Complaint Review: Elite Realty Aida Markarian

RENTERS BEWARE!!! DO NOT RENT the home located at 8608 Blackhawk Ranch St. Las Vegas, NV 89123. Owner of this property is Aida Markarian, 56 owner/Broker of Elite Realty located at 8625 So. Eastern Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89123 Phone: 702.835.5255 OR 7942 W. Sahara Ave. Las Vegas, NV 89117 Phone: 702.228.7227. I rented the above property in January 2016 for a year at $2200 per month. I earn a six figure income annually and my salary qualifies me for 5 times the amount of rent on a monthly basis. I am a successful small business owner, investor and entrepreneur. My credit score is in the mid 750's and I have a flawless rental history. Aida Markarian owner/landlord/property manager of 8608 Blackhawk Ranch St. Las Vegas, NV 89123 DISCRIMINATED against me for being self-employed stating that 3.5 years of owning my own business for over 3 years was not long enough and therefore too “risky” to rent to me and demanded that I pay the rent upfront for the entire year in 2 installments. I provided Markarian with 1.5 years of proof of income along with two years of prior rental history at $2000 a month with not one late payment. I also had over 6 figures in my bank account which was disclosed. I myself in the past have worked in Nevada for over a decade as a Realtor and property manager and I knew that this was total discrimination and very unreasonable lease terms. I know that Markarian saw what funds I had in my bank account and used that information to demand upfront rent payments. I find it interesting that Aida Markarian discriminates against small business owners when she herself is a self-employed business owner.

At lease signing, Markarian required a $2200 security deposit, $400 cleaning deposit and a $100 key deposit along with 6 months of the rent upfront. In addition, I had to buy a washer and dryer because the rental home did not have one which I found to be odd. I inquired about the high $100 key deposit wanting to be sure that the locks had been changed from the last tenant. Markarian informed me that the locks had NOT been changed from the previous tenant who lived there. When I voiced my concern Markarian stated that the prior tenant had turned in the key so it was "fine". How absurd and irresponsible. Any tenant could make copies of that key. And I knew according to Nevada Law, it is required that landlords "rekey" locks so that only the new resident has access to the rental unit. I felt totally unsafe knowing that the locks had not been changed. Markarian became snooty and stated that if I wanted to change the locks I would need to pay for it myself and inform her plus provide her with a key. This was an unnecessary expense I should not have had to incur. It was clear Markarian was cheaply and irresponsibly violating the law. I should have went running but unfortunately I did not have the luxury of time to continue my rental search and reluctantly rushed into signing her lease.

At that point I had expended monies for a $2200 security deposit, a $100 key deposit, a $400 cleaning deposit over $3600 for a new washer and dryer set and 6 months of $2200 per month in rent UPFRONT just to move into a house that hadn't been re keyed from the previous tenant. I also found a portion in her lease that did not allow any overnight guests for more than 7 days, this was absolutely absurd as my entire family lives out of the country and my parents and other relatives often come to visit me for weeks at a time. I informed her of this and she went ahead and just increased it by a few days and stated that if anybody over this time were to stay it would be an additional $50 per day per overnight guest, pretty ridiculous when you're paying $2200 a month upfront for 3100 square-foot house with 5 bedrooms and you're a single person. So if my family wanted to stay at my home for any visit I would have to charge them monies daily. I started to feel like I was actually renting a room in a hotel or I was a prisoner in her home and she was the DERANGED warden. Not sure if this clause was about control or being greedy, looking back it was definitely a combination of both. Markarian requested a cashier’s check for the funds which I went to retrieve from my bank. Unfortunately that day the cashier check machine was broken. I called and informed Markarian and asked if I could just wire the funds into her account, she refused and told me that she didn't trust me enough to disclose the account number to me so she forced me to hand the phone over to my banker so my banker could take the account number and she made sure to tell the banker that I was not to see the account number. I was in utter shock, here I am giving this woman almost $20,000 to move into her rental home for the next year and this is how she is treating me, embarrassing me in front of my banker. She made me feel like I was some unworthy, dishonest, second-class citizen that didn't deserve to rent her home and that she was doing me a huge favor by doing so.

