What renters in the San Luis Valley say about their property managers
Alamosa is a small market. There are four companies managing long-term rentals here that anyone would call a competitor, plus us. So when I pulled every Google review for Grand Junction last week, I did the same thing for the valley. It took a lot less time! Five firms, 322 reviews, the whole history of each.
My takeaway: we’re first here by a wide margin, and I trust that number less than the Grand Junction one. I’ll explain why below.
The table
What Google showed on September 5, 2026. Their customers, counted. Not my opinion.
| Firm | Google rating | Lifetime reviews | 1-star share | Reviews in last 12 months | Replies to reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eclipse Property Mgmt & RE (Alamosa) | 4.6 | 187 | 7% | 12 | 186 |
| Kiva Apartments and Storage | 3.7 | 27 | 22% | 2 | 3 |
| KBK Properties & Management | 3.4 | 18 | 28% | 3 | 7 |
| Century Property Management and Sales | 3.4 | 89 | 30% | 6 | 16 |
| Parr Real Estate | 5.0 | 1 | 0% | 0 | 0 |
Parr has one review. That’s not a rating, it’s a data point, so it’s listed and not ranked.
What’s different about the valley
1. People here are kinder on Google. In Grand Junction, 37% of all property management reviews are one star. Here it’s 16%. Some of that is us pulling the average up. Most of it is that the valley is a small place and you’re going to see that person at Walmart.
2. The market is quiet. All five firms together picked up 23 reviews in the last twelve months. In Grand Junction the top two firms alone got 116. If you’re an owner shopping for a manager here, you’re working from a thin record, and a firm’s rating can swing on three reviews. Read the reviews, not just the number.
3. The complaints are the same ones. I tagged every review under two stars. At Century the top three topics are fees, deposits, and maintenance. At KBK it’s deposits and maintenance. That’s the exact list from the Grand Valley. Different town, same failures.
A thing I found that I didn’t like
While building this I found one Google account that posted five-star reviews to Century, to KBK, and to us, all inside three hours on the same day, with nearly the same wording. That account has hundreds of reviews on it. It’s a review farm, and it hit all three of us at once, probably chasing something that had nothing to do with any of us. I didn’t ask for it and I don’t want it. Our rating above is what Google displays, so it includes that review. Without it we’d still be at 4.6. But if I’m going to publish everyone else’s numbers, I don’t get to hide the asterisk on mine.
The gap, and why I’m careful about it
I’ll say the number once. We’re at 4.6 with 187 reviews. The next closest firm is at 3.7 with 27. Our one-star share is 7%. Theirs run 22% to 30%. We’ve answered 186 of 187 reviews; the other four firms together have answered 26. That’s not a close race, and pretending it is would be its own kind of dishonest.
But here’s what I actually think about when I look at that table. Thirteen people gave us one star. Thirteen people who lived in a home we manage and walked away feeling like we let them down. I’m a Christian, and I don’t get to read that as a rounding error. The 4.6 rating belongs to my amazing Alamosa team, earned one inspection and one phone call at a time. The thirteen are mine. So the gap is real, and I’d rather spend this post on the thirteen than on the gap.
Where our 13 one-star reviews come from
Eight mention fees. Five mention the deposit. Four mention maintenance. So the repair side isn’t the problem. The problem is how well we explain what things cost before someone signs. The fee schedule has been public on RentEclipse.com for years, but “it’s on the website” is not the same as someone understanding it. That’s on me, and it’s fixable. I need to build a new fee walkthrough so tenants understand the fees they are paying.
If you own a rental in the valley
Four companies is not a lot of choice. Look at all of them. Read what the low reviews say and whether anyone bothered to answer. Then call whoever you like and ask them the questions those reviews raise. We’re at 719.581.RENT, 609 Main Street, and I’ll answer those questions myself.
Data: Google Maps reviews for five Alamosa long-term rental management profiles, full lifetime history, pulled September 5, 2026. Ratings are Google’s displayed rating. “Last 12 months” counts reviews dated on or after September 6, 2025. Firms with fewer than 10 reviews are listed but not ranked. Eclipse Property Management & Real Estate.
A note on AI. The thoughts, experience, and opinions here are mine. This is not AI content. It’s not written by AI. I didn’t just give it a prompt and out popped this blogpost. This is real. However, I do use AI as a writing and editing tool to help shape and polish the final text, and to check facts and figures before publishing. If it feels too polished to be really written by Chuck, or a detector flags this post, that’s why. AI is a tool, and I used it to help with the words, spelling, and grammar, not the thinking.