Brownstone Realty

I have been living in a Brownstone property (Hale Parkway) for six months now and I have nothing but good things to say. My unit is in great condition and the building is very well cared for. The management company responds very quickly to any questions I have (usually within a few hours or at least the same day). There have been a few small maintenance issues (e.g., a broken toilet handle) and they took care of it that day. The maintenance folks have been very friendly and helpful. I appreciate the good communication with the agency and have recommended them to anyone looking to rent.

I have lived in this apartment complex for 2 years now. In this time I have seen 2 rent increases, it has finally brought me to move. The owner of Brownstone Realty (Patty) is a boar to deal with and is your typical privileged individual. During my time at this complex there has been multiple outbreaks of bedbugs, a dog was allowed to move in (even though they are not allowed), my plumbing has seen many problems and snow was never shoveled. There are many other instances regarding this property but I believe my case has been stated. DO NOT RENT FROM BROWNSTONE!
Apt 110
–John Berry

Great experience! Moved from Colorado to another state and the customer service was terrific! I followed all the directions in the move out packet and got my entire security deposit back. Make sure you do your own cleaning because cleaning companies often miss things like fans & above refrigerators.

My experience with Brownstone was good. I lived at Evelyn’s Court at 9^th and Lafayette for a total of 26 months.
I actually found it funny that a lot of people I came in touch with had lukewarm reviews. Brownstone is very clear about what the expectations are and as long as you hold up your end of the bargain, they’re very responsive to your needs (most service calls I made were fixed within days, and I’m confident that if it had ever been an emergency, it would have been even more rapid).
The price we paid in rent was about what the market average was, and so from a rent standpoint I felt it was fair: There’s not a lot of places you’re going to find in this part of the city that are cheap!
any questions, please feel free to reach out at jonshaytwo at gmail dot com

Stay away-​do not rent here! I know that the rental market in Denver is tough and that is can be hard to find a place, but keep looking! You’ll be glad you did!
I give them one star because it’s not possible to give zero. I give them this rating mainly because management is awful — and that is such an important factor in a business. They will take every penny from you that they possibly can and there is no valid justification for the large fees they stick you with.
First of all, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to falsely represent a property as something that it is not, but they advertise most of the one bedrooms in my building as 650 square feet, and when I received the actual dimensions to help plan for my move (after I signed the lease), I realized that it was only 450 square feet. That’s a pretty big difference, and technically it’s my fault for not questioning it in the begining, but this is incredibly misleading! That should have been my first red flag.
Then get ready to pay a ridiculous monthly gas bill on top of your base rent for what they say is your share. Supposedly they divide it up equally by the square footage of the apartments, but up to $ 80 for gas in a 450 square foot apt? Even if we were all sharing the gas costs of the laundry room and hallways, that would still be absurd. We’ve asked to see the overall bill (with personal details blacked out if need be) but they refuse to reveal those details. What’s funny is that I’ve talked to old tenants and this fee hasn’t always existed. And to clarify, you are paying this on top of your own electric, internet, etc.
They don’t allow AC units in a lot of their apartments so get ready to sweat yourself to sleep every night in the summer.
And then as everyone else has already noted, it’s true that they will completely screw you over on the security deposit. There is no consistency and these people just make up numbers. I have made many friends that were Brownstone tenants and have heard these horror stories over and over. Seriously, don’t even bother cleaning because no matter what, they will tell you that you didn’t do a good enough job. I scrubbed my place down for HOURS and then they charged me $ 460 for their cleaning services. Really? There was no damage and I was in a tiny, tiny place.
Also, get ready to hear all of your neighbors all the time. These buildings are old and they are not very well insulated.
On top of all of this, if you try to discuss or argue any of these points, they will be defensive, rude, and put the blame right back on you. Good ol’ customer service right there!
Best of luck to you in your search and hopefully you don’t have to succumb to this awful, awful management company. There are some nice places going up around the city and after you factor in all of these extra costs, you could get a beautiful, clean, big studio or 1 bdrm for these rates and be much happier!!!

Patti and the crew at Brownstone are awesome! They were honest and upfront during my lease signing re: expectations and charges. I’ve never had an issue getting a hold of anyone when I’ve had a question or concern. Rent is market value-​lets face it folks, Denver is a hot spot to live. Love my apartment and plan to be here awhile. Sorry there are so many negative nellies out there! If you’re looking for a place to live call these guys. I’m super happy.

I honestly had a pretty good experience with Brownstone. They bought our building partway through the lease, and immediately started making renovations. Which meant I had to live with construction half the time I was there, and of course they raised the rent as soon as it was time for a new lease (and it was a bit too much and I had to move), but in general I felt like they dealt with me fairly and were responsive to my concerns. They replaced both my crappy kitchen flooring and my noisy old fridge, responded quickly when I got locked out, and seemed pretty up-​front and honest. It helped that I had one of their maintenance guys living in my building.
I wouldn’t be *eager* to rent from them again, because their leases and policies are a little harsh compared with the standard, and their rents are pretty aggressive, but I wouldn’t be *afraid* to either, if that makes sense.

