Although they don’t paint their doors red anymore, the infamous Bula Enterprises is still here and they’re still in business, just under another name. Following a flurry of foreclosures and lawsuits, it seemed that Kip and Michelle Schoning, owners of Bula Enterprises, had left the area, and renters of Corvallis breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, Rising Realty soon took its place on NW 4th Street and according to the Secretary of State, it is in fact registered to Michelle Schoning.
Michelle first registered Rising Realty, LLC in 2012 and Bula Enterprises, which was first registered in 2001 to Kip Schoning, was dissolved in 2014. Even with a new name, they’re unable to escape their reputation for substandard living conditions and shady business practices and are again starting to garner a lot of negative attention. They have a history of complaints regarding dilapidated housing conditions, ignored repairs, exorbitant fees, and aggressive collection tactics resulting in hundreds of evictions. Craigslist currently has several ads by current or prospective renters warning others not to rent from them. Some of these posts claim that the owners are living in Mexico and doing business from there. According to their personal Facebook pages, they are currently living in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with their children. Their pages and their children’s Facebook pages are full of pictures of recent vacations to Thailand in late 2014 and El Salvador earlier this summer, and boast of a very luxurious lifestyle.
A quick Google search for “Bula Enterprises” or “Red Door Realty Corvallis” will produce plenty of information to raise an eyebrow over: testimonials from past tenants, lawsuits, news stories, and chat forums warning others not to do business with this company or the owners. At one time, Bula Enterprises had hundreds of rentals available, but Kip and Michelle defaulted on a lot of them and lost many to foreclosures. Court documents filed in Linn County in May of this year show that Michelle had a writ of execution filed against her for the foreclosure of a property in Albany from June of 2014.
Their own expansive Timberhill home, which has also almost been lost to foreclosure more than once, is currently valued at over $500,000. Before they moved away, they used it as their personal residence, but have since rented it out to multiple tenants. At one point in 2010, they missed 13 mortgage payments in a row, becoming over $15,000 behind.
By Jan Hovarth
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