The Home Store

If I could give zero stars I definitely would. This place is a complete joke. They were the management company of the property I rented in January 2015. We didn’t have appliances so they offered to provide us appliances for negation of $ 50 per month which we accepted. They apparently like to give appliances that are 20 years old we went through three refrigerators.
In November 2015 we contacted them several times regarding our refrigerator being at 54° they were for the company to come fix it but this company could only come Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5 PM. During this time. I lost several hundreds of dollars worth of food. The owner of the property is a slumlord herself. We were rented a house with an attachment between the home and the garage that was illegal. In December 2015 the floor actually collapsed and separated from the walls along rodents to enter the home.
Just opened up a letter from the home store where we received a refund of $ 116 after we gave them $ 1500. I will be taking this company as well as Glenda Butler the owner to court. Oh to top it off there was black mold growing in the bedroom from a leak from the roof.

Absolute worst group of people ever. Complete slumlords with no respect for the rights of tenants. Renovated my building for the past 2 months while i was still living there. And then called me and asked me to move out in 2 days so they could work on my unit. Horrible place and horrible people. Stay away from anything and everything they are associated with.

Wish I could give negative stars. Their website is likely riddled with fake testimonials like any self run site. I put up with this company for a few years and went the extra mile to maintain the property better than most (as i was told by their crew upon the loosely scheduled inspections) and did almost all repairs myself inorder to avoid issues and lengths of time waiting on them whom would rarely return an email or phonecall let alone anything else. I agree with all the bad reviews posted and concur with them. I was more or less figuratively kicked in the teeth for all of my good efforts to be a good tenant. I advise anyone that finds themselves on the unfortunate end of business with this company to find a good lawyer. Good Luck!

Super disappointed in my experience with The Home Store. Basically, my advice to anyone renting presently or in the future from THS is to document with pictures or video METICULOUSLY when you move out, and know that they will try to charge you for anything they can. They will even charge you if they have to replace some light bulbs. So be meticulous with returning the house to its original condition and document everything. In my case, I touched up scuff marks on the walls upon moving out and patched holes from pictures we hung, etc. however I forgot to uninstall a metal bar I had installed into the wall to hang clothes on (my wife’s clothes occupied the only closet in our bedroom). It required some minor patch work, but seriously a super easy spackle job. They tried to charge me $ 1,375 to repaint the ENTIRE interior of the house. They initially said it was because some walls had scuff marks on them — which is an insane explanation… You don’t charge the tenant to repaint the entire interior of the house because of a few problem areas and they were seriously easy touch ups. Charge me a couple hundred bucks for that if you must. Then after much back and forth fighting them on that, their reasoning was because they had to patch up where the bar was. A job that had I remembered to do it myself would have taken me 15 minutes of actual hands on working time, aside from letting spackle and paint dry. I felt really taken advantage of with the whole move out experience with all the things they tried to charge me for, and it really lacked a lot of integrity on their part in my opinion. We ended up settling the dispute but even the way they went about settling was pretty disrespectful (too long of a story to bother going into).
If you are considering renting from The Home Store, I would seriously think twice.

Horrible. Just horrible. Sorry my rent is a day late, no need to slap me with a 50 dollar charge then another fee on top of that for not paying my late fee. I’m giving you my money to live in this dump. Can’t you just be happy?

I hired this company for property management for a few properties my boss & I own in Detroit. Two weeks after hiring them I had called the company to speak to them in regards to some questions on the handling of the properties. While the usual person I spoke with (Eric) was on vacation I was directed by auto reply email to speak to someone else (Melissa). I tried contacting Melissa & was not able to get the answers I needed, so I asked to speak to management. I was contacted by Bradley. Bradley was unhelpful. After asking a few questions, he became very confrontational. He stating swearing at us, stating threatening us to come to his office. The use of vulgar language was unnecessary. We terminated our contract with their company & he then started threatening me by emails. Sending me threatening, swearing & name-​calling throughout numerous emails, still after me requesting him to stop harassing me. He was calling my boss & I vulgar names & it was absolutely ridiculous. I have never heard, who is supposed to be a professional business manager /​owner, speak to anyone in that tone or manner before. I gave them $ 300.00 for a repair/​maintenance fund. Since the contract has been terminated. This maintenance reserve fund is no longer necessary. This they refuses to refund. HORRIBLE SERVICE!!!

