Investar Real Estate Services

Reviews

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  Over the last two years my partner and I were tenants in a space located in the Village Green Shopping Ctr , Spring TX. The space was managed by Investar Real Estate Services, Inc. We ran a resale store out of it. We ended our association with this company recently. Let me share our experience. Within a month of moving into the space, we were dealing with two A/C units that were failing. Investar leased the space to us without checking any systems beforehand (to make sure they were in good working order). We had to replace one of the units shortly after moving in, which cost us several thousand dollars. Granted, we were obligated to do this under the burdensome terms of our lease (an assignment). But what kind of property manager (and by extension the landlord) does that to a new small business owner? Later, the fun began. With every major downpour, water leaked from the ceiling and also came into the store at floor level (over the back door threshold). We took this matter up with Investar many times. They sent maintenance out repeatedly to fix the problem. But it was never fixed. Their problem - they have no QA/QC in place to make sure things get done right. So the tenant has to deal with the mess. And good luck on being kept in the loop on anything. For the record, I counted 15 ceiling tiles that were badly discolored (due to roof leaks) while cleaning out the space recently. Further, every time there was a major downpour, water entered the rear of the store. It’s happened so many times the base- boards at the back of the store pealed away from the wall, exposing what appears to be mold along same. Still further down the road, I was sent an invoice regarding 2106 CAM Reconciliation. I thought, fair enough, but upon closer inspection, I discovered that Investar was over charging us. I reached out to them several times to try to resolve this matter, but to no avail. When I finally got someone’s attention, they apologized for staff not responding to me, said they would be in touch right away to address the matter, but then proceeded not to. I eventually penetrated their moat to get the matter resolved, but it took weeks. Further to this matter, tenants in the same shopping center have told me that Investar has screwed this up before. But it gets even better. So, we went through the proper channels to get approval for a pylon sign. We were told that we could use a certain space on the pylon. So we had a sign professionally designed for the space, and then installed in mid 2016. The design tied back to our business (i.e., mirrored our store front sign), which helped to direct traffic to our store. That was important because the store lacked visibility, being situated in the back of the shopping center, well off the road. Well, in mid 2107 Investar removed our pylon sign and replaced it with one (half the size of the original) that simply read Resale, which design did not tie back to our store. It should be noted that we were not consulted about the design of this sign. After informing them of the damage they were causing (due to the sign’s shortcomings), they indicated that they would make it right. That never happened. As a result, our sales were negatively affected for several months in 2017. But who cares, right? And finally, they wanted to charge us Feb rent for the time it took to clean out the space (to make it ready to hand off). To be clear, our lease ended Jan 31st. How about that for thanks for being a good tenant? After I made them feel guilty about it, and it took some doing, they gave us 7 days (rent free) to clean out the store. Enough already! While I could go on and on, you should be able to glean from this that Investar (the landlord) are only in it for the money; they don’t care about, nor are they responsive to the needs of their tenants; their maintenance work doesn’t measure up (but you can bet you will be billed for it); they can’t be trusted; and that they have no empathy for the small business owner.
  By Michael Oubre, August 17, 2017

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