Most of the positive reviews are for the service staff, who are all kind and friendly. They attempt to do their jobs within the limits of the rules and regulations set by FirstKey and most times the responses are prompt.

Specific to the service received by FirstKey, the company seems to be 100% profit driven and have no concern for keeping their tenants comfortable. The company does the bare minimum legal-wise to ensure the home is habitable and no more.
I don't believe they inspect the properties they own before making them available for rent, so there are issues the home may have that are not apparent until a tenant has moved in. Because of this, its a crapshoot on whether you're get a comfortable home or not. If you run into any real issues with the property, be fully aware that FirstKey will not attempt to correct the situation, and will immediately start to let you know how everything is the tenant's responsibility and not something they will address.
The home I rented with FirstKey is borderline legally rentable. When in the first month of moving into the home I noticed issues with the foundation, which I promptly put in a service ticket. When you look at both front doors, there were noticeable gaps all around where you can see the outside. A tech was dispatched immediately and the only thing he was able to do realistically was attach some rubber "stoppers" at the top and bottom of the door to attempt to address the gaps in the doorframe and was supposed to put in a request for the foundation to be address, nothing happened. So now, when it rains heavily, there's water at the front door. Some of the cracks have also allowed critters in the home, and to date I've had scorpions and 2 garden snakes slitter right under the door.
The property had issues with the water pressure in the hallway bathroom, so the tub wasn't getting hot water and the toilet isn't completely flushing. Both were also promptly addressed since it was still within the 1st month of me moving in, but as I was pointing out the general quality of the shower stalls (cracks in the shower tile, some type of black substance falling from under the tiles, and the tile not being sealed to the wall) and was told FirstKey considers that to all be cosmetic and not requiring a fix. Neither bathtub faucet works 100%, and the water pressure is "questionable" at best. I have to keep a bottle of water next to the toilet so that it can be completely flushed. The sink faucet caulking is coming up, and I had to bleach the walls to kill whatever that black substance was.
Another issue the property has is that the repair work done from the last occupier wasn't done effectively, and all the "repairs" have since come undone. There were large holes in the master bedroom, and hallway walls. When I first moved in I asked for these repairs to be redone as you could see the cracks re-appearing in the spackle "patch" job and was told that was cosmetic and no need for the repair to be done. These cracks have grown over time, and while the holes haven't re-appeared, there are 4 obvious areas in the walls where there's damage.
The kitchen counters were not properly installed, and are now warped. The are areas of the kitchen ceiling where water damage is so extensive that the ceiling is drooping and you can see the drywall paneling that was installed as the drywall tape is coming off. The kitchen cabinets were missing shelves, so I had to go to Home Depot and purchase wood to have kitchen shelves. There were also several knobs missing, which I was also able to purchase replacements that closely matched what was there.
The current major issue concerns a pipe bursting in Jan2024 that was not fully repaired in Feb of 2024, leading to mold growing along one interior wall and every time it would rain the carpet would be soaked through for days. During the initial repair, I called their maintenance line to inform them twice that the 3rd-party company FirstKey hired to perform the work was not completely fixing the house, and causing more damage but was told it was no issue. Fast forward to June/July, and there's mold growing and wet smelly carpet. I was then told I was the cause of the problem because I didn't clean the gutters... EVEN THOUGH where the leak was there were no gutters. The maintenance department then cancelled my service request after I refused to pay to have the gutters cleaned so I had to call local code enforcement to get something done.
I still don't have a fully functional central AC, and have had to resort to window units to keep the home comfortable. This led to an issue with the electrical where the house would trip the circuit breakers several times a day. I put in a request for it to be fixed, only to be told again I was was the problem. After about 2 months I put in a request again, and another tech came out and tested the outlets. It turned out that one of the window A/C units was plugged into an outlet that was faulty and once he replaced that the house has no no more circuit trips however FirstKey wants to charge me a $100 service fee because I evidently was also the cause of the house tripping by having 3 window A/C unit. Note they have made no attempt to address the cental A/C unit not cooling the house adequately to cause me to NEED window A/C units.