As soon as I moved in Markarian gave me notice that the HOA was suing that developer of the neighborhood because of some faulty brick walls that were deteriorating around the property and they needed to be repaired. The first month of me being there I had at least 10 men in my backyard tearing up the entire landscaping and wall in a noisy manner. There was not one time that I could go outside from six in the morning until 6 PM at night for an entire month and a half without having multiple workers in my yard. I wasn’t at all comfortable opening my blinds or windows and I had absolutely no privacy. I was pretty upset about this knowing that Markarian knew prior to my lease signing that this was going to take place. I had asked a neighbor who was having the same thing done when she received noticed of the repairs and she said it was months and months prior to my move in. When I inquired with Markarian why she did not inform me of this and that it was a hassle she told me that if I did not like it she would be willing to let me out of my lease and that I should just move out. I was appalled at how she spoke to me and her ludicrous suggestions. Not only did I not have any privacy but I had to spend time every day cleaning up trash left behind from the workers eating lunch etc.…

Within 30 days of moving in, I complained about several things in the home that were not addressed: moldy disgusting grout in the shower, blinds that were non-operational, water leaks coming from my bathtub faucets going onto the floor, and sprinkler heads that were in need of repair, all of the smoke detectors started beeping from dead batteries and almost every lightbulb on the interior and exterior burned out within a month of moving in. Markarian told me that those items were “wear and tear" and that these said items were my responsibility to fix! And if I did not want to fix and pay for these times myself, I could just go ahead and move out. Again she started with her disrespectful tone asking me to move out. I asked her how I could have that much wear and tear when I've just moved in... She then rudely responded again "if I you don't like you should just move out". As if this was not enough drama, Markarian out of nowhere accused me of owning multiple dogs. I told her I didn't own any pets. However, to whomever is reading this now, I will tell you that 2 days earlier a friend visited me with her 4 pound dog. What was this all about? Did she have secret cameras in the home? Was she coming by and looking through the windows? How exactly would she know that my friend had come to my house with her Chihuahua? This really creeped me out. I soon came to find out, she drove by my home on a regular basis!! Turns out she herself lives very close by plus her brokerage office is just around the corner from the rental property. This only came to my knowledge because after her accusation I installed outside cameras and discovered that Markarian drove by many times, on a regular basis, in the 12 months that I lived there. She drives a compact silver Mercedes and my surveillance cameras and I got very used to seeing her vehicle around the house and the neighborhood.

If you're going to rent this property or any other property owned or managed by Aida Markarian, be prepared to have her be nosy, invasive and driving by all the time to inspect what's going on with her property. Your privacy will be nonexistent! The horror story still doesn't end there... At lease signing Aida Markarian did NOT disclose to me that one of the bedrooms had no heat or air conditioning. I made this room my master bedroom and as soon as the weather heated up I could NOT cool the temperature down. I quickly figured out that there was no air conditioning in my bedroom. I contacted her and she condescendingly told me that I didn't know how to work the thermostat properly and that the last tenant never complained so I should figure it out. I was beyond insulted and informed her that I knew how to operate a thermostat and to send someone out. She sent her maintenance handy man out which was a complete waste of time since obviously an HVAC specialist was needed. I had to take the day off work for her handyman to come over and tell me that an HVAC specialist was indeed required. Of course now I was even more irritated because I knew I would have to take more time off of work and wait longer to have an HVAC specialist come by which should've been done in the first place. On top of this huge hassle I was uncomfortably sleeping on my couch because it was too hot to sleep in my bedroom. Imagine paying rent upfront for an entire year for a 3100 square foot home and then having to sleep on your couch for a month because your landlord conveniently left out the fact that one of the bedrooms did not have any air conditioning.

When the HVAC specialist came out he informed me that that room was clearly an addition to the house and had never had any air conditioning or heating and an air conditioning unit would have to be installed. I asked Markarian why she did not disclose this to me prior to lease signing and she responded by saying that I if I was "unhappy" that I should just move out. Again the same rhetoric of asking to move out over and over again and I was getting really tired of hearing this from her. This continual condescending, inappropriate and unprofessional reply got me even more upset. I had just moved in, expended an exorbitant amount of money doing so and now sleeping on my couch in the living room because Markarian failed to disclose that there was no air conditioning in one of the bedrooms and her solution was to force me out of the lease? What a total nightmare. The new AC unit was to be installed and would take up to 3-4 days and that an electrician and HVAC specialist and several other workers needed to come in.

