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Report: #895697

Complaint Review: Marketplace Homes - Livonia Michigan

  • Submitted:
  • Updated:
  • Reported By: Luke Moore — Atlanta Georgia USA
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  • Marketplace Homes 17971 Laurel Drive, Livonia, MI 48152 Livonia, Michigan United States of America

Marketplace Homes Marketplace Housing LLC. Misleading and fallacious business practices. Marketplace Homes preys on vulnerable Homeowners. Livonia, Michigan

*Consumer Comment: Pure scammers

*Consumer Comment: MarketPlace Homes Scam

*UPDATE Employee: Not a Real Customer

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My wife and I just sold our home after leaving the Marketplace Homes program 8 months ago. Several friends have asked me how it worked and I won't allow others to become a victim.

Marketplace Homes, aka. Marketplace Housing preys on vulnerable homeowners who are underwater on their mortgage and looking to move. Do not become a victim! Their business practices are misleading and fallacious. If their 6 year guaranteed lease program sounds to good to be true its because it is! 

When looking to move deal only with people you can meet in person - follow this one rule and avoid 99% of scam attempts. You never have the option of dealing with a Marketplace Homes representative in person. They don't want to meet you! The company electronically wires funds into your bank account which seems convenient until they stop paying you or drastically reduce you payments! Only a scammer will "Guarantee" your transaction. Marketplace Homes is a scam because they advertise guaranteed rent on your existing home - when in fact, the only thing they can guarantee is the commission they receive from the builder when you buy a new home.

Nothing stops them from dropping your "Guaranteed" rent every year. What good is a guaranteed payment 50% lower than what you signed up for. Once they receive their real estate commission from the builder they have no loyalty to you or your family. DO NOT RENT your home to a company that is guaranteeing you rent without seeing the interior, exterior or meeting you in person. Ask your self, how is this company making money? If you can't answer that question, do not sign up for the program.

1.) Marketplace Homes name is never on the mortgage or title. If they decided to stop paying you tomorrow, you would be responsible for 2 mortgages and maintenance on 2 properties.

2.) Can you afford to maintain 2 properties? A year after we moved out, we had to replace the roof and furnace on our old home which cost us $10K+. Did Marketplace Homes help to cover the cost NO! There is a cost and responsibility associated with being a landlord. Make sure you are prepared.

3.) If you really want to move, research property management companies that are honest. A typical property management company charges 1 months rent and takes 10% of what they receive from renter. Honest property management companies do not guarantee rent because that would be a gamble. They never know what the market can bare until they determine what renters are willing to pay. They make money by charging a 10% fee. If Marketplace Homes charges no fees and guarantees rent, how are they making money? If you can't answer that question, do not sign up for the program!

*Do not gamble your home.* Marketplace Homes say they offer a guarantee when in fact they guarantee year one then reduce your amount every year after. Year 2 is a gamble. Your rent will decrease if they bet to high and received less from the tenant. 

3.) Trying selling your home on your own or using a real estate agent. That way you are dealing with someone in person and they are held accountable for what happens.

If you have been a victim of the Marketplace Homes scam share your story and save someone from making a costly mistake.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 06/11/2012 05:34 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/marketplace-homes/livonia-michigan-48152/marketplace-homes-marketplace-housing-llc-misleading-and-fallacious-business-practices-m-895697. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
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#3 Consumer Comment

Pure scammers

AUTHOR: Bridgette - (United States)

POSTED: Friday, December 22, 2017

These clowns Mike Kalis and David Duncan both put in writing that they wanted me to leave the property after living there for 3 years .

I think they wanted to rent the place out for more, they put a fake notice to leave the premises on my door! And are charging me over 2,000.oo saying i broke my lease, when again i have their emails specifically saying they didn't want my money to just go.

 Biggest bunch of as*es ever! very unprofessional.

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#2 Consumer Comment

MarketPlace Homes Scam

AUTHOR: luckyme - ()

POSTED: Wednesday, October 30, 2013

I heard about MarketPlace homes on the radio and thought it would be a great program to look into as my son was 1 and we were looking to move to an area with a better school system.  Even though I would qualify for another home, the thought of 6 years of not worrying about rent would take some of the stress away from being a landlord.  I asked many questions and wanted to know what the catch was that they could offer such a program.  What I found out is that  they require that you list them as your realtor, even though they do not meet you in person or show you any properties.  From there they require the builder to give them a 6% commission check, which sucks up most of the insentitives that a builder would normally get.  Then you don't get paid for the first two months after you hand over the keys.  The first year worked out great as the checks came in as clockwork.  In the second year, you will get hit with a bill in regards to their property management fee, something that is never mentioned when you enter the program.  Expect it to be at least $100, but they say they can make it whatever they feel like.  The kicker is that they will provide the contracts to you and give you less than a week to review making it difficult for a working person to seek legal assistance.  

Here is a summary of experience:

You buy a $200,000 home

They get 6% commission: $12,000

The rent for the first year may be $900 per month that you will get without any fees in the first year.  Keep in mind you will not recieve rent for the frist two months.  +$1,800 market place for the two months.

