University Realty

If I can give no star I will. Really really rude manager, and after I politely explained why I called (I tried to verify if they are the business owner of the property to determine if I got booted in the front illegally), not only did the manager refused to help me, but she said whatever I want to do is my own business. Then hung up on me.

DO NOT SIGN WITH THIS COMPANY!!! By far the most unprofessional, rude, and incompetent company I have ever dealt with in my life. The house was not cleaned when we moved in, mold everywhere, permanent dust. Possums underneath the house, cockroaches in the kitchen, rats in the walls, fleas everywhere. They don’t take care of their properties or their customers but will charge you up the ass at every opportunity.
For the sake of west campus please let this company run out of business.

I’m borrowing my friend’s Unilocal account just for University Realty — THAT’S how much you should avoid them!
Worst management company I’ve dealt with during my time at UT. They’ll have no issue lying and leasing you a unit with a prior cockroach infestation. Dealing with them is awful and I dread every time I do. Save yourself the misery. You might think a cheaper unit with them will save you, but you’ll end up paying more throughout the year for a lesser (downright awful) experience.

Everything about this place is a nightmare. They are dishonest, unethical, and predatory. This was the worst renting experience ever. Wouldn’t spray for roaches «well you know you’re going to get them bc you’re by a wooded area.» Kept my entire deposit for «make ready fees». When I complained they said «…sue us.» For real! This place is awful and the only reason they exist is bc they prey on college students.

Having lived in a University Realty property for less than 3 months now, I’d like to place a serious warning out to all potential future leasers: DO NOT LIVE IN A UNIVERSITY REALTY PROPERTY. The staff that works at this company is beyond rude and incompetent. Caleb particularly is extremely patronizing.
Two out of 3 months that we have been living here has been spent without air conditioning. After several phone calls, voice mails, emails and personal office visits, an A/​C service man finally came to our house to check the unit. After spend, at most, 3 minutes in the house, he determined that the problems were our fault. Two weeks later spent entirely in the heat, it finally got to the point where the owner had to come out to our house to see for himself that our A/​C was in fact completely broken.
But wait, there’s more. During this time, we have also been living with an infestation of rats. At first, we thought we had only one little critter in the house. We were understanding as this is an older residence and the University Realty exterminator ensured us that there was only one small mouse living here. We set a trap, caught the sucker, and carried on our merry way. A few weeks later, with droppings still popping up around the house, we requested an exterminator again. This time, the exterminator informed us that rats, not mice, were «having a party» in our kitchen. Good to know.
All in all, University Realty refuses to take responsibility for any of these problems. What exactly is a leasing company’s role if the landlord refuses to be of any assistance? Their properties could be quite nice if they’d put any effort at all into their work.

This excuse for a «property management» company is an absolute joke. They do nothing of the sorts in terms of managing anything. They NEVER respond to an email and apparently don’t even care if their ratings are one-​star. They prey on students who have no choice but to live in their slum and rat infested units/​properties. I have lived here for a year, and still have six terrible months on my lease. They hire a landscape company that shows up with out any regularity and although we don’t have a blade of grass on our property their landscape company blows dirt, rocks, sticks, leaves and anything else blowing along Guadalupe into our personal vehicles and patios. I can clean my area, and come home from work to find debris all over the place. Simply blowing everything into the street does no good. I’m so pissed at this company I can’t even stand to waste my time writing about them. I’m DONE!

After seeing all the negative reviews here I thought it only fair that I post my experience, which has by and large been very positive.
I’ll be the first to admit that my apartment isn’t perfect. It’s an older complex and there were a few problems (broken garbage disposal, shower needed to be re grouted Etc.) but after filling out maintenance requests I received timely and courteous responses each time. It has taken no more than two days for maintenance to respond to my requests, and for more serious problems they have responded with appropriate haste.
As to those working for the company I have been dealt with with the utmost respect and courtesy.
I understand everyone has a different experience, but I believe that if people will comment about their bad experiences, it is only fair that university realty be rewarded when they provide good service. And in my personal experience, this has been the case.

I have not actually rented w/​University Realty & looks like I have saved myself a lot of trouble. I contacted them to look at a place that’s very close to my work. After several e-​mails and a month later the place is still empty. Now I know why! When you don’t even contact a potential renter that’s already a huge red flag! Take the advise of all the horrible reviews and go elsewhere!

I just moved in today, so I can’t say much about actually living here yet. But I can say that the company has been a pleasure to work with through the entire process. Kaleb has been the person I’ve worked with directly, and everything has been basically effortless. They’ve made the apartment leasing process as painless as possible for me.