Roof over patio collapsed during tropical storm. I have been lied to, the wrong contractor was sent out then they sent a contractor to a house in GA. That they don't even own. I live in NC. The level of ineptitude, deceit, and incompetence boggles the mind. Only been here 2 months and are ready to break lease.

This is a copy of an email sent to the property manager who refuses to rectify the problems that they caused in getting this taken care of.

You must realize that your own recordings along with this email trail clearly shows that we are the victims here and you and your minions are the cause of all the problems that have plagued this debacle.

CANCEL THIS NONSENCE NOW! Have Superior contact me so that intelligent people can get this issue done.

It is FKH that sent the wrong vendor the first time
It is FKH that sent a vendor to a home in Woodstock Georgia that FKH doesn't even own.
It is FKH that cancelled the work order.
It is Ms. Rho at FKH that lied to me more than once and put the blame on the screw ups on Superior.
It is Ms. Rho at FKH that then lied to Superior that I was angry with them for not contacting me, when she clearly was aware that they kicked the work order back to FKH.
It is Ms. Rho who assured me that she would phone Superior and have them contact me and that she would phone me back.
It is Ms.Rho who then phoned back shortly thereafter with another assurance that superior would contact me.
It was A.J. At Superior that informed me that they kicked the work order back to FKH several days earlier because of their inability to perform the work required.
When I confronted MS. Rho about her lies and told her what was told to me by Superior, she became angry and said that they should have not told me that, and that she will be discussing it with them. A blatant attempt to divert the attention from being caught and being confronted, to Superior for defending their reputation from her lies.
All the while I was never informed that Superior would be unable to complete the work. Thus delaying this debacle even further.
It is FKH that conveniently did not tell me that Superior kicked back the work order because they did not have a General Contractor

You can't understand that after me being disrespected with numerous foul-ups by your associates along with cover ups and lies why I was angry and use several choice words to express my disgust with your people.

Now, because you have threatened me, if anyone shows up at this home, attempting to enter the inside of this home, the police will be called.

Again this is all on FKH due to blatant miscommunications, incompetence, and dishonesty.

I should be available to receive the fine folks from Superior any day next week.
You have no reason to reschedule this other than your arrogance.

FIX THIS NONSENSE NOW!

As a past homeowner for ~10 years and as a FirstKey renter for the past 9 months (since June 2022 after selling our house) as we wait to begin building a custom house, we have found FirstKey is largely a good rental company to work with (I know this goes against the usual FirstKey Homes review you see on Google, Yelp, etc.).

They know when they are wrong / need to help, as when our home's refrigerator died in the rental, they determined a new unit was needed, and they nicely compensated us for the spoiled food. When you put in a support ticket the right way (i.e., give them appropriate info and follow their ticketing system process), they get it handled appropriately in a reasonable time frame. They also seem to largely know when they are in the wrong (i.e. Initially pushing us on HOA infractions and then realizing it is another neighbor or their unit's set-up is the actual cause of the infraction) and when they realize they are wrong, they listen, and then support us as renters in the extremely strict HOA neighborhood we've found ourselves renting.

However, I will not recommend FirstKey (and it will never get more than a 1-star review from our family) in its current form in how the organization currently handles renewals. If you start renting with FirstKey, then beyond the first term, you should expect a non-negotiable significant rent increase well above the local average rent increase. See below for specifics:
•Average rent increases in the area I live are 4-6% YoY. For our early renewal discount (offered at 120 days prior to renewal that must be accepted 90 days prior to renewal), we have been offered the opportunity to renew at just below a 10% increase YoY for a one-year renewal term. If we miss the early renewal offer, we have the opportunity to renew at just above a 12% increase YoY. In both offers, the monthly pet fee will also unexpectedly increase.
ONo options were offered to us for reducing our renewal rate for committing to a longer term
•I have tried talking to several renewal agents as to why the Firstkey renewal is so high above the average YoY renewal in the area and I have used a few objective (longer term at lower cost.) and rental unit negativity points to try to negotiate. In reply, each agent uses a blanket statement that these are inflationary times and costs are rising to provide rentals and they do not ever negotiate renewals (every renewal agent says this on the phone each and every time).
•I have asked a renewal manager to call back to talk further through these renewal practices and they have yet to call back. This is disappointing to experience.

