Century 21 Horizon

I had the displeasure of having C21H as a property manager for quite a while. The only reason they remained on my payroll so long was family disaster took priority and kept my attention. This was a mistake that would cost me many thousand dollars before I would be forced to address it.

This company was very hands-off with my rental. All they did was collect thier payment and contact me if they needed more money for repairs or if *they* needed something. I never heard from them otherwise. C21H showed little interest in my or my families personal lives either. They negatively effected us on several occasions. Things like not noticing my tenants stopped paying rent!.. Double charging fees unless caught. Super high repair costs and very sub-par work. The list goes on. A glaring lack of concern for anything but getting paid once they have you signed up was my experience.

When colleen was around, things were ok. But since she left, I had problem after problem with them. A huge one being a lack of communication - especially when it counted. I often times had to follow up for answers or a response at all. This cost me quite a bit unfortunately but the owner didnt care. Joe carta is rude, insensitive and only cares about your money. He misinformed me during crisis and turned on me when i questioned him about it and also never responding during said crisis, when I needed his input and he promised Id be getting it. Joe carta' temperament quickly went from fake-politeness to being downright rude when confronted about his broken word to me and mistakes his company had made. This guy is emotionally immature and needs to stay out of any PR position.

I could go into so, so much more detail but honestly, its easier to just tell the basic truths.

Do expect them to be very polite and catering before hiring them.

Dont expect how your are treated or what you are told to expect to last long. Once they have you, it changes.

Do expect to be over charged for everything from repairs to tenant placement.

Do expect to have communication barriers, or none at all, and not to rely on them when the cards are down.

Dont expect to be treated respectfully when you call with a complaint - they dont like those - especially the overreacting boss joe carta..

Dont expect them to always get your rent or to tell you if they dont receive it - expect surprise bounced checks. Thats how I found out.

Dont expect them to have your best interest in mind. If they get paid, thier job is done apparently.

Dont expect them to do anything about lousy tenants either. They will talk about it. They will relate with the issue. But they did nothing, NOTHING to stop my tenants from running all over them. All talk and no results.

Dont expect reliable advice - thier advice could have really cost me had I not sought other opinions. (They still cost me a lot tho)

Dont expect to have a tenant placed for you unless you personally cough up half a months rent plus fees to pay them to find a tenant. Thats their policy!

Dont rely on what they tell you will be done to be done. I had to babysit this company every time anything happened but them getting paid.

Do check your records against the bills and paperwork they send. Otherwise they will get you.


There is a very good reason for these reviews so dont let the few that 'dont understand the problem' and report great things fool you. I suspect thats exactly why they are there, or they never got the chance to see the real C21H.

I have so I feel obligated to warn others to stay away. I cant describe how much better things would have been had I not made this mistake of hiring C21H and was warned about them before it was too late.

So read the reviews and heed the warnings. Dont be a victim like us

It took 31 days to simply repair/replace a refrigerator.

I was only reimbursed a fraction of the amount of money that I spent on spoiled groceries/time taken off work/being forced to eat out every day ($150 as opposed to $500 I actuality spent...and I only asked for $300).

The entire month I was treated like a nuisance and like I was over exaggerating the situation.

A week after the refrigerator nightmare is over, I get a call from Century 21. I am told that they don't have my rent.....

In actuality, they just misplaced my check.

After freaking out and frantically looking for (and eventually finding) my receipt, I call them back.

"Oh...ya, we found your check. I talked to accounting, they had it...haha!"

Whenever I call Century 21, I deal with such incompetence and ignorance and RUDENESS that I REALLY feel like Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out and tell me I have been Punk'd.

I would give this place -5 stars if it was possible.

I would even go so far as to tell people to be wary of renting property that they manage, as they don't care about their tenants at ALL.

You can find better customer service in a Mexican prison.

Walked in to inquire about a rental they had listed and was treated like dog crap.
The girl at the front desk needs an attitude adjustment asap... Or a new job.
Really embarrased for this place.

Funny thing about Yelp....Sometimes you'll find a real horrible business with somewhere around 30 bad reviews like Joe Carta Century 21 Horizon and they'll have like a handful of five star reviews. Then you look at who gave them the five star reviews and they have like one or two reviews on Yelp. Hmmm?

I guess instead of making their business professional, they spend their energy on fake Yelp reviews.

With that said, I happen to live next door to a property run by Joe Carta Century 21 Horizon and it's the absolute the pits! I've called on a tenant and they don't do squat. When you call them you get the run around, they are rude, and don't care. I wasn't surprised when I found a ton of bad reviews for them on Yelp and when I asked around the neighborhood I heard a bunch of absolute horror stories about them. When I spoke with Mr. Carta about the tenant and requested that he come down in person and help me deal with this person, or to at least show some understanding, he yelled at me and hung up the phone, no joke. THAT'S A FACT!

