Blackbrook Associates

Donna S. from Blackbrook has always been professional and courteous with me. My long term tenants have a very good working relationship with her. She handles all concerns promptly for both me and my great tenants.

Blackbrook (including Eric Schwarzbach) and I have done business together for over 17 years. Our relationship includes buying and selling real estate in addition to property management. My husband and I attempted to manage our own properties and after many failed attempts we finally realized we were wasting our time and losing money. Donna always found quality tenants and kept the appropriate relationship on both sides. She demands that her clients and tenants alike are honest, pay on time, maintain the house and follow the law. If our property needed maintenance and or upgrades she notified us and gave us enough time to comply, if we were unable to maintain the property to her standards she/​we hired someone to take care of it. If you are a tenant you can feel confident you will be treated fairly, if you are a property owner you can feel confident the tenant is going to be managed appropriately.
Anyone reading these reviews should err on the side of caution when you see a business that is receiving many 5 star reviews and 1 poorly written novela based on their bad experience.

Donna is the best! Managing properties is complicated and demanding. Donna gets it done! I own other rental properties in other states, so I have some experience with which to compare.
Donna has been managing my Boulder Creek property since it first went on the market as a rental in 2012. She is straightforward, honest, and fair with owners and renters alike. She protects the interests of owners and defends the rights of tenants. I recommend her without reservation.

This business would receive zero stars if it were an option.
Donna Schwarzbach, who runs this business, is an unprofessional, vengeful person who revealed her «out to get you» attitude the very first day we met with her. Talked badly about every single tenant she’s ever had the day we signed our lease. As it turned out, she would continue exhibiting her pattern with us as well, no matter how much we tried to get along with her — and in the end just plainly ignoring her angry messages.
If I put aside her awful persona, what I am left with is a property manager who lied on several occasions about what she did and didn’t inspect of the property we had rented through her. The first lies were omissions which she admitted to when we had an incident in the house that could have very well gotten one of us into hospital, and thankfully didn’t. She basically said she had done a full inspection of the house, but it turned out she had «waived» it because, as she put it, she took the home owner’s word for it. An inspection after the incident showed we had been at serious risk in every room of the house.
The trend continued until it turned out Donna Schwarzbach had made a mistake in calculating the dates of our tenancy. This resulted in her presenting us with a 30-​day move-​out notice, just after we informed her we were expecting our first child. It was then that she revealed the same vengeful side of hers we had already come to see about her past tenants, just now she had decided to «turn» on us. I am talking about verbally abusive emails that are just below anything I have ever encountered in a professional relationship.
We chose to reply one last time, though tried not to react to her drama-​seeking behavior. She extended our move-​out notice for another 30 days, which gave us just enough time to find another place. But seeing as we kept our own messages on the professional level, not addressing her emotional outbursts, she then concluded that there now was a «mutual loss of trust».
During our final move-​out inspection, while we had a family member visiting, she came over and was on her best behavior. She even attempted to hug me and congratulate me on the pregnancy, which she had at best ignored so far. The move-​out inspection seemed successful, and we all signed off on the document.
However, we later came to realize that was just another lie as she plainly stiffed us on the return of our security deposit. A while later, we received a quote from her for all sorts of repairs she never mentioned, including hundreds of dollars for «cleaning the yard» despite her assurances that everything checked out fine. Attached to these quotes was a check for only half of our original security deposit.
We didn’t follow up with her, as it was now clear to us that Donna Schwarzbach is just «one of those people» you better stay away from as far as you can. You cannot «win» with her, no matter how much you try to appreciate or work with her. She is the bridge-​burning type.
My guess is that she was banking on us not doing anything about the security deposit, seeing as we had enough to do preparing for our baby.
Fortunately, SLV and Scotts Valley have a number of great property managers, so no one really HAS to do business with Blackbrook Associates.

This is a fantastic property management company! Donna J. Schwarzbach, Broker DRE#364 150, is fantastic. Straightforward, to the point and always in communication with me when I have questions or need help. Thanks so much! Highly recommended!!!