Complaints of repairs undone and evictions undeserved prompted consumer investigator Jim Strickland to speak to metro tenants of a local corporate landlord.
Waypoint Homes rents thousands of single family homes across metro Atlanta, and that number will more than double after a merger with another rental giant. This fact did not sit well with local tenants, who call Waypoint Homes an absentee landlord at best. The Better Business Bureau's d+ rating for Waypoint comes with an alert for a pattern of complaint.
“The location is very nice,” renter Jacob Lassiter told Strickland. “I would definitely say it's a good house.”
“What's wrong with it?” Strickland asked.
“I don’t want to say just the landlord, but the landlord,” Lassiter said.
Strickland teamed up with ABC reporters across the country to investigate complaints against Waypoint across the US.
Waypoint Homes' corporate records show it's an Arizona company, with 5,000 rental homes in metro Atlanta. In fact, Atlanta is the company’s number one market. Waypoint's own Facebook page is dominated by lousy reviews, including one posted by Lassiter and partner Christina Howard.
“It just takes an act of congress to get them to come out here and fix anything,” Howard said.
Howard and Lassiter said it took a repairman hired by Waypoint four months to fix a damaged floor, and four trips to replace a leaky water heater. Howard said the lack of professionalism of the workers may be the most frustrating part.
“A contractor showed up and literally had no shirt on with a bathing suit and flip flops on to come do maintenance on our house,” Howard told Strickland. “The next time he came out he was wearing pajamas.”