Not pleased at all after having lived there a year.
I dealt with two people that were actually polite and helpful, but the main woman I dealt with (the manager I believe?) truly made living there a terrible experience. You can’t pay rent online, or even in a drop box onsite. Minor inconvenience, but still there. Once I put my rent check in the mail on the 29^th, a Friday. And I had forgotten that the following Monday would be a holiday. I had literally just landed back in town from a work trip when I got a very angry call from her, saying that if I didn’t arrive with a check by 3pm, I would get charged a late fee AND have 5 days to vacate. I explained to her that I sent it, and it must be in their mail, and because of the holiday the mail must have been running a little late that weekend. She RUDELY states that she doesn’t control the mail and I would have to be more responsible because they have to make THEIR payments on time. I get it. But don’t talk to me like I don’t understand how bills work. Anyways I rushed to their office with a new check in hand and one of their nicer workers said the mail just arrived and my check was in there. (Pam, I think) calls back and instead of apologizing for the inconvenience, the confusion and such, she AGAIN reminds me to be more proactive and that a holiday is no excuse. OKAY…
Another instance, the ceiling in my bathroom began leaking pretty bad. It was 1am and so I called the emergency maintenance guy. He was polite but seemed inconvenienced. He wanted ME to go upstairs to tell the tenant upstairs to turn his water off. I didn’t, because it just didn’t feel safe! An hour later he comes to look at it, goes upstairs and has them drain their tub. Comes back and tells me hes going to let it dry a few days and will repair it on Monday. He never came back. Just left a big (probably now moldy) gash in the ceiling.
During the winter my sisters heat broke at her place and I was watching her cat a few days til it was fixed. During a showing of the apartment Pam finds the cat, proceeds to leave me THE MOST condescending, rude and insensitive voice mail of my life. Just the way she pointed out the obvious and put a really rude twist on it pissed me off. «YOUUUU have a cat. and cat food, and a litter box. and you cant have those. its a violation of your lease and I’ll have to see if there’s any fines for that. Call me back we NEED to talk about this.» So, I call her back because I do realize I broke the rules. I apologize, she does not. She was very short with me and didn’t actually say anything the voice mail didn’t already mention. I let her know that I too will look at my lease paperwork because I don’t recall any statement about pet FINES. Sure enough there wasn’t, and I think she didn’t appreciate being caught in her own BS. because then fast forward to me moving out… I cleaned the whole place up, even replaced light bulbs, cleaned the ceiling fan and purchased those stupid drip pans for the stove. I got $ 0 back on my security deposit. I actually OWE $ 53 for the mandatory floor waxing.
SOMEHOW, magically, it cost someone $ 175 to clean ‘soap residue’ off a shower. And polish a mirror, clean a hardly used refrigerator and dust the SPOTLESS ceiling fan. Oh, and $ 150 to ‘repair’ four holes and paint over them. Four toothpick sized holes from hanging pictures mind you. OKAY. I’ll be taking this up with them soon because I don’t appreciate basically being stolen from. I never expected a full refund from the shit I put up with at this place, but the claims and costs they’re making are insane. In hindsight I should have known better the minute I toured the apartment and she asked if I was «artsy» and intended on decorating the walls. What?
I would not recommend renting from them. Rude, inconsiderate, and desperate to make easy money off tenants.

Do not rent from them! Slumlords that will steal from you. I lived under them for a total of one month after my building was sold them. They stole my securury deposit. Their buildings are dumps and the most expensive in Denver.

