Benchmark Real Estate Services - Tallahassee, Florida

David F.

Not sure if my review will be seen among all the other cacophony but it can't hurt to take their average down just that little bit more. Would give zero stars if I could.

Found a nice looking place, it was old but seemed somewhat okay. After I moved in and things started to break was when I realized I made a mistake.

My AC broke in the middle of the summer and it took them over a week to get someone out to fix it. Had to go buy a window unit to be able to sleep during that time.

They specified that I would have to cover pest control, which didn't seem too unreasonable since I was getting okay rent, but it turned out that they hadn't even done the minimum when it comes to physical pest control. When I called out a pest control company to get an estimate they said that with all the entry points that should have been fixed by the manager it would cost in the thousands to actually properly pest control the property. Managed to keep the pest issue down myself, thankfully the house has cedar so the bugs didn't like it.

After about 6 months of living here someone damaged my mailbox and usps refused to deliver, it took them over a month to replace it. During the recent tornadoes in 2024 my mailbox once again was destroyed they sat on the maintenance request for 2 months and ended up never addressing it due to them selling my property to a new management company. Same with the downed trees in my yard. I've had a huge tree in my drive way for about 2 months now and they have refused to send anyone out, still waiting for someone from the new management company.

And by far the worst thing they did to me, is that apparently to them a month to month lease actually means six months. They absolutely screwed me on that one. I swapped over to a month to month after renewing my lease for the 3rd time. After living there for 2 years they said I needed to have my lease for 4 months before it went month to month and then I would have to give sixty days moveout notice effectively making it a six month lease and completely invalidating the point of a month to month lease.

They are scam artists and by far the worst property managers I've ever dealt with. I've always paid rent early, and been very accommodating with them, and they've taken every chance to screw me.

Allyson R.

I know my review is VERY different than most so I thought I would share our personal experience. We just moved out of a Benchmark property last month and our duplex specifically was pretty nice. We got our full security deposit back today without any deductions, less than a month after moving out, which was nice.

The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is because the place was very dirty at move in. It was very clear no cleaners came through after the last tenants. Unfortunately that’s pretty much everywhere though so comparably I think our experience was pretty good.

I will also say it takes them a while to answer emails or phone calls, but the 1 time we needed emergency maintenance for a burst pipe, they answered timely.

Unfortunately we noticed on Zillow that after we moved out they raised the rent $100 without doing any renovations or touching the place, and the description of the place is grossly inflated to sound larger and more renovated than it is. Things such as “equal size bedrooms” “spacious bathroom” “newly renovated kitchen” which just blatantly aren’t true. Pretty gross practice in my opinion, but all things considered our time living there was good and I was very glad for the quickness and fullness with our deposit refund.

Amanda G.

This company is a literal nightmare.
I have never dealt with a more unprofessional, disorganized, disrespectful, and dishonest “real estate” company. They never answer their phone, aren’t in the office at their listed times. They sent our deposit to the wrong address— on purpose. Lied and said I put the wrong address on the form which I didn’t. I see many reviews stating the same happened to them. Not to mention, when I went in to that office when they were finally open to turn the keys in and fill out the form, Chanelle looked at me like I had 4 heads and was bothering them. Didn’t say but 2 words “fill out” and handed me the form. I put the proper address on it, and we waited. Did benchmark call USPS to alert them that this certified letter was going to the wrong address No. They let it circulate for 3 months. Once we got it, they had taken out money to clean the carpet. Which was FOUL when we moved in. There was stickers on the cabinets, the bathrooms hadn’t been cleaned, nor the kitchen. So for them to take ANY money out of the deposit is WILD to me. I remember, the downstairs tenant moved out, and within 2 hours, the next tenants were moving in. No one cleaned the unit.
As another review on here said- you’d rather be homeless than deal with this “real estate” company.

Amalia A.

THESE PEOPLE ARE SCAM ARTISTS FRONTING AS A RENTAL COMPANY!!! Do not trust them and be prepared to drive to the office and wait for them to finish gossiping on the phone if you want to get anything done! The hands down WORST company to rent from. Had a busted water pipe in my bedroom that they took weeks to handle, the carpet molded, I couldn’t stay there for almost a month and I had to buy hotel rooms and Abnbs. It took me going up to the office in person and threatening to withhold rent for them to make the singular, 5 minute phone call it took to get my carpet replaced. All I asked for in compensation was for my late fees on that months rent to be waived seeing as I had just spent hundreds of dollars on other living arrangements while they continually ignored my phone calls and did nothing to resolve the issue. AFTER agreeing to waive the fees they simply didn’t, I ended up paying over 100$ extra in fees for being less than a week late. They refused to refund me the money that I overpaid, stating that I would receive a 30$ “credit” to my account instead. I’m not sure how these people even have jobs with how little they do. Constantly say they’re “waiting on approval” for weeks but when you finally have enough and demand an answer to why it’s taking so long, they can magically get approval within a few minutes. But don’t worry, they’ll never be late to send out an eviction notice or hound you for fees/dues!! I’d rather be homeless than have to deal with this shady business and it’s incompetent management.

Nuwan Y.

Their mission is to do the bare minimum repairs and maintenance so that the apartment is passable. I doubt anyone from the management has bothered to set foot and inspect the apartment themselves. The place is falling apart, the equipment is ancient and the neighborhood is trash. Can't wait to move out.

Morgan W.

I would recommend being homeless over living here. I lived here for 2 years with nothing but problems. The first property manager, Leslie, ignored our broken AC unit in the end of June for 3 weeks, had to threaten to sue in order to get it fixed. Then, Leslie left, and Joy is the new property manager. Well, she let a leak in an upstairs bedroom go on for 3 months until there was mold growing on the ceiling of the downstairs bedroom, and we had to go in person and bring parents with us to actually get the problem solved. Oh, and she took away internet access in the middle of the lease, towed residents, and is now not allowing reasonable means of moving out of the apartment. Can’t have a pod in the parking lot, but can have a UHaul larger than the pod in the parking lot? Odd. There are so many instances that I could write a book about it, these are just some of the most inconvenient. I have every single email & maintenance request that has ever been sent in, as well as the nasty correspondence that I have received. They do NOT care about a single person that leases here, it’s a joke of a company and has ruined my entire experience living in Tallahassee.

Aj K.

I was going to consider using this company for rental services however due to how they treat their customers, which I don’t believe anyone would lie about their horrible experiences working with them, I am going to post this negative review to encourage others to BEWARE! Just because it didn’t happen to you, doesn’t mean you not next in line. I can verify that after multiple phone calls, email inquiries that thus far leads me to believe if I had issues they wouldn’t be able to be contacted.

Ladii T. I.

Lisa and her maintenance team are just awesome! When she comes around she always has a smile and friendly greeting while making sure all our repair needs are met. Ron and Mr Isaac have been real dependable even when times are busy, if Ron has a part or something on the van that is needed to fix something in my apartment real quick he would not hesitate on squeezing me in around the job he is doing or get to me first thing the next morning! The management team on a whole has really been doing a good job Joy has got an issue fixed in days that I needed addressed under previous leadership. I think they are here to make things run well
and comfortable for the residents and the company on as a whole.