Slate Properties

This review has an initial caveat: I was a tenant in a property managed by Slate. Therefore, I was not technically Slate’s customer/​client (that would be the apartment owner).
Pros: While I lived in the apartment, I dealt with Andrew and at least 4 other members of his team. They were, without exception, nice people who seemed to be making a genuine effort to provide a good service. Relatedly, when a mistake would be made, they would try to correct it quickly. These pros count for a lot in my book.
Cons: they exhibited a surprising level of incompetence over the course of the year:
(1) When I moved in, they left the keys in a lockbox at the building but forgot to include the mail key and the garage door remote, so I couldn’t get my car into the garage the first night or check my mail.
(2) The vent blower didn’t work initially and it took them nearly two months to figure out how to fix. I was without a vent fan for this entire time.
(3) When I first got into the apartment the smoke detector was in pieces on the counter and a doorknob was missing. That’s just odd.
(4) It took them 4 months to return my security deposit, not because they wanted to hold some back, but because they simply forgot to send.
In the end, I’m giving 4 stars because they are really nice and put forth a lot of effort. But, they should probably step up their game a bit.

Slate is the property management company for a row home a few doors down. If you are an owner looking for a company to trust your property with, I do not recommend Slate. As a neighbor I have observed numerous concerning issues with the way they manage their clients properties.
The biggest issue is that they choose to rent properties as group housing, like a fraternity/​sorority house. The tenants they choose to live in the properties destroy the house, treat it like a fraternity house, and we frequently wake up Sunday mornings to BEER CANS LITTERING the sidewalk and tree box up and down the ENTIRE BLOCK. Most Sunday mornings there are young men passed out on the porch and front yard, both of which are also littered with crushed beer cans and solo cups. I can only imagine how they treat the inside of the house.
Phone calls and emails with pictures of the trash and destruction go unreturned.
If you are looking for someone to manage your property, I do not recommend trusting Slate with your investment.
** 8÷10÷15 Update… shortly after posting this review, Andrew the owner reached out to me and acknowledged the unanswered emails, said he would address our concerns with the tenants, and ask that I update my review.

Slate Properties was the rental agent for a house on our block. We live in a family neighborhood so you can understand our dismay when four young men moved in. Nice guys until the first weekend when they threw a party beginning at 11 AM. Many people both inside and out on the porch and backyard. Mix copious amounts of beer and by 8 music was thumping and people yelling. Loud. We attempted to contact Slate. The reply we got is that this agent did not rent the property but would look into it. Never heard a word from Slate.
If they are going to be the rental agents perhaps they could better match tenants to neighborhoods.

I did a lot of homework about property managers when I moved abroad, and it seemed like Andrew Turczyn/​Slate would be a good option as both affordable and with positive reviews. Unfortunately my experience having them manage my condo did not reflect this at all. I felt like I got stuck doing so much work due to their incompetence that I was paying money for nothing.
Andrew dropped the ball on most things that needed to happen for locating a tenant and doing the ongoing monitoring. The lack of attention to detail was especially frustrating, even down to misspelling the tenant’s name and listing the property address incorrectly *on the lease*. When there was a tenant switch I switched property managers, and Andrew’s oversights with the tenant check-​out cost me a lot of money in repairs (that should have been deducted from the security deposit for the tenant he managed).
Instead of being able to relax knowing that my property was in good hands, I was constantly worrying and feeling like I had to stay on top of time-​sensitive items myself — and Andrew/Slate’s incompetence cost me more in the end than if I had used a better property manager with a higher fee from the start.

Slate managed our Capitol Hill townhome for us when we left DC, and the experience was incredible. Everything was handled for us and we almost never had to think about our tenants or the routine maintenance of our place. When problems did need our attention, they were always helpful and direct and made it as painless as possible for us to handle an issue. Andrew made the experience wonderful with his professionalism.
After a couple years, we opted to sell the property, and Slate turned out to be our best option. Andrew and his team did everything for us – cleaning up the house after the tenants left, handling repairs and painting, staging the house, than getting in on the market. And they did all this within a week! It only took a week or so for us to receive multiple offers and get the house under contract. When we ran into a few contractual/​negotiation issues before closing, Andrew also helped resolve that quickly. We sold the house within a month and got more than asking price. We were thrilled with every step of the process and couldn’t have imagined such an incredible outcome.
As both a landlord and an eventual home seller, I was thrilled with Andrew and Slate. I can’t recommend them highly enough…

Disappointed with the professionalism provided by Slate Properties when they brokered an apt for me in D.C. in 2012. They seemed like they were pre-​occupied and not engaged in the sale, with a «take it or not, I don’t care» attitude that the co-​buyer and myself both felt. Did the job professionally otherwise, and had the right paperwork and were on-​time with everything.
Perhaps it was where we purchased and the ticket price of the place was relatively lower than some of their places. Regardless it’s how we felt.

Andrew and Slate Properties spoiled us with their incredible service. When we started looking for a two-​bedroom rental in DC, we had a terrible time finding a nice place managed by a reliable company. We had bad experiences in our previous apartments with unresponsive property managers — so we knew we wanted a place managed by someone who actually cared about the condition of our home. During the initial tour of the rental, Andrew patiently answered all of our questions, ran all of the appliances so we knew they worked, and gave us a tour of the condo complex. Throughout our time living in that rental, Andrew immediately responded to our emails and calls when something was wrong. He had things repaired quickly, even on holiday weekends. Andrew changed our A/​C filters each month, has a tenant appreciation month, and invited us to join Slate in a charity walk around the Mall. He and Slate were fantastic.
When we decided we were ready to buy a home, we called Andrew first. He began with a comprehensive walkthrough of the buying process, terminology and trends in DC real estate. He patiently answered our 10,000 questions with a sense of humor. Andrew started by showing us a few houses in our price range to get an idea of what type of home we were looking for. After that, he sent us houses he had identified and showed us homes that we found online. He was available to us almost anytime we wanted to see some properties — even bringing coffee on early mornings.
For us, the buying process involved visits to over 25 different properties and two offers. When it came time to make an offer, Andrew was exactly the type of Realtor you want in your corner. He was thorough and honest in explaining the paperwork and process — but a firm negotiator when dealing with the seller’s agent. Our purchase almost fell through because of some unpredictable behavior by the seller, but Andrew spent the entire day on the phone with their agent securing the deal.
When you buy a house, you work with a lot of different people — mortgage agents, contractors, movers, etc. Almost all of them require constant micro-​management to make sure things get done correctly. You’ll never have to micro-​manage Andrew. He is a great ally in this process and the most responsive property manager we’ve ever had. We highly recommend Andrew and Slate.

I thought that moving to Chicago and converting my condo into an investment property would be a huge ordeal and scary process. Andrew’s great communication skills and knowledge of the market made it seamless. He got the right renters into the unit quickly and helped with touch up maintenance issues before they moved in. Which shows not only that he cares about the owners needs but the renters as well.
This transition couldn’t have been easier, I feel confident about my investment and know that Slate will manage the property as if it was their own.