At this point, we expect we will be be reluctant 2nd year renters of FirstKey as the 10% early renewal rate barely edges out moving and choosing a new rental at lower rates (with security deposits and other fees), but just barely. Next year, we're likely gone no matter the situation (whether our house is done or not) if FirstKey approaches us with another sizable rent increase. At some point, we as customers have to stop allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of by vendors such as FirstKey Homes who are continuing to push the inflationary narrative further and further. Stop paying the higher rates, post more negative reviews, and bad practices like this will stop.

After my personal experience and reading through the many other negative reviews, I expect FirstKey Homes will make no relevant changes and I will then personally look forward to seeing FirstKey Homes sitting on many open rentals when their current renters move – they will be eating significant costs that could likely have been avoided if they would be more negotiable with their "valued" customers at renewal time.

I would gladly change my review / perception of FirstKey Homes to a 4-star review, or even a 5-star review, if I could get just get some real perception on why the rental rates increased so much vs. the local averages and/or offer us a fair negotiation opportunity such as the ability to commit to a longer renewal term at a lower price or a shorter renewal term at the currently offered pricing options.

Here a little update what I've been dealing with for the past couple month… the struggles with my property management company.

FirstKey Homes is by far one of the worst property management companies that you can find. Beware that they will rip you off! The way they do business and treat their renters is as shady as can be.
I have been renting a house through them in Cape Coral, Fl for the past year.
As everyone knows, we have been hit hard by hurricane Ian last year in September.
Just three days after the hurricane, I reported all the damages. The house lost about 90% of its shingles, screens were ripped or completely gone, the soffit on one side of the house got ripped out, rain gutters blown off. Everything was documented with photos and reported through their online portal and also via phone. It was summer, so we have quite a lot of rain here in FL, almost every day. I told them that they would need to get the house tarped, as I was certain the condition the roof was in, would not give enough protection from any possible water damage. Last thing I needed was my things in the house get damaged as well by water leaking into the house.
Days past and one week later I called them again to inquire about them sending someone to tarp the house. Again, I was told it'll be taken care of.
It took almost 3 weeks until the house got tarped. Nobody ever contacted me to let me know when it was happening. My neighbors texted me to let me know as I was out of town.
Shortly after I returned from my trip, I had a leak in the house and water was dripping on my bed in the middle of the night.
Again, I documented and reported everything through their online portal.
Nobody ever called or showed up to check on the issue. A few days later I called them and told them about the leak issue from a few nights ago… apparently it wasn't a big deal to them.
I said that I'd expect someone to look into it before there is a bigger issue and mold may the growing in the walls or ceiling.
Nobody felt responsible again.
The only excuse I kept getting and keep getting until this day is that we had to deal with hurricane and they are trying their best. Many people are in need of help right now.
October went by and so did November.
All of a sudden I received an email about my lease expiring on January 10th and I was asked to log into my profile online to checkout the lease renewal. I did and almost fell off the sofa… let me remind you about the condition the house was and still is in. They were raising my rent by $400, which is about 20%! I sent an email asking them if they were serious and how they would justify the increase for a property that's located in one of the hardest hit areas by the hurricane and nothing had been fixed. We are going on 5 months now and still… nothing has been fixed since then! NOTHING!
Nobody ever responded to my email. Instead I kept getting lease renewal reminder almost every week and phone calls. Every time they called me about the renewal I would unload on them… tell them every time about what still needed to be fixed here at the house and when I would hear back. Also I told them that any increase would be ridiculous! Every person I spoke to 'apparently' took notes and forwarded my comments to the local agents. I was told so at least 4 times. In regards to my issue with the rent increase, I was told that will be handled by the property manager.
I received emails with the name and phone number of a roofing company, which made me blow up again and resulted in me sending them an email…