Second year renewal:  The rent may drop $50, due to market value and then they will hold an additional $100 for their fee.  You will then be left with $750 per month.  +$1,200 market place per year.

If you chose the rent to own option, you will have to come out another $100.  Therefore, you truely get $650 per month as you have to hold $100 for the tenant if they choose to purchase.  This of course does not contribute to the sellers fees.

Total cost: Market Place: $15,000 market place for the first two years.  If the fee stays the same, then they will get an additional $4,800 for the remaining term.  Therefore; you would have invested around $20,000 for the 6 year guarantee.  Break it down per month it comes to $333 for 6 years.

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#1 UPDATE Employee

Not a Real Customer

AUTHOR: Mark Shaftner - (United States of America)

POSTED: Sunday, June 24, 2012

There are two different things in this report:  Bold face lies and opinions.  Both will be addressed in this rebuttal.

First, the person who wrote this report IS NOT a customer of the company its written about.  Luke Moore is either a competitor, or an individual with an agenda against our company.  Not only have we NEVER done business with a person by this name, the dates do not match up with when we were doing business in the area stated.  We were not doing business in Atlanta in June of 2011, and we certainly could not have done business with this person 8 months prior to even being in a market.  Whats more is that this person never actually gives any details as to how they specifically were wronged.  This report was written by a person/entity who wants to do damage to our company, and we will be pursing them to the fullest extent allow to us by law. 

Luke Moore is challenged to provide proof that this transaction actually happened.  We have no record of you doing business with us whatsoever.  Whats more is that we were not doing business where in the area you claim in the time frame you claim.  Without proof that any of this happened, this entire post is completely de-validated. 

Regardless of the fact this post is a complete fabrication, the lies and opinions in it that will still be addressed.

First, this fake person mentions a 50% decrease in rent.  Our customers are protected on the amount their rent will go down in years 2-6 of their lease.  It is based on fair market value, and our company does not get anything more than 15% spread from what we receive from a subtenant.  This person/entity has made a lie stating nothing stops us from lowering the rent by 50%.  What makes our program great is that is reduces the amount of risk involved with renting their home.  Our program is not magic or too good to be true, it just eliminates risk to be nothing more
than 15% below fair market value.  The customers that elect to do business with our company love this fact.    

Next, this person mentions that we dont want to meet our customers.  This is not true.  By all means, our customers are welcome to visit our corporate headquarters at any time.  Our headquarters are located at 17197 Laurel Park Drive, Livonia Mi.  We have developed a business model that is called Cloud Real Estate in which we manage property and sell homes from one central location.  We do have contract employees in the field that meet with every one of our customers. 
However if a customer would like to meet with our staff directly, they would have to travel to our office, which we do welcome.  Our business model promotes efficiency over other traditional models of property management and real estate which helps make our programs a reality (and not too good to be true).  If we were a traditional company, we would never be able to offer what we do.  Companies that try to copy what we do (and there are severalof which are being investigated as authors of this post) almost never deliver like we do.  The statement of us not wanting to meet our customers simply isnt true. 

Next, this person says that we did not cover $10k worth of maintenance issues on his fictitious  home.  If this were actually a real customer, this would be true.  If something goes wrong in the home (i.e. the roof needs to be replaced, or the furnace malfunctions) it is the owner of the home who would be responsible to make this investment into their investment property.  There is no way we could ever survive as a company if we covered general malfunctions on the properties we manage.  However, if the damage were cause by the tenant (i.e. the cause of the malfunction on the furnace be due to the tenant not maintaining it correctly) we would cover this.  Isnt that great? 

Furthermore, this person mentions can you afford to maintain 2 properties?  Every person who works with our company has to qualify for two mortgages.  Again, our program is not magic or too good to be true, everyone MUST be able to afford two properties to qualify; these are not our rules, they are that of the Federal Government.  We encourage all of our customers to know what it means to own an investment property. 

This person mentions using traditional Property Management company that charges 10% and 1 months rent.  Every customer that works with our company has this option as well.  We offer our guaranteed lease program as well as traditional property management at the rate of 10% and 1 months rent.  The reason why a vast majority of people go with our Guaranteed Lease is because the reduced amount of risk they receive by utilizing it.  By all means, they can use our company or any other Property Management company in the market.  We are the best though, so it would be silly to not use us. 

Lastly, this person mentions that we are not on the mortgage or title.  They are correct, but this is not a bad thing.  This is innuendo designed to make us look illegitimate to uninformed customers.  Our customers would not want that as then we would have an ownership stake in their new home, which would not make sense. 

Readers of this should know that if this actually were a customer, they, as we all do, have the courts at their disposal.  If one is wronged by a company and feel scammed there are avenues to pursue that are much better than this blog.  This is clearly someone that is, for some reason, out to hurt our company that has no real recourse in the proper avenues and have thus resorted to a fake blog post.  We are still a small company that is trying to help people move into a new home that are stuck in their old one.  We are in no way out to scam anyone, and were saddened that someone would go to this length the lie about us.   

The reader is encouraged to contact anyone in our company to discuss any of the things in this report.  We are a very transparent company and would be happy to answer any questions or concerns about our program. 

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