Rudulph Real Estate INC

We have been in a house rented from Rudulph Real Estate for almost a year now, and have not had the issues these others have had. After about 3 months of living there, we noticed a roof leak. We called right away and while it did take a little bit of time, they completely replaced the roof, no excuses. They even hired a new roofer to do the job and he was fabulous, only taking 2 and a half days to get the job done. Also, not long ago during a rainstorm, a limb fell off a tree in the front yard onto one of our cars and blocked the driveway. It was after office hours ?about 8pm. I called the office and got the afterhours number to report the issue and got Mr. Rudulph on his cell phone. When I explained the situation, (the driveway was blocked by the limb and we could not get out the next day for work), Mr. Rudulph came himself, chain saw in hand, to remove at least part of the limb. He worked in the dark and the rain to get the job done. While it did take a couple of days longer to get the rest of the limb cleaned up and off the property, it was done. So far Rudulph has been ok to deal with and the level of service has been good. This is my first experience renting a house and I would rent again from Rudulph. more

Kaci was awesome. She helped to make my experience a very very good one. Thank you for all your help with getting keys, telling directions and for having patience with me. Thank you for going out of your way in helping us. Thank you. more

Rudulph Real Estate has been very responsive to our needs as a landlord for several years. We have always entrusted them to find good, quality tenants and they have never disappointed us. Repairs are done as quickly as possible and they have always seemed to attempt to be fair to us as well as our tenants. Often, we have been so glad to have a mediator between us and our tenants. Rudulph is able to make the decisions and give answers we find difficult to do as the owner of the property. We recommend this well-respected and long-standing presence in the Birmingham rental market. more

Have not had any complaints with office. They came highly recommened from my realestate agent when I decided to unlist my house more

Office has been spectacular for renting. Broken water heater was taken care immediatly by office. hotwater leaked on Saturday and new heater was in first thing Monday morning. more

So far Rudulph has been ok to deal with and the level of service has been good. This is my first experience renting a house and I would rent again from Rudulph. more

Everyone was very helpful, professional, and polite. thanks more

people that i worked with are very friendly. more

Dara and Ms. Rudulph are both extremely helpful in every way in this transaction. It's a pleasure working with them. more

When we moved out we got a bill almost 2 months later for over 2,000 dollars. We called for 2 weeks not getting any resolve, or call backs. I finally got soMeone to talk to me, after she gave me an atittude, which I should be used to after a year renting from them,she told me that I needed to look at my lease and go talk to a lawyer, that they do not have to provide us with proof or reciepts. And the sad thing about this is I will pay the stupid bill to get these people out of my life, but I just want to know that I am not paying for all the damages that were there when I moved in. I have never had to deal with people so rude in my life. The rudest of them all is little one up front... I can give names if Rudolph actually cares. Pros: Nothing at all Cons: ERVERYTHING! CustomerService more

