Those of you who live/have lived in an apartment complex...

Condo conversions end up being good in the long run, because you tend to get people who care more about keeping up the property value. Renters don't give a shit, but owners do.

 

Only one of mine is up there, and I thought the complaints were kind of overblown. Then again, I did live in that apartment for only about two months, so I didn't get much chance to see what was going on. I knew it was in a rougher area of town when I moved in, though, and I treated it accordingly.

My experience with sites like this is that they tend to be rant-tastic. I find I have better luck just going on general feel. I drive around the surrounding neighborhood, too. Try to decide whether I'd feel comfortable leaving my car overnight, etc.

 

That's not always reliable. The ex-wife and I did that before moving into the second apartment we lived in. There had been one agravated assault reported during the previous three years. Turned out that all sorts of stuff was happening in the neighborhood...nobody ever called the cops. We reported gunfire so often that the folks at 9-1-1 recognized our voices. We were eventually able to get out of our lease early. Of course it took the Mrs. getting raped in the laundry room for that to happen.

I've heard that most of the "reviews" on those apartment sites are bogus. Leasing agents post glowing reviews about their complex but make sure to let you know how the complex next door is full of roaches and rapists.

 

In a previous life working the cops beat, I moved into the largest city in the county. While at lunch with the PIO for City PD one day, he asked where I moved to. "You live THERE?" And then he rattled off a handful of disturbing crimes (stabbings, robberies) that had happened there in the last five years. It was the same complex I was almost evicted from because they lost my rent check. That was a fun experience.

Anyhoo, the reviews on sites like apartmentratings.com are usually a mixed bag. I tend not to trust them because I figure it's mostly people who get stiffed one way or the other and say to themselves, "I'll show them!" and then post a treatise on why management there sucks. Somebody lips off to a tenant, or a tenant gets a noise complaint or parking violation and they go apeshit on a Web site.

Plus, as mentioned above, I wonder how many are actually tenants, and of the actual tenants, are people without axes to grind.

Place I live now, I got charged a late fee because their office was closed on Labor Day and I didn't want to leave a check in the drop box (see above). I wasn't very happy with them, and if I had filled out a survey that afternoon, I probably would have had several choice words. But, after cooling down, the place is OK, nothing special, which is the overall theme of most of the reviews on the site.