hours of our own time scrubbing the place clean. It was honestly shocking to hear her comments. We had some cleaning fees knocked off our deposit refund and that shocked us too.

I DO NOT recommend renting from Elita. Owners seem to love them but as a renter I DO NOT RECOMMEND it, they made me and my roommates feel small and worthless and like the only thing you are good for is $$$, and that your needs are not important.

Amy M.

I needed to find new tenants for my modest condo. I would normally handle it all myself, but I don't live in the area anymore. I had been renting it for $1200/month. Seattle rental prices have increased a lot in the past few years, so I expected about 25% more this time around at $1500/month.
I'm glad I called, because she strongly suggested I do a few improvements (I wasn't initially planning to do) and then she proceeded to quickly find a renter for me at $1950/month. The difference covered the cost of the improvements, the cost of having a service to handle my rental for me, and I still come out ahead of my expectations.
Amazing and efficient work. I will never try to rent on my own again.

Julia S.

Erica is the worst property manager I’ve ever encountered which is saying something because I work in property management and have seen a lot. She repeatedly forgets who is on the lease, constantly separates emails between my roommate and I about joint things like entering the home, and her most recent antic is revoking our renewal agreement without any warning or communication. Once I informed her that what she’s doing is illegal with an email from my lawyer, she simply ceased to respond and is now refusing any kind of contact regarding our lease. Extremely unprofessional, illegal practices, and a deep lack of property management knowledge. If everything goes smoothly I’m sure it’s fine to live at an Elita property but if anything goes wrong, you absolutely cannot count on Erica.

Jeremy F.

I think 3/5 stars is a very fair rating. Keep in mind this rating is coming from a previous tenant and not an owner or other business associate of Elita Living Real Estate. I'd like to think of myself as a very fair and professional person so I am offering my best in terms of an honest review.

Move-in:
I thought the move-in process was handled very well. Erica was at the property and gave me the keys with a smile. I noticed I was missing the key to the storage unit and notified her and she worked to get the issue resolved within the next week or so. No big deal. Looking back I think some sort of maintenance orientation would have been very useful such as where to go for water shut off/fire safety procedures. Maybe some sort of orientation packet for a particular unit. Overall, move-in was a success.

Duration:
The duration of my stay at this particular unit was relaxed. A light bulb would go out here and there and I would buy new ones and send the receipt to Erica and she would reimburse me for them. I filed one maintenance visit for what seemed like loss of power in half the unit, but soon figured out a breaker was being tripped every once and a while (not that I had a ton of stuff plugged into the outlets, it seemed like just a quirk of the unit.) Again, some sort of orientation packet would have been useful (if the quirk was identified at that point). I notified Erica the problem was solved and the maintenance request was cancelled and life went on. No complaints, really.

Move-out:
Here's what seemed like a reluctance to communicate on Elita Living Real Estate's end showed up. Again a move-out packet explaining what the move-out expectation is would be a very worthwhile tool here I think. However, they did make sure to supply a cleaning list for which I made sure to address each item. One item I would like to address here is the unwillingness of Erica or her associate, Amanda, to talk on the phone. I expressed interest in text and email multiple times to schedule a phone call to cover all of the move-out details. That never happened. I think the willingness to openly communicate in any business goes a long way.

When all was said and done I was charged for the carpet cleaning at around $150.00 and general cleaning for around $225.00. The carpet cleaning was half expected as it was in the lease that carpet cleaning is at the owner/property manager's discretion, but the general cleaning seemed a little excessive. Oh well, I will be the first to admit I'm not the most detail orientated person when it comes to cleaning and inspecting every surface.

Here's where things got a little odd. It was almost as if once you move out you are dead to Elita Living Real Estate. This sounds a little harsh, but I think it is very reflective of my experience. I first noticed the charge for the carpet cleaning so naturally instead of paying for it immediately I requested an invoice to verify (to some degree) the service was performed. It took almost a month and repeated emails/texts/phone calls to Erica to finally get this invoice. I had texted Erica 3 separate times requesting the invoice with my first text letting her know who I was and what unit I had rented (as I had never texted her before). The 2nd and 3rd texts were met with "who is this?" from Erica. I can't help but draw unsubstantiated conclusions that the service was never performed and it was a ploy to nickel and dime me. I wouldn't think this of Elita Living Real Estate prior to move-out, but their increasing unwillingness to talk over the phone or remember who I was as time went on only added to my suspicion.

Summary:
Overall, I needed a place to live and Elita Living Real Estate facilitated that. No complaints from me for the condition of the unit, I think it was priced very fairly. I think 3/5 stars is appropriate for this review. I think the fields where Elita Living Real Estate could improve are definitely communication and invoice/bill management.

Donald J.

We were fortunate enough to relocate to Seattle for work and started looking at properties online ahead of time. We loved a home listed by Elita Living and made an appointment to see it in person. Because of time constraints we asked to view the property at 8pm and Erica, the property manager, was more than happy to accommodate us. We were lucky to find her! Not only was the application process super rapid, Erica was personal and willing to remotely handle some paperwork afterwards. Home repairs are handled super quickly and considerately. We could not be more pleased with Elita Living's personal touch. Thank you Erica for everything! You are great.