i just recently moved from this property at the beginning of the year. i took the brunt of breaking my lease to do so. my experience with brownstone and patti blackman was not appropriate for anyone to have to go through. i was treated like lesser of a human being every time i talked with her or anyone else answering the phones that day. i will tell you first that patti is the former wife of the owner of the realty company. she still works for her ex husband in the same office while his new wife works there also. i know if that was my situation nothing would be getting done, which is exactly the case.
i travel quite frequently for work and not having an option to pay with a credit card or online payment was impossible according to patti. her exact words were, «it would be an accounting nightmare.» now, i know she was not good at adding and subtracting, she forgot many bills i owed and then added ridiculous amounts to my rent each month with no explanation. the last 6 months of living there, my neighbors and i all realized she was just making numbers up. she had no paperwork to give us telling that these bills were going to utilities and that number went higher and higher for a year. i believe that yes, cc transactions would have been a problem for this lady because I’m 100% sure she has no idea what the internet is. i even offered to setup a simple solution for her since i work in IT but they have no money if you check their stats online. everything that comes in literally goes right back out the door to costs of repairs. i say this because the building i lived in, malden arms, was falling apart. to name a few thing: a note was left on all the tenants doors asking the person who kept putting dog feces into the washers and dryers to please stop. these were never cleaned nor replaced. i used them a couple of times when i first moved in and my clothes began to smell like mold. the whole basement smells like mold. our «secure» entrance would not close all the way and i would see homeless dudes waiting for a chance to sneak in over night. many of us brought this up to them and when i left it was still a problem. you are unable to control your heating. i was on the second floor and they ran the heater until it was a bout 93 degrees in the house then turned it off the rest of the day. my windows were wide open during snowstorms and i was super cozy, while wasting energy that i could not control. sorry mother earth. the water pressure was taken away as a «green» initiative. this was a lie. the water bill is included in the rent for this building and i’m sure they were tired of paying the bill. to fill my dogs water bowl took about 5 minutes. rinsing soap off in the shower was tedious as the water dribbled out of the spout. maintenance was non-​existent the first year i was there. i will say they picked it up the second year but it was still a hassle for them to take your phone call. they never wanted to help. i had to mention things like, «this will cause extreme permanent damage to the building if it is not taken care of,» and this usually stirred them up. still was waiting a day or two though.
this is it and I’m done. if you decide to live here you are making a horrible choice and you can expect to be taken for a ride. the lady who ran our actual building was patti’s daughter. her dog would poop all over their ground level porch and walking to the parking lot left a horrible smell in your nose. she also has a parking spot right next to the bike rack where she will run over your bike if it is anywhere near her vehicle. considering her parking spot is literally bumped up against the rack i feel this is horribly unfair. i had to ask her to move her car one time jsut to get my bike because i was afraid of touching it and having her delusional boyfriend come out and make a scene.
I’m all for family run business but this place is just gross.

First, let me start off by saying that I have had a pretty middle of the road experience with Brownstone while living at the Melrose Place Apts (which I would give a separate review of if there were a page on Unilocal). I’m not exactly sure why there are so many filtered reviews (look at these if you want to see other people’s not-​so-​stellar experiences).
I haven’t had any negative experiences with Brownstone, or Patty in general (she’s always been cordial with me, and at times even helpful). The 60 days notice for moving out as well as the additional 60 days to get your deposit back is a little disconcerting in hindsight, but it is in the lease so I can’t fault them for that. As for rent being raised, I never experienced it (I assume it happened as they acquired properties), and I found the rent I paid to be reasonable for the amount of space in my apartment.
As for the building I lived in (Melrose Place), the only major issues I have had were with the other tenants. I’m not one to judge, but when you live like a 14 year old boy and I have to endure the stench emanating from your apartment as I walk by, we have problems. There have also on more than one occasion been tenants who have hallucinated (I wish I was kidding, not sure if it was due to drugs or flashbacks) and caused enough of a ruckus to necessitate having the police called. Not the first time (the same tenant has done this twice, and I called the police prior to these experiences because there was a woman screaming in his apartment at 2 am). The manager, Doc, seems like a nice guy, and he’s always tried to help me if I had an issue, but I really wish there were more they could do about the tenant’s cleanliness and noise levels at times. I’m not a «clean freak» by any means, but I keep my living space relatively clean and would like it if those living around me did the same so bugs won’t migrate to my space, and so that I’m not embarrassed to bring friends to my apartment.
As for cockroaches, yes, it’s an old building, and the rent is relatively cheap. Get some traps, place them around your apartment and clean up their little corpses every so often. It’s not difficult people. There’s not much else you can do if they’ve sprayed time and time again (and the cause is most likely the unclean tenants anyways). Luckily I haven’t experienced bed bugs yet (knock on wood), and haven’t heard anyone else in the building say anything about it.
In short, it’s not all that bad for the price, but not that great either. As for the management, they seem competent, but also busy as I’m sure they manage a lot of properties. If you’re in a bind and need a place to live in a short time frame like I originally was, then you certainly could do worse.

First of all — Unilocal is only showing the one good review of Brownstone there are dozens negative ones that are hidden (including my first one). Second– if you are currently living in their apartments don’t bother cleaning when you move out — they’ll still take the majority of your security deposit, even if it was cleaner than when you moved in. If however you are not renting from them — DON’T — they are greedy and not helpful.