Throughout this huge inconvenience Markarian made other snide comments telling me that she found it "strange" that I would utilize that room as my bedroom and that the last tenant used it as an office and never complained about the absence of air conditioning air and that I had plenty of other rooms and should go ahead and just move into one of the other rooms so I could have AC. I told her this was a huge inconvenience and costly and not the appropriate reply. Her only response was to invite me again to break my lease as she complained that the AC unit was costing her $3000. I can't express enough how disrespectful and inappropriate her behavior and comments were as not only a business owner and my landlord, but as a human being as well. We live in the desert! Every room in the house should have air conditioning!! I know you would think that I should soon be done with this horror story but I'm not... it gets even worse! It's vital that I mention shortly after moving in I bought an investment property in town and was kind enough to use her brokerage as my representation. I purchased an investment property and her brokerage made a $20,000 commission off my transaction. She had made this commission shortly after I moved in and NEVER thanked me and this was the treatment I received from her afterwards. Not only was I a perfect tenant with no pets that paid the rent upfront for six months but I also made her brokerage a huge commission on a real estate purchase and she treated me like I was a piece of trash. Too bad she's so short sighted and rude because my real estate business partners and I actually ended up buying six more units in the same high rise building and her brokerage consequently lost out on $80,000 in additional commission that went to another broker.

In August 2016 she sent me a very fake friendly email reminder that I had another six months of rent due up front so I sent the check to her office and never heard from her again until I received a certified letter in the mail to my office two days before Christmas Eve telling me that she was not renewing my lease and giving me a 30 day notice to move out. I was in shock! Why didn't she inform when she collected my six months’ rent upfront back in August? She didn't even have the decency to send me a text message or email, nor pick up the phone to make a call- she just sent a certified letter in the mail to my business. She knew the entire time she was not going to renew my lease. There was absolutely no reason she gave me other than that it was nonnegotiable and I was not able to extend my lease for another month to find a place in a timely manner. I had a three week trip planned over Christmas with my parents that I hadn’t seen in 5 years which I had to cancel. I lost about $4000 in airfare which was nonrefundable and hotel security deposit in addition my parents also lost around $8000 in airfare and hotel deposits that I had to end up reimbursing them for. I texted her and inquired why she was all of a sudden kicking me out she replied with the following “you knew your lease was up and this is final” I told her that what I did not know was that she would not give me the option to renew my lease and that option was in the lease agreement. Her response was “this is final and I gave you plenty of notice and it is plenty of time to move”. Why have that option in the lease agreement if you have absolutely no intention of renewing my lease for another year? I'll tell you why, because she got upset that she wasn’t able to bully me out of the lease every time I had an issue with her. It is crystal clear that she was upset that I made her install an air conditioning so to spite me she didn't renew my lease and waited until the very last minute to give me notice via certified mail two days before Christmas Eve and a few days before my family vacation that I had planned 6 months prior.

I scrambled over the Christmas and New Year's holiday to find a place to rent as I now had basically less than 30 days to move. She was fully aware that the majority of people don't really work during the Christmas and New Year's holiday. I had paid her 6 month of rent upfront in August and there was plenty of opportunity over the 6 months to inform me that I was not going to have the option of renewing my lease or even going on a month to month basis even though it was clearly spelled out in the lease. The final move out walk through was also a torturous experience, she brought a crew of people with her and they were desperately trying to find something wrong with the property she screamed and yelled at me during the walk-through acted completely unprofessional and lectured me like I was a child because I had changed the lock on the front door, I told her that she violated law by not re keying the locks and she quickly shut her mouth after that.

I left her property in pristine condition as of January 31, 2017 and at the time of the walk through she confirmed that I would be getting a full refund back but Aida Markarian of course waited 29 days to send me my deposit back, she purposely intentionally waited until the very last day she could to be within the 30 day period to return my funds. Pretty strange for someone that demands rent upfront for an entire year and then waits the entire 30 day period to send back a security deposit just to be a b***h which she is excellent at. To no surprise to me she placed the home at 8608 Blackhawk Ranch St Las Vegas, NV 89123 up for rent the very next day for the exact same price at $2200 per month after I handed over the keys. This tells you that there was absolutely no justified reason that she didn't renew my lease other than making my life difficult. She basically kicked me out to make my life hard and have me scramble last minute during the holidays to find a new place all because she for some reason had it out for me.

Aida Markarian is a hateful, rude, narcissistic unprofessional, condescending and disrespectful spiteful evil bitter woman. She discriminated against me, treated me poorly as both her tenant and her real estate client and just as a human being in general. If you are thinking about doing business with her or her brokerage Elite Realty or renting a home from her, I highly suggest you rethink things because I wish I would have. My experience with her over the last year was by far the worst experience I've ever had to endure with a landlord and I deeply regret using her brokerage firm to conduct my real estate business. I can only hope that my story will prevent someone else from going through stress and difficulties with Aida Markarian and Elite Realty. I certainly expended a good amount of time and energy cursing her and that property after I moved out and I know Karma in the end will bite her in the a**.