There seems to have been a change in front office staff: they have become more pleasant on the phone. On move in they were tough to deal with, but that may have changed. I guess I'll find out when I eventually move out. I had an unpleasant experience on move in, but since that time this company has been easy to work with. They expect prompt payment, and will definitely expect you to pay for any problems you create (I haven't caused any, but I get that ""feeling"" from them). I recommend reading your lease/application a minimum of 3 times, because this company ""dots their i's"" and ""crosses their t's"". My move in experience, just to be fair: You write a check for security deposit before you are approved for the house. Make sure you ask what the move in cost will be before you move into the house. Your application is basically like signing the final lease. In my case, they wanted two months rent, fees, and deposit - it was an abnormally large amount for move in. I found this out after submitting a deposit check with the application because I did not ask. When I couldn't pay the extra amount, they ran to the bank and cashed the deposit check (which is forfeited once you sign application). The front office staff, at that time, was very tough to work with, and inflexible. All I wanted to do was spread the amount over a couple payments (2) so that I could actually move in. After haggling with 2-3 front office personell, I eventually received a call from Sandra Rudulph, who agreed to work with me on the payments - somewhat. I think she gave me an extra couple days to pay the lump sum rent (re: 7), but she wouldn't push it onto the normal rent payment (re: 30). I took a loan from a friend and made it happen - but there was little to no flexibility from Rudulph. Read the application. Flexibility is something other companies generally offer, and the lack thereof caused me to write a harsh review on this site that I am updating in fairness. I felt the need to update this review to be fair, and also because they've been OK to work with since move in. I've since renewed my lease for a second year because I enjoy the house. They did not raise rent, and I really don't like moving. I won't lie, I'm also nervous about how I'll be treated on move out, so I think updating this is a fair gesture of goodwill that may hopefully save me some cash on the back end. However, if the company treats me poorly on move out, they can expect a scathing review, again - and I won't take it down. If I'm treated well, I will write an excellent review, and remove any negatives. All I desire is to be treated fairly... so Rudy, if you're reading this, I changed this just for you, and in hopes that when I eventually move out, you all won't take my first born child for damage I haven't caused. Yes, Rudy, you've been easy to work with since move in and I look forward to continuing the improved relationship. I don't know how to change the Pro's Con's below. I would update to say... Pro's - Nice properties, timely response Con's - Your application commits you to a lease and forfeits your deposit before you know terms of lease. Pros: NONE. Cons: Want to be a victim? That's how you'll be treated. more

This company is notorious for not giving people their deposits back. I have done a lot of research pertaining to this matter. Had I known that I would have never used their services. It is pretty sad, but this is obviously how these people make their money. Someone needs to speak out and have this place shut down. We had a problem with our cooling unit and it took approximately 3 months to have it repaired. In, the mean time we were paying double on our power bill. We never were reimbursed for the extra $800.00 we paid to the power company due to their lack of service and unprofessionalism. I am totally disgusted at the fact that anyone could be done this way. We also never got our deposit back as I stated above. We did everything that we were supposed to have done in order to make sure that we got our $800.00 deposit back. Therefore, we are now out $1600.00. We have 2 children and struggled to make it after moving out of their rental property. We have finally caught back up some 4 months later, and may I say that it was not easy. I just want to warn anyone who is thinking about renting or purchasing one of their properties. Make sure you do your homework first. Trust me, you'll be glad you did. Nobody should ever have to struggle with 2 children at the expense of someone elses greed. Fortunately for us, we did take pictures of the before and after. We also had great neighbors that are willing to go to bat for us. With that being said, we will make sure that proper action is taken. more

We have been in a house rented from Rudulph Real Estate for almost a year now, and have not had the issues these others have had. After about 3 months of living there, we noticed a roof leak. We called right away and while it did take a little bit of time, they completely replaced the roof, no excuses. They even hired a new roofer to do the job and he was fabulous, only taking 2 and a half days to get the job done. Also, not long ago during a rainstorm, a limb fell off a tree in the front yard onto one of our cars and blocked the driveway. It was after office hours ?about 8pm. I called the office and got the afterhours number to report the issue and got Mr. Rudulph on his cell phone. When I explained the situation, (the driveway was blocked by the limb and we could not get out the next day for work), Mr. Rudulph came himself, chain saw in hand, to remove at least part of the limb. He worked in the dark and the rain to get the job done. While it did take a couple of days longer to get the rest of the limb cleaned up and off the property, it was done. So far Rudulph has been ok to deal with and the level of service has been good. This is my first experience renting a house and I would rent again from Rudulph. Pros: Involved Owners more

I want to warn leasors and leasees away from Rudulph Real Estate. It was the worst experience EVER! They have horrible customer service. Don't return phone calls, don't update contact information and just plain incompetent. Our renters destroyed a lot in our home but we were only claiming the major damage. Because Rudulph didn't not physically inspect the premises before we moved back in we didn't receive the deposit money to cover repairs. They chose to phone us and ask if there was any damage. We told them what was damaged and they chose to drag their feet in resolving this problem. STAY AWAY! Cons: Everything more