I’ve stayed in a 1 bedroom apartment at 900 Pearl for 11 months. The manager is nice. She is certainly not the reason I’m complaining. The staff at their main office on Sherman Street, however, are somewhat rude. When I first came in, they didn’t even want to take my paper check and demanded cash for my deposit. I told them I don’t walk around with that much cash. They accepted my check after demanding to see my online banking to make sure that I had money in my account. I had a laptop and said I could show them if they let me use their wireless internet connection. They refused to let me use it, but instead asked me to use one of their computers. I was not very happy with the way I was treated, but that was just the beginning of the story.
During the 11 months, they raised the rent twice, each time by $ 25 per month.
When I moved out, they charged almost $ 500 for cleaning the apartment after my wife and I spent 2 days trying to make it spotless in and out. I had just lived there for 11 months and the building was already like 50 years old so of course their stuffs were never new to start with. We did what we could and make it even more shinny than when we first moved in. But they don’t care. They charged us lots of money for cleaning their window, for example. I’m pretty sure they did nothing considering the window condition when I first moved in. Wonder how the previous tenant felt if she ever saw the window cleaning job she paid for but probably never been done.

Zero. No stars. These clowns bought the apt building I live in on cherry st. about a year ago, and it has been a nightmare ever since. I had roaches all summer. I had to have them send the exterminator out here about twice a week for about three months straight. The boiler in this dump breaks down everytime the temp drops below 30 degrees. I pay for their to be HEAT IN THIS PLACE!!! Everytime I call to tell them it’s 60 degrees in my apt, they cop an ATTITUDE!!! Hello, IT’S YOUR PROBLEM FIX IT!!! The pipes clank all night long so loud I have a real hard time falling asleep. Bottom line guys, they are a warehouse realty co. & apt upkeep must not be cost effective. SLUMLORDS. The owner lady is a rude, nasty woman. These jokers think they can strong arm people and use lawyers to extort tenants for extra months of rent if you don’t give 60 days notice. If you see this name in front of an apt building, I suggest you RUN AWAY!

Hmm… odd how every review (including my old one) that was negative in any way is somehow not up here anymore.
Come on Unilocal… I understand that you try to protect businesses from inaccurate or altogether fake reviews, but can you really be so naïve as to believe that every negative review up here was inaccurate or invalid for some reason? I know for a fact that there were at least 3 – 4 more negative reviews up here in the past, as well as the fact of mine being taken down because I have never lived in one of their properties and that is somehow against the Unilocal «rules.»
Correct me if i’m wrong, but this whole website is about sharing positive and negative experiences that one has encountered with a certain business, yeah? If i were to walk into a restaurant with the intentions of eating there, but we never got seated because the maitre d’ was a total jack-​ass, and was rude, and made me wait for 30 minutes past our scheduled reservation, is that something that I would not be allowed to post on their Unilocal page because I never actually got to eat there? Once again, that is what i thought this website was all about; regardless if i ever actually ate there considering there was an honest attempt to do so but was unable to do that, due to actions of someone on behalf of the business. How is that any different than going to look at an apartment and being treated the same way as I was by that maitre d’?
With that being said, ladies and gentleman, my (somewhat amended) previous review that was taken down:
«I’ve never lived in any of their properties, but i can tell you that I had the exact opposite experience as Kelsey C. I was looking for apartments on the one day off I get during the week, so I had to fit in as many as i possibly could that day. I set it up perfectly so that I would start on one side of town and work my way back towards the other side throughout the day. I had appointments scheduled and it was going to work out perfectly…
Then someone from brownstone calls me and tells me that they need to reschedule. I tell her that’s not possible and that we’ve had this appointment for 4 days now and that I’ve scheduled other showings around the few places of theirs that I was supposed to see. The lady acts annoyed with me for not accommodating her schedule. I’m sorry, but you’re annoyed that the world doesn’t revolve around you? Here’s an idea, don’t act as though other people’s time is expendable and that they will change to accommodate you!
So she tells me that she won’t be able to meet me at the first place we’re supposed to check out, and that she’ll have the building manager meet me instead. Wow, am I glad that she did that because the manager was one of the sketchiest people I’ve ever seen. Glad I learned of that now as opposed to after I would have possibly moved in! Not to mention the fact that he too acted annoyed with having to show me the place. Dude, you’re a manager of an apartment complex… part of your job is to show vacant apartments.
So I look at the place and then ride my scooter on over to the second place of theirs that I’m supposed to look at. I sit there waiting for her for about 10 – 15 minutes. I call their main office to find out where she is, and the lady says that she has no idea and they leave me on hold for another 10 minutes. She finally shows up and lets me into the place. Once again, I’m treated as an inconvenience. I’m sorry, are you really going to sit there and try to rush me when I’m considering signing a contract that says I need to pay you a whole lot of money over the next year? I ask her a couple of questions and again, she seems annoyed by the fact that taking 3 steps inside the apartment isn’t good enough for me. I tell her thank you and she practically closes the door on my ankles and literally runs out of there!
If I’m treated as an inconvenience, and as if I am nothