You mean the Blackstone namedrop? I had the same reaction. Beam is an internal division of Blackstone, for whatever that's worth, but I don't think there's a news hook about Blackstone here. This is, like, every property management company everywhere, whether indie or corporate.

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bearsyankees 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If this is the case then IMO all the more reason to publicize it -- my SSN shouldn't be exposed just because I applied for a lease [ and we shouldn't just brush that off as something that is a given ]

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tptacek 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I mean, that's true, and I'm not saying there's anything misleading about the post, just that this is true of basically all the companies that do this. All I'm saying is that there isn't a meaningful Blackstone hook here.

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antonvs 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> this is true of basically all the companies that do this

Evidence?

	▲	tptacek 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Just Google "property manager" "data leak".

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DANmode 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

If you’re too big to manage your subsidiaries, don’t buy them/build them.

This is no different than blaming the big AI tool because it messed up doing work in your spaghetti codebase - “how else was I supposed to do it?”.

Stay small enough to do business properly.

Yes, this is a ding on the parent company.

How indicative it is of their other companies making the exact same mistakes is a different question.

But I’d expect issues somewhere.

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tptacek 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Beam Living manages giant high-rise housing developments in New York City. It's not a mom-and-pop problem space, unless you're for some reason opposed to density.

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DANmode 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m opposed to using your scale as an excuse to be an incompetent.

It’s one of the major ethical / effectiveness issues with business - especially American business - today.

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tptacek 3 hours ago | parent [-]

You'd much rather rent from someone like Beam Living than a mom-and-pop operator that owns a small apartment building. Things will get fixed, and you'll get most of your security deposit back.

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tmnvix 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Personally, I've always had a better experience dealing directly with small time landlords than with property managers. For a start, they have been less likely to raise rents at every opportunity. I also prefer when my money goes to someone in my community/local area.

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tptacek 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I've never once gotten a security deposit back from a mom-and-pop landlord without forcing the issue legally, and I did an informal poll of acquaintances last year and we had never even heard of that happening. Unlike mom-and-pops, corporate property managers just do what they say they're going to do.

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tmnvix 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

That sucks. Maybe it's a cultural thing or due to different regulations (I'm not in North America)?

Anyhow, all else being equal, so long as I am living in a transactional society, I prefer those transactions to be with people I actually know. I like real relationships. So much of the way we are changing as a society seems to be alienating us from each other - I make a point of trying to counter that in my daily life.

	▲	tptacek an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, yeah, for sure, I'm making confident assertions exclusively about American rental norms. I have no idea if corporate property management in Europe is better or worse than independent building owners. All I know is that renting is much more normalized there than it is here, where renters are considered a second-class state of residency that one expects to graduate from into full ownership as soon as possible.

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FireBeyond an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I have, multiple times, before I bought.

On the flip side, corporate PMs tried billing my friends for damage that was questionable/grasping at best on an apartment they'd told my friends, in writing, that was going to be gutted down to the studs on the expiry of their lease.

The largest corporate PM in my county has this "look how tenant-friendly we are, we won't raise your leases just because we can" all happy and smiley website where they advertise their open listings...

... and a much less advertised site dedicated just to property owners where they "promise to get you the maximum value out of your investment, looking for every opportunity to maximize its income-earning potential (i.e. raise rents at every possible opportunity to the maximum legally allowed), and "ensuring that when you do change tenants, the minimum effort and cost is required" (i.e. bill your previous tenants for as much of their security deposit as possible, while doing as little as possible).

This led to situations where my partner and I saw that the "inspection form" for the apartment we'd left not twenty minutes prior (it was initially meant to be previously) was sitting on the desk of the property manager filled with remarks like "blinds not cleaned, needed professional cleaning", "drywall holes, needed professional repair", "odors, needed remediation, professional cleaning".

In other words, they'd planned ahead to take the deposit, and when our meeting with the PM was rescheduled it pointed out the lie, "Oh, when was this inspection and these repairs all done? In the fifteen minutes since us locking the door and going down the elevator to wait for you in the lobby?" Of course, said PM company also owned, helpfully, a carpet cleaning company, a housecleaning company, and everything else, so you knew they were going to give you a good deal (not).

"Oh... um... oops... that's a mistake, I must have printed off from a template and not tidied it up".

But this is just dueling anecdotes.

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jimbo89 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Beam is actually a little bit unique here. They have a spent a lot of money building a lot of custom software that most other property managers just buy off the shelf.

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consensus1 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes, that's what I meant, but I thought your comment meant that it was a property management company hired by Blackstone, not an internal division of Blackstone. That changes things completely.