Altitude Real Estate - Newcastle, Lake Macquarie & Hunter Valley - Redhead, New South Wales

Crin M.

Alison & the team at Altitude Real estate sold my property May 2022. I loved the stunning photos & presentation of my home online. Great advice given to use a beautiful stylist who made my home look like something out of a magazine brochure with the latest trending furnishings .
The sale price I received was exactly what I was hoping for in this hard to judge & constant changing market.
It was a speedy & pleasant experience.
Also a beautiful touch allowing myself to put the sold sticker on my sign, so I could feel proud of my achievement & hard work. I highly recommend you for the personal touch & amazing communication throughout the process. .

Lily F.

We have been tenants with Altitude for the last year and they have actually been exceptional from a renter’s perspective. Every repair has been done within a matter of days. Very easy to contact and have a chat with the property manager too, which we really appreciated.

Andrew P.

We have been so impressed with the professionalism, experience and demeanour of Alison from Altitude. She has gone above and beyond for us over the last 6 years. We first met her whilst we were searching for a property in 2016, we didn’t end up purchasing a house through altitude, but she helped us immensely. She gave us advice numerous times over the following years, and then recently made selling a breeze. She was happy to come over and work with us, even amidst the craziness of family life. She’s very humble about her work, but I really do think she is the best. I’ve referred all my friends and family to sell through her as we couldn’t fault her at all.

Thank you so much Alison for everything you’ve done for our family

Tim S.

Booked in a house inspection at a time that was suggested by the realestate agent and they no showed and then didn’t answer their phone calls whilst we were waiting at the house. When they finally got back to us 3 days later they let us know they had no intention of coming on that day because the house was already under offer and didn’t bother letting us know.

Very disappointing, it takes two seconds for a curtesy email/text to let potential customers know the inspection is off, if they can't be bothered take time for that how can you trust them to take care when selling a home.

Tammy

Can't give a zero start rating. There was a lot wrong with the management of the rental property I tenanted. If you want a real estate that responds to your emails or even calls you back, good bloody luck with this mob.
Maintenance requests went ignored and were only actioned after my vacation notice was handed in. A tenant moved out and after providing the correct forms, they never removed him from the lease, regardless of many ignored emails and calls. They even told me that he was still financially responsible after MONTHS of requesting he be removed. He was my ex and they continued to send him correspondence about my tenancy regardless of how many emails both of us sent. Its a massive breach of privacy and safety. Ultimately I had to resend my paperwork and it took another week after that for him to be removed.
The property was considered uninhabitable by their handy man who comes in and the house even had a spider infestation while we lived there due to a very poorly sealed kitchen splash back. (They did not fix the splashback but they did hire a pest control man which made the entire front and back yard uninhabitable for my dog for several hours on a weekday work day morning).
Which brings me to a really fun fact. The house had been advertised as fully fenced. It had no functional gates and was completely open to the street. In a 10 minute walk around in someone else's property with 15 other people, it's not really something you test out to make sure it works.
There were also jobs lodged and trades people who turned up completely unexpectedly to us.
At the end of my tenancy, they withheld my entire bond after doing an inspection without referencing the inbound inspection report, which after bringing it up most items on the list disappeared.
Thankfully, they did give an opportunity to go back and clean some more. After several weeks of waiting on any response, and constantly being told "oh she's in a meeting she'll call you back" I actually had to get a solicitor to call on my behalf. Go figure it's also the only time anyone's ever gotten to speak to the property manager rather than the false promise of a call back.
The property manager also didn't go back and inspect the house until the house was leased to new tenants, dragging out my withheld bond for two weeks longer than it ever should have. Not everyone has thousands of dollars to leave sitting in a real estate agencies trust account.
In summary, give your dead rent money to any other real estate agency.

Grant P.

