Students: Where NOT to lease

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whickums

250+ Posts
Do not, do not, DO NOT live at Crossing Place apartments.
These apartments seemed like a great deal when my roommate and I were looking last year. The amenities are extensive, all bills (minus electricity) are paid, the apartments are fully furnished, and they just opened last May. We signed a 12 month lease that's due up in August (that was our only choice at the time). The problem with this place is the MANAGEMENT. I have never experienced a more remedial management team. Within 1 week of our move in date, we began to have problems with this place. Unless anyone wants me to go into detail, I won't, but I will tell you that my roommate and I recently had to move apartments because of their negligence and failure to run an apartment complex. This place has been through 3 different strings of management in 6 months, which just further proves to me that they have no idea what they're doing.

As a fellow Longhorn and civil human being, I am giving you priceless advice. BEWARE!!!
 
That's because you are a p@ssy!
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I'm just messin with you Chance.
 
You should put a note about your experience onThe Link so that people all over the place can get your warning. This is also a great place for anyone to check out any complex they are considering living in!
 
Hornbud is correct in that many of the management companies that deal primarily with students also treat them as second-class customers. Also, many of the properties that students go to because they are affordable (like Riverside area) are also going to be in older proeprties in a lot aof cases and in areas where it's tough to get a good staff to stay in place. Think about it--would you rather work at an A+ property in a good part of town where you can make a lot of money or at a run down complex in a not-so-great part of town?

As far as the management companies around campus, they know that they have a captive audience and they will lease their units no matter how poorly they treat the tenants, and they don't actually own the units in most cases, so why bother to treat the tenants with repect??

If any of y'all want insight on any property that you are thinking of touring, feel free to PM me.
 
It's not at all that this place is run down; in fact, it just opened last August. It is just a really deceiving place.... it has a lot of perks (fully furnished, most bills pd, nice amenities), but I really think the bad outweighs the good. Security and management really blow.
 
Move out of Riverside. Get into some of the South places, they treat you better, mainly because most of the clientele is the young professional type. Look at Far West and the Arboretum areas as well.

Student apartments are wild and fun, but the fun stops at the cheap build/fit/finish and the inexperienced and cheap office staffs.
 
I'm familiar with the property, but the fact is that your cream of the crop leasing professionals and management staff probably are not going to want to work on Riverside or in student properties when they can make more money in a nicer area and deal more with professionals instead of students. The fact that you said security is bad there is a SEVERE black mark on a property in that area. Do they have any courtesy officers, even?
 
Durkee,
They supposedly have a "courtesy patrol" and/or police on site at all times. I have tried to use this service before (I feel like such a party pooper, but when it's 4:00 and you can't go to sleep because people are partying outside your window.....) and I had no luck whatsoever. One great example of ****** security would be this one night in December when this guy broke into 2 cars in one night. A lot of people saw him do it so they called the on-site police. The only thing they had to say to the girl whose car was broken into was, "look where you live; what do you expect?" I was apalled when I heard this. Just because we are students and live in a kind of slummy part of town doesn't mean we should take it up the ol' bum as far as our safety goes.
 
Thank you for that link. My girlfriend will have to add her complex, The Lantana, on West Avenue. Wow do they suck. She has not been able to use her shower for 7 months or more. They try to fix at it, but no. She smells cig smoke all the time thru vents and light fixtures yet they are supposed to smoke free units. It smells like ***. You can also smell what the neighbors are cooking, or killing by the smell of it. The cover of their bar area (between the kitchen and living room) has been up and can cut you as you go near it. The refrigerator leaks water onto the floor, on the food inside and freezes stuff randomly. They have fixed at this for two years now. The A/C unit drips water onto the floor and makes a 4 foot area wet and mildewy...also stained (so you know the jackoff's are gonna try to take it out of the deposit...they did not clean it for them when they moved in, btw). Also, it was really dirty and was costing them tons of money due to being inefficient...finally got looked at...in OCTOBER!!! The windows don't have adequate locks and her closet bar fell (I fixed that...tried to charge them but no luck).