I did business with this company up until API parted ways with them in August 2013. DO NOT do business with them. We had direct deposit set up for rent but were charged late fees for rent repeatedly which ended up totaling 800 dollars and we were threatened eviction– Last I knew direct deposit meant you take the rent money each month when you need it. We had to fight repeatedly for these charges to be removed. The lady in charge constantly ignored our requests to speak to the owner. The company is most likely still doing damage control. Avoid at all costs.

My lease will end shortly. I had hoped conditions would have changed, sadly they have not. I have repeatedly discouraged friends from doing business with the home store and will do so for a very long time.
The Home Store uses a manipulative business model. In the one year I’ve done business with them I’ve noticed staff changing quicker than the seasons. The representative currently like to bring up my review on Unilocal as some sort of leverage for her arguments with my former roommate (it’s very funny).
I was going to say I hope THS pulls it together however, I really hope their tactics are the cause of their demise.

I have had a great experience with The Home Store, and particularly with Eric Wizenberg, the Director of Property Management. My fiancé and I own three single family houses in Ferndale and a duplex in Hazel Park, and THS manages all four properties. We live in NYC, and it is impossible for us to take care of & rent out our houses from so far away, so we rely on THS to manage them. They have handled renovations on one, are about to start reno’s on another, and have been straightforward and easy to deal with in all interactions.
They make owning rental property easy, and this is NOT an easy business. We are currently trying to buy another multifamily property which we plan to sign over to THS to manage if the deal goes through.
If you own rental properties and are sick of dealing with them, The Home Store is the place to go!

I cant even begin to tell you how bad my experience with the homestore has been.
I guess the best thing I can say is that their employee Kellie or whatever STRAIGHT FACE LIED to me and my partner about pretty much everything we tried to talk to them about. Luckily the actual owners of our home have decided to part ways with this terrible, terrible company. I encourage everyone to file the appropriate complaints with the Attorney General, and the better business bureau. The homestore responses to these comments are laughable! Please check our website for honest testimonials! are you serious! Because your so honest right? Just remember, what goes around, comes around!

Hi Ya’ll–
This company has threatened to sue me for my negative reviews and is somehow removing my negative review off Google. I think silencing unhappy former customers is way is a disgusting way to do business. I just want my voice heard. Everything I am saying is either true and I can prove it or is my opinion.
I am changing my review to provide additional specifics.
We have had a terrible experience with this company. Not only did they not do the job they were hired to do but they were beyond horrible to deal with. I have e-​mails documenting everything including an e-​mail the owner of the company actually signed «Love Mr. Criminal Idiot». He failed to pay bills on time and failed to pay the late fee he said he would pay. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I would strongly recommend not using this company.
My goal is to give people knowledge so a potential customer can make an informed decision. It is also important to note, during your decision making process that two of the positive reviews (that are on Google but were filtered on Unilocal) are from the wife and father of Eric Wizenberg, the Director of Property Management for this company. You can decide for yourself whether that biases the review or not.
If you have had a bad experience with The Home Store (or any other real estate company) you have recourse beyond just a negative review.
You can contact the Michigan Attorney General (especially LARA, the licensing department).
The Better Business Bureau– They are just mediators, but if the BBB gets enough complaints, their rating will be poor. Since this is where people seem to look first, it can be effective in warning others.
Michigan Association of Realtors (Your complaint with the AG’s office and any legal action must be complete before filing a complaint). The Association or Realtors has a code of conduct that deals with behaviors and responsiveness. This is a good resource.
I hope this information is helpful and that I helped give you knowledge to make a good decision. I wish you luck. Best, m
P. S. If they continue to try and silence me, I might just have to go to the local media with my experience. PM me if you have had a bad experience and might want to be interviewed. As long as you are telling the truth, it is protected speech.