This west campus apartment management company is a classic example of slumlords. They move you into a dirty rat hole of an apartment at the beginning of the semester, slam you with fees, never maintain the complex, and then slam you again at the end of the school year by robbing you of your security deposit when you turn their rat hole back over to them in pristine condition at the end of the semester.
They have gang graffiti all over the side of their building, trash is left outside all over the place around their dumpsters, parking is despicable, they don’t change light bulbs when they go out around the complex so safety is a concern, they regularly get robbed. All the bicycles were robbed from the complex. The criminals cut all the bike chains. There is zero security at the complex, the mailboxes are falling off the wall, the light fixtures in the stairwells are falling off, management is rude and provides zero service to its residents.
It’s a damn shame that students at a flagship university get treated so poorly by scam artists like University Realty. Shame on you, University Realty!

I wish I can give them zero star. If you sign with them you won’t get your deposit back.

Just adding another one star review onto the pile that are already here.
I lived in an apartment managed by University Realty from Aug. 2013-​July 2014.
To be brief, I had many similar experiences to other reviewers. Poor communication, doing everything they could to squeeze money out of me, poor condition of the apartment, etc.
A couple examples:
— My bathroom ceiling fell in. I was on the bottom floor, and there seemed to be some kind of leak in the ceiling between my bathroom and the person above me. Maintenance came out and «patched» the leak by spreading some ceiling drywall stuff over it (over an existing patch — this had obviously happened multiple times before before). Eventually the ceiling fell in after their attempts to «fix» the problem by covering it up.
— I signed the lease, and it was agreed that the owner would pay parking and water (this was co-​signed by both me and the property manager). Apparently that was a mistake and everyone else at my building paid for their own water. They agreed to honor the lease (the one redeeming thing that happened all year), since it had already been co-​signed and agreed upon. But a few months in, the owner decided that they only wanted to pay for water, and not drainage, street services etc. — all the things included in water bills for the City of Austin. So they backbilled me for months of these parts of the water bill that weren’t specifically water, and gave me no say in the matter. Very pedantic and unprofessional.
Among other things, there were mice in my apartment, Realtors traipsing through all the time with little to no notice, it was really dirty when I moved in, the AC drip was in my bathtub (how can this be up to code?!), they were often rude over email… I could go on.
I only feel safe writing this review now that I have my deposit back and am no longer tied to this company in any way, if that tells you anything.

I’m not being hyperbolic when saying that this is the worst company I’ve ever dealt with. Do not sign a contract with them unless you have a lawyer read over it first. They will do anything they can to rip you off. I agree with every other review of this place. They are awful.
They have a «five star» review that has to be fake!
As Karia M wrote «Anyone putting more than 1 star on here is a liar and probably works for University Realty.»
I couldn’t agree more!

I was supposed to move in on the weekend, but after seeing the state that the apartment was in, absolutely not. Mold/​mildew in the vents, all along the bathroom tiles, ac not working, black and green standing water in the dishwasher, tiles coming apart, Windows that don’t latch, door lock thats broken, bathtub with no faucet, everything filthy. After a battle they finally sent people to clean and fix the problems, except most of the people sent to look at thr problems won’t be there til Monday, let alone fix the issue. University realty refused to break lease because the apartment was still «liveable». An absolute disgrace and an insult to tell me that I can move into that pile. They also refuse to pay for mold inspection even though there was a leak into the room below ours, which they never told us about and are obligated to by the laws of Texas.

Was 40 minutes late to meet

If I could give this place 0 stars I would. I lived in an apartment managed by them for 3 years — and I have no idea why I did. They are completely unprofessional. Maintenace is HORRIBLE. Please never have a maintenance problem. One time the lightbulb in my kitchen was weirdly flickering and making a weird sound. They said the bulb just needs to be replaced but even if my roommate and I paid for the lightbulb they would charge us $ 90 for someone to replace it. (Even though our ceilings were ridiculously high and we would have to track down a ladder from somewhere to even get close). It turns out there was an actual problem with the light and they were just trying to get out of not charging us.
Also, when we first moved in, I had sliding glass doors on my closet. They were really heavy and large. One was loose so we reported it on our move in sheet. They said someone would come fix it. LIES. About two weeks later, it fell down (literally an inch from me), hit my bed, and glass shattered all over the place. They didn’t even seem sorry about it. It took them about 2 – 3 months to replace the door, and they wouldn’t even remove the door frame of the one that shattered.
We also have a huge problem with both our washer and dryer. The washing machine would rip holes in our clothes and the dryer would rip some clothes completely and leave brown/​burnt marks on them. I had to find unique ways to protect my clothes. I would put all of my clothes in laundry bags before putting them in the washing machine and hung dried everything expect pajamas. For 3 years, they denied anything was wrong with it. They sent guys out there and we showed them exactly what was wrong but the maintenace would just report back that everything was ok. So the management thought we were crazy when we would go back to tell them of it again.
They will do anything and everything to avoid spending money on any maintenance problems. They screw college students out of so much money and don’t want to put any of it back into maintenance or friendly staff either. Please do anything you can to avoid University Realty. I recently graduated and moved into an apartment in Dallas. It’s a pretty normal apartment but I think I have it made and am on cloud nine aobut how great the staff is – I’m sure the staff is normal apartment complex staff but they blow University Realty out of the water.