Just last week they "fixed" her plumbing and bathroom (took them 5 months to tile from when they began to actually laying the grout). She now has less water pressure than before (trickles), it knocks, changes temp's drastically at a moment's notice (if you get any pressure at all), and the sink has zero pressure...drips out and makes noise. Idiots. They say they can get back to it next week.

When her lease is up in May we are gonna mail letters to all the new tenants and the ones in her unit telling them to stay after them or to move out. I want to cost that company cash in the long run and to know who is doing it. We have already reported them to the Austin Tenant Council and soon to the BBB. Others will surely follow.

Remember the name: Lantana, on West. Don't go there unless you are a total sucker. Oh, your car will get nicked and scratched there too due to the tight parking if there is any when you get home. This place is an expensive cesspool.
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Wow,
That place sounds like a total nightmare. At least our maintenance guys are decent. I would say your girlfriend could have probably gotten out of her lease due to health hazards galore: Smoke inhalation, mildew, no plumbing? I think she should get a copy of her lease and see what is in there about the maintenance. Most of them say something about the issues being fixed in a timely manner, and I don't think anyone would say that 7 months to fix your bathroom water is timely. That's too bad that people can get away with screwing other people like that. I'd run them straight into the ground.
 
Ditto Crossing Place.

I live there now, and it sucks ***. Noise, parking, wall insulation, constant fire alarms going off, etc.

Hell Hole. Do not live here.
 
whick: Yeah, she qualifies to get out of lease according to the Tenant Council but it is over at the end of next month. She is moving in w/ me and her roomie is going elsewhere too. Thing is that it would screw her roomate to bail like that. They would maybe let her out of her lease too but she does not want to start a new lease somewhere else till early May. At this time, w/ a few weeks left, it is not worth it. But we/she will have the last laugh. Oh yes.

The maintenance guys that work for the complex are pretty good but they are so worked that they contract out jobs many times. The contractors milk the company. It would not surprise me if they got screwed in the past and are exacting revenge. But the two guys seem to know what is up. They started the job but did not get to finish the shower area. One day, in order to dry the moisture in the shower before tiling it the contractors brought in a plug in heater w/ fan. They even turned it on. When her roomate came in she wondered why HER bathroom was so hot...because they put it in the wrong bathroom. Uh, dorks, the fan thing goes in the bathroom that has no tile in the shower, not the one that works.
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I have heard the exact thing from passengers on the bus about Crossing Place. It is not well liked by the people that live there. I saw them being built and there is no way I would live there based on what I saw. I feel for ya guys.
 
I am so excited to be out of my lease that's up in AUGUST.... I'm so jealous that your girlfriend gets to leave next month...
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I really have no idea where my roommate and I are going to end up.

Would any of you know if it is a better idea to prelease or just sign a lease a few weeks before move in?
 
Whickums, what HornBud said is exactly true. If you want the best deal, do not prelease with the market the way it is right now. Even the student properties will probably give you a lot better deal if you don't prelease. Last fall, as the semester got closer, my office was bombarded with e-mails and FAXes from management companies that were panicking because they had so many vacant units, and they are definitely not used to that. So people that waited saved a ton of money over people who preleased in the spring. It will not always be that way once the economy picks up, but that's the way it is now!

If any of y'all need help finding a place, PM me and I'll hook you up!!
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my wife once lived in a place in NW houston where the water was basically only available at one temperature: scalding hot. if you ran the water for like 5 minutes and flushed the toilet a few times, it was possible to cool it down to probably around 90 - 100 degrees F.

needless to say that was pretty inconvenient. their excuse was that her place was located too close to the water heater, which was really old, or some other ********. in general that place just sucked anyway, it was a happy day when we moved her out of there. f houston
 
Hey Chance!! My snake oil is some good stuff!! It gets you cheaper rent, lower deposits, and management companies that will actually take care of their tenants!!
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I live in Crossing Place and it appears I have been very lucky. We have had no problems with our apartment, so we have never had to call for maintenance. Sounds like if we ever have to call them it will really suck.
 
Right....
So the ****** manager and office staff can take every penny of my deposit? I think not. They should be lucky they're getting as much money out of me as they have.
 
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