"Hello Kim,

It is not my responsibility to run after the company to give me an update about the roof.
I am payimy you, First Key Homes and not them… so I expect you to have them contact me.
First I need to constantly remind you that I need the roof tarped, even though I reported everything just 3 days after the hurricane and now I have been waiting to hear anything regarding a repair.
My neighbors next door have the same company here working on their roof right now and he asked them if they have any work order for me, which he declined.
So not sure what is happening here, but it doesn't seem like anything has been happening so far.
And on top of all that I am being constantly reminded to extend my lease, which is ridiculous, as well as the increase that you are requesting. With the house being in the current condition, there is no renter that would pay this much money for the house right now or even sign a new lease.
Also nobody has ever reacted to the water damage that I reported weeks ago!
All my concerns seem to have been ignored so far.

Just for legal purposes, I also wanted to put this in writing now, as you have many recordings of me talking to someone at First Key Homes already.

Thank you,
Carsten "

The holidays passed and of course nobody ever got back to me.
I spoke to one of the renewal people shorty after New Years. She said that the increase was based on the local property values and increases in the area and there was nothing she could do. It was up to the property manager here in the Fort Myers area. ‍ So she referred me to the same people who would never respond to my emails or return my phone calls - awesome!
The online portal however showed the same rent for the month of January.
So I paid and as of January 10th, I'm on a month to month basis.
A few days ago I received an email reminding me that my rent payment was due in one week.
I logged into the online portal and almost fell off my chair. They did increase the rent and also added an additional amount for the 20 days of January that were past my one year lease. Basically they want a bit over $2800 now.
Needless to say that I sent them an email telling them that I never accepted the increase and won't do so until everything has been fixed in the house. The email was sent to the renewal team and every property manager and administrator here in the Fort Myers area.

Their response was priceless…
They wanted me to let them know if they had to give me my 60 days notice or if I was going to pay the rent as requested.
Then I got an email from then local property manager:

"Hello Carsten, As of January 6th First Key Homes sent an email stating storm related work orders have been in transition with the construction team. The roof is priority and is on the list of many homes pending to be repaired. Our construction team are working diligently with our vendors in getting these homes repaired. Please reach to t Jannifer Delfin who is the renewals specialist as I do not have any say in resident lease renewals. "

She is the same person, who told me that she wasn't able to help me with that, as it was up to property management here in FL.
So… I emailed her again and got the following response:

"Hi Carsten,

We value you as our resident. Regarding of your rent price, we can't adjust it.

We do re-evaluations on all First Key Homes properties annually which may result in a rent increase. Our pricing team will take a look at similar properties within that area and they are also keeping up with the fair market rate of your current property. Our pricing is firm, and the rate that has been offered to you is the best and lowest rate available for this property."

It is by far the worst management company I ever had to deal with.
To them all that matters is money and they do not care at all about the people they are renting to.
Stay away from this company, it's not worth the headaches and trouble!
But if you like feeling ignored, ripped off and taken advantage of… this is the company to give your money to.

Pray to your individual god that you don't have a maintenance issue because you'll be waiting a week plus for a response… But you will have an issue, because this company pays bottom dollar to have houses remodeled to look pretty when you first tour it and it isn't until you move in that stuffs starts breaking. STUFF WILL BREAK.

Plumbing issue: weeks waiting for them to send an incompetent individual to NOT Fix the issue until finally after a few more weeks the issue gets fixed.

AC unit issue: End of summer and unit breaks on a Monday when is 90 degrees plus outside and 87 inside the home by the next day which qualifies as an "emergency" and they should respond within 24 hours as per contract. After almost a week of submitting the report and calling daily and get their offshore call center to escalate they still won't respond. Unbelievable.
Eventually they'll send someone to patch up the issue, advice that it may need to be replaced. A week later a new contractor comes over to take a look, advises the unit needs to be replaced. Two weeks later, another contractor comes over to take a look and advises the unit needs to be replaced. A week later, another contractor comes over to take a look and advises that the unit needs to be replaced. UNIT HAS NOT BEEN REPLACED. I'm not exaggerating… 4 different people came to look at the unit and gave the same diagnosis, First Key has done nothing about it.