To start with, we submitted the incoming tenancy report highlighting all of the problems with the property that they overlooked. Nearly every room had an objection to their report where they stated everything was good. Lodged two maintenance requests in the first week and receive the call two months later to arrange a time to fix issues. We had already fixed the issues ourselves at our own cost.
Upon notice to vacate, they started viewings of the property to prospective tenants, but didn't bother to show up to the first open house viewing. Seven cars out front... people walking around the property without any agent supervision. Not Good!!!!!!
Three weeks after vacating, in lieu of advising water usage bill, they just took it from the bond. We received notice from the bond board, not the agent (I believe that is known as a "cowardly act"). Emailed immediatly on the 9th of January disputing the bill at 12.28pm and called the agent at 12:34pm. Was advised they would send through details of the water bill based on their own calculations. On the same call, I stated that the incoming report had advised water saving devices were not installed despite the agent claiming they had been. The agent's response was I was not the property manager at the time but we have the copy of the plumbers report stating they are installed.
Email 9th January 1:10pm
Good afternoon.
"As discussed, please provide the compliance certificate for the water saving devices that you advised you were in possession of.
As per incoming report sent back to Altitude, as documented by us, water saving devices limiting flow to 9 litres per minute did not appear to be fitted to all internal taps.
A photo showing the ensuite basin as an example was provided"...No response.
Email 9th January 1.37pm
"Good Afternoon,
Further to below, please note mathematically the change in usage.
This is based on your own incoming report. I would also like to get the date of the photo as the Jpeg you provided is time stamped to today @ 12.54pm, which is not the time the photo would have been taken.
I do not dispute the calculations on determining the value, I cannot fathom such variance in usage being 7 fold per day during the second half of the tenancy"...No response.
Emailed 10th January
"Dear Lxxxxxxxx,
As per clause 12.4.4 of the Residential Tenancy Agreement, the requirement is to have water measures checked at the commencement of tenancy agreement.
You stated yesterday, Altitude Real Estate was in possession of the report completed by the plumber prior to the commencement of the lease.
Given we identified in the Entry Condition Report, that water saving measures were not possibly installed (refer to page 48 of tenants report showing photo as example), please provide the plumbers report by close of business today"...No Response.
Emailed 12th January.
"Dear Lxxxxxxxxx,
After further discussions with my wife, we do not wish to penalise the landlord by not paying for water usage to which we accept obviously happened.
We have rightly asked for proof that water conservation measures were installed at the rental property, (as advised by yourself were in existence) and none have been forthcoming.
We again note our advice within the incoming report that water conservation measures were not installed to all appropriate tapware as required under NSW legislation.
We offer to share the costs either with the Landlord or the landlord’s agent on the basis of 50% usage. We believe this is a fair offer given the lack of transparency Altitude has provided within the request for information process.
We will upon invoice to a new value of 50% of the water charges, pay the amount directly into Altitude’s bank account in lieu of the money already having been taken straight out of the bond without notice.
The full bond is to be re-instated so it may be claimed as a full amount.
If you wish to not accept this offer, please advise accordingly.
We request Altitude to respond to this email asap so we can settle this matter at the earliest possible time"...No Response.
TO DATE NO RESPONSE!

Michael T.

After a great start, my original property manager moved on. Since then its been hands down the worst property management services I've ever experienced. Waiting over 3 months post the tenant vacating and still don't have small repair works completed that they held bond money for to correct. The work that has been carried out by their tradesman was done incorrectly and to a very poor standard, and has been over a month of mostly ignored emails trying to remediate. The few updates received have been vague and promising a quick follow up, and then having to again chase up responses a week later. Full of excuses of why it's not their fault. Will be progressing complaints through Fair Trading. I just wish I could give less than 1 star.

Kate S.

I would of given 0 stars if possible.
We purchased our first home last year with David & Katie. We put an offer in which the owner accepted & we proceeded with building & pest inspections. We received a phone call from Katie saying that another couple had put in a higher offer and to secure the property we had to match their price and have our finance sorted first. No problem. We match their offer & a few days go by while we sort out our finance, at this point we were looking at other houses (we upped our budget so why not look at others in the meantime as we might not get in first with this property). We then receive another call asking how our finance was going and I mention we’re looking at other properties..all of a sudden the other couple have pulled out and the property is ours. Extremely suss and I felt like Altitude lied to get the owner more money. David also left me in tears multiple times as he is very abrupt and rude on the phone. My best friend purchased a house with a different real estate & was greeted with champagne and well wishes on settlement/final walk through, we got nothing but a sour agent who from memory didn’t even say congratulations. What was meant to be an exciting time in our lives was stressful and disappointing. Oh and if you’re looking at selling with them, would you want your real estate to be telling buyers “I don’t care if I sell this house or not”? Would never use again.