These people steal from already broke college students in every way possible.
They seem understanding at first, but when it comes down to it they will charge you every penny you have and make you sprout more white hairs than you can imagine.
Double bolt your doors and close your blinds because they will send over a «spy» to check out any claims they may have.

I don’t know where to start… HORRIBLE.
I lived in one of their apartments on West Campus for almost a year. It was horrible. The office people are unattentive, rude and they WILL try to get every single penny out of your pocket.
On top of the fact that the place is very old, the appliances weren’t working properly (oven never worked), they charge ridiculous amount of «refundable» deposit that turns out a «non-​refundable» deposit once you leave the apartment.
They charged around 450 bucks out of 1300 bucks although me and my roommate left the apartment with a very good condition. They make up their own excuses to deduce money out of your deposit — I have NO IDEA what is an administrative fee, which I never agreed to pay at the beginning (You can see the copy I attached at the bottom).
One time, I had my car towed by Alberts towing from the apartments parking lot, although I had the valid parking sticker on my car. I went to the office explaining the situation, expecting at least them to talk to the towing company and trying to help me with the situation, but I was completely ignored, let alone gettng any help.
I would STRONGLY suggest you to stay away from University Realty, unless you really have no other options and expect to be disappointed at the end.

I didn’t use University’s realtor, but my apartment unit was listed under this realty.
Our move in date stated in our contract was for a specific date. On that specific day my roommate got the keys from the office and moved in. Upon moving in she was apalled at all the tools and debris in apartment. It was dusty/​dirty on all the floors and counter tops and bathrooms, ladders in one room, a fan smashed on the ground in another room. Oh, and cigarette butts in the living room. This all came from the people that were supposed to «renovate» our unit, but did a horrible job at it because all they did was replace the fan and installed new light bulbs. Is that what they call a renovation?
My roommate had to stay at her friends place for a couple days because they said everything would be clean and done in a couple of days. She came back a week later to find everything was still a mess. Some stuff fixed but still tools and debris (still don’t know how those got in there) spread around the unit. So we waited and I moved in 2 days before school started. So the tools and stuff were gone, but there was no light in one room because they still didn’t fix the fan. Also, they were supposed to «deep clean» the entire apartment but hadn’t done so either. We were so fed up we decided to just let go of the deep clean and sweep the floors and other stuff ourselves because I didn’t want to have to deal with my stuff and finding a place to stay for God knows how many more days.
Oh, and we filled out that form to state any non-​working appliances or places that needed to be fixed. One of the sliding drawers would not close, and the toilet holder (the one you take out, put toilet paper in) was missing for my bedroom. They never came to fix it. Even went up to the office to talk to them myself, but the grumpy looking receptionist in the front named Hannah was not really helpful either. She told me to fill out the form and they will look at it.
I’m honestly really scared about moving out because my friend who uses University Realty still hasn’t gotten her last year’s apartments deposit back.
I highly recommend you to stay away from University Realty. Go find another realty (not Uptown either) and save yourself some problems and money. Hope this helps.

I’ve lived under University Realty’s management for almost 2 years now and I have somewhat of a love/​hate relationship with these people. I’m sure this is the case with lots of renters, especially students. For the most part, they’ve responded to my maintenance requests in a timely fashion and the receptionist knows me by name (maybe that means I’m too needy… or my apartment is just old an falling apart). But let me just share my exhibit A of frustration with University Realty:
Sometime in August, a freak hardcore thunderstorm rolled through Austin, as they do every once in awhile. My boyfriend and I are chilling on the couch watching TV when we notice water dripping through the ceiling onto the coffee table. We look up and oh hey there’s a decent size crack coming out of the seam between the ceiling fan and the ceiling, that’s definitely not good. Seeing how it’s 11 PM and the office definitely is not open, I decide to call the «Emergency Hotline». After going through a billion voice recordings warning me that I’ll be charged if this is not an actual emergency I finally get through to… a machine??? If this is really that big of an inconvenience to the company, shouldn’t an actual person be on the other hand? Ok fine whatever, I leave my desperate plea for someone to come by first thing in the morning before my ceiling fan comes crashing through my ceiling and water comes pouring through with it. Next day comes, no phone call before noon. I call at this point, «oh yea, we got your message, we’re just really busy.» What the heck? My ceiling could come caving in any minute (it’s still raining)! This goes on for the next few days, I get tossed around between three different companies before someone finally comes and repairs the leak and guarantees me that the fan won’t come down. Six months later, it’s still there, but come on people, if you’re going to have an emergency line, pay attention to it!