So what's the lesson. Don't use them! Stay away! Renters or property owners! They are bad news! I can't begin to say how rude they are and in my honest opinion very unprofessional. Don't be fooled by some of these five star reviews from reviewers who have one review ever on YELP, read the other 25 plus poor reviews and know for those 25 bad reviews there must be hundreds more, which is usually the case.

How they stay in business is beyond me!

Just returned from viewing a property on Oregon street.

Bad experience!
Waste of my time!
Unprofessional!


Item one: unprofessional to be late ~

Made appointment to view property at 9am Thursday and arrive on time - 5 min early even according to my phone. Waiting a bit for Lisa.


Item two: double booked the showing ~

As a car pulls up there are two women in it and they get out to come over as does a man in uniform on the other side of the property. So - it's looking like a nice little party... or perhaps an awkward situation where a couple (myself and the hubby) are hoping to view a house and walk around with the undivided attention of our renter. This was not the case and it was very awkward for me walking into a room to ask the hubby a Q but finding the other dude who is looking at the property. Maybe I'm wrong but the goal is to rent the property right?


Item three: wasting my time, thanks ~

I didn't need to be up early. I have no plans. I could have still been in bed at this very moment. But no. I thought I was dealing with a professional company.


Item four: Lisa, are you an adult? Dress like one!

Ok, I get it... you're about 7 months pregnant and want to be comfortable. Well, then stay at home and wear your hip band T's, combat boots and shorts there. When showing a property try to put on a blouse, slacks, dress and cardigan or SOMEthing to show you aren't from the show "16 & Pregnant" because you dress like an angst-y high schooler! And for your JOB no less. Way unprofessional!



All in all NO THANKS!
I plan to avoid properties managed by this group as I search for new lodging.
Good thing there isn't a hurry :)

No option for 0* huh?
These people need to take classes on customer service. Every single time my wife or I go in or call to deal with them they exercise their obvious lack of professionalism and competence .
They don't follow up on phone calls.
They are always a hassle to deal with. They never seem to know what they are doing. They are rude....
I want to repeat this one: THEY ARE RUDE.

This place is the worst. When I needed an apt from out of state they were so attentive and I thought I had lucked out. Ha! The courting phase. Now I am lucky if I ever get anyone on the phone. They are much too busy for callbacks or anything remotely described as action. In trying to move they had me look at three apts that were already rented! Which I of course drove myself to and was told they were rented AFTER I then drove to the freaking office. Three times this happened! After I nearly burst into tears I was told they would follow up if any units in the same buildings became available. Years later, no phone call.
Never ever ever in my life will I deal with this company. I spoke to a couple of people in my building who expressed the same concerns and issues. Unless your goal is lack of service and frustration, do yourself a favor and don't!

Watch out for this place. I was living on a property on 32nd st that is owned by a guy named Duke. He lives up in San Francisco and has Century 21 Horizon manage the property now. He used to have a great couple take care of the place but they have passed and instead of getting more outstanding onsite management he went to $entury 21

The groundskeepers as well are a joke, their blowers make a ridiculous amount of noise and just hack away at all of the vegetation and blow everything around. Turn key machine.

I used to pay my rent in person onsite, now I mailed to Century 21 Horizon's office. It was arriving to them after the due date of my rent and unknown to me and also not mentioned in my contract, instead of telling me about it the first time so I could send earlier, they just let it keep racking up. Months later when I moved out they were charging $50 per month for this new "late fee"! I spoke with the property manager Colleen Jackson, she had little respect for me. They left a sour taste in my mouth and created a sad way to the end of my time living in San Diego.

(Note - there is another page with reviews for this company. It seems they may have started a new page to escape the plethora of 1-star reviews. That page is located here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/century-21-horizon-san-diego)

The apartment I live in was formerly managed by Century 21 Horizon in Kensington. Thankfully, that is now over.

I had a cabinet that had a weird smell coming out of it. 3 months of emails and calls back and forth, and the problem was not resolved. Century 21 seemed to have the attitude of "yeah, thats a weird smell - we don't know what to do". They were polite, but made it clear they were just going to stall and not lift a finger, and hope I would eventually give up and the issue would go away.When the owner finally got involved, his solution was to leave a $1 garbage disposal cleaning kit on my sink (the smell is coming from a drawer 8 feet away).

Eventually the apartment building was bought by a new owner, and a new management company now handles the problem. The smell turned out to be pesticide that the previous owner spilled in the drawer years ago. The new management fixed the smell in less than a month.

I don't think I would ever rent an apartment managed by Century 21 again.

They are amazing and provide a good care for there tenants.
My water heater broke and took 4 days to be fixed, they gave me rental credit for that.
Thank you Kristina Perez.