Water Heater issue: This is the latest one which started on Sunday, Nov. 27. Gas odor coming from the Water Heater, I call the local utility company since it's 8 pm. They come, say there's a leak from the valve. They shut off the gas to the appliance. I call First Key since this sounds like an emergency, and according to their policy that they force you to read each time you login to their site, an emergency will see a technician come within 12 hours. Technician comes the next day on Tuesday, Nov. 29. Mr. William Guest was as unhelpful as Joe Exotic is to tigers. He looked around, called his supervisor, told him what I shared about the issue, asked who was it that had come to fix it before (because believe or not, they had previously sent 2 contractors to work on the water heater due to the pilot turning off anytime is windy), and Mr. Guest pretty much told me I had to call that last contractor/vendor to come fix the unit because it should be under warranty. Do you mean the contractor/vendor that First Key sent to the house? I need to contact them to request they warrant their labor? I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS! I've had over 12 vendors come for different reasons and I don't know who came for that.
I'm now calling every day to "escalate" the issue which guarantees I'll get a response from the local office within 2 hours (what a joke), and the issue is not fixed, I have no hot water in the house, the smell of gas is present in the garage so I'm needed to have it open and seal the door into the house so the smell doesn't come in.
If you're reading this and thinking about renting from First Key Homes… for the love of Pete please don't.

If you're considering moving into a home owned my First Key, DON'T! My boyfriend and I started renting with them in August and have had nothing but problems. To summarize, our electric was shut off, and they won't reimburse us for paying THEIR late bill from before we moved in (June/July), our garbage didn't get collected because they never set up an account for us, we have had mold in our kitchen for 4 months, and they won't fix it, and our calls are NEVER returned from our property manager. Here's the full story if you want to know more:

My boyfriend and I moved into our house with First Key in August 2021. On September 22nd, our electric was shut off. We called every phone number we had to reach First Key multiple times, but never got an answer. My boyfriend and I both had work that day, and the temperature in our house was dropping. I was unable to get ready for work, make myself food, or charge my phone. Knowing that First Key wouldn't answer the phone or help us resolve the issue before it got dark out and even colder, I called the City directly to find out why the electric was shut off. They informed me that the bill for June/July 2021 (when we hadn't even moved in yet) was not paid, and that First Key was sent multiple notices that the electric would be shut off. He said I would have to pay almost $200, which included the late bill and the fee to have the electric tuned back on. I paid the bill and was told I should put the account in my name, so this doesn't happen again. After sending all the proof to First Key to get reimbursed for this, my boyfriend got an email from them saying we are ineligible for reimbursement because I put the account into my name, so they aren't responsible for the bill. I, again, sent them proof that it wasn't changed into my name until AFTER I paid THEIR late bill. We have now been waiting for answers and have gotten none. It is so ridiculous for them to say we are responsible for a bill when we hadn't even moved in yet. We had to deal with our electric being shut off for a full day because of their incompetence. This happened AGAIN when the trash company refused to take our garbage, saying that an account had never been set up for us.
In addition to this, we have been living with mold on our ceiling in the kitchen since September! Maintenance inspected it on September 20th and told us that we need a new roof ASAP. I am very allergic to mold, and First Key keeps denying the bid to get it fixed. It is now January, and they haven't approved the work order or taken any steps to get rid of the mold.
Lastly, good luck trying to get a hold of a property manager. In the 5 months we've lived here, we have been given at least 4 different phone numbers for property managers. Any time we call any of these numbers, we leave a voicemail that is NEVER returned. Any time we call the main phone number, they tell us there's nothing they can do and that we need to talk to our property manager. When we tell them we've never gotten our calls returned, they just keep telling us they can't help.