I agree with everyone here. They are just awful. But I haven't really had a landlord that wasn't pretty awful. I guess they get bad tenants alot and just get hardened hearts. We've been with them for years and I've always had the feeling we wouldn't see our deposit again. When we moved in the house was dirty, though they expect you to hire someone to clean the house when you leave. Calling for repairs is ridiculous. You might just get someone to come that day, but usually it's two or three days later, no matter what the repair. We didn't have a oven for almost a full week because the repair person they use was ""busy"". Rudulph are terrible to deal with, rude staff members when you call. And it's not like I've called much at all, maybe 5 times in over 6 years of using them. Besides all that, the yearly rent increases while the house falls apart is ridiculous also. I will say this for them though. At least they leve you the heck alone. You won't hear a word from them for anything unless you are late with your rent. They don't come inspect anything like it says they are supposed to in the lease. Which is another reason they are terrible, they don't even do what they tell the owner of the house they will do. I would say definitely don't rent with them, but I can't say that, because they practically have a monopoly on the market around Birningham. Pros: None really. Cons: Staff. Repairs take forever. Lease. more

I was excited about a listing and jumped through all their hoops only to find more hoops. I was told one thing by the OWNER and then another thing by the receptionist. After going through all the hoops and giving all my money I was informed I was one of four applicants for the same house. Even then they would do all the credit checks and the homeowner would choose among the applicatnts. Just seemed to be too much of bait and switch and the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. Need to work customer service skills! more

My family and I attempted to rent a house using this firm and it was THE worst mistake that we could have made. Initially we were told that a particular property was unavailable. Then we were told that it WAS available. And then we were told that it was unavailable again. After that they told us that the property would be ours if we could submit our application ASAP by the OWNER of the company. We did just that, faxing our application within minutes. The check was delivered within hours of speaking with the owner. We made arrangements to move from Atlanta to Birmingham. Late one Friday afternoon (3 weeks before the proposed move) we got a call telling us that the house had be leased by a person who had already submitted an application. All along, during this ordeal the people with Rudulph that we were working with KNEW the situation and they intentionally did not keep us informed although we asked what the status was on several occasions. All we have to show for this ridiculous ordeal is a voided check and a pull of our credit report. Pros: They manage several properties Cons: Deceitful, dishonest people more

This is the most unfriendly company I have ever had to deal with. When we moved into our house the basement carpet was saturated with cat urine and the lady from the office tried to tell us she couldn't smell anything. Fortunately enough for us the maintenance men were there repairing the damages from the previous tenants...which should have been done before we moved in...but they ripped up the carpet b/c we refused to move in with the house in that condition. The maintenance men nearly passed out from the odor. It's been a year and it still smells awful. I'm sure we will be charged for that. I have always had my suspisions on whether we will get our deposit back and I'm sure we won't. Even though this house will be in much better condition when we leave than when we moved in. I definitley agree on taking pictures before and after you move in and out. Just know also that the list they want you to do when you move out is unbelievable...I would not recommend this company to my worst enemy and I feel for the people who own homes that put their trust in Rudulph to rent for them. Pros: n/a Cons: there are to many to list more

They lie and lie about repairs and never get around to reparing anything. I think it is because they do not want to ask the owners of the house for money. THEY DO NOT REPAIR OR REPLACE anything. They say they will but they never do. This is a nasty little company whose offiice looks like a dump. Pros: They are nice until they get your deposit Cons: Lie lie lie lie more

First, this buisness has one of the shottest offices I have ever seen. Many people crammed into one room....I should have seen the writing on the wall when I walked in. Your rent will be raised every year and when it comes to repairs forget it. Also, they alwyas find a way to keep all or part of your deposit if they can. Video tape your home if you rent from them as soon as you move in to have evidence of what it loked like before your were there. Better stilll rent from a different company. Pros: Nice office staff..except for owner Cons: Cheap Cheap Cheap...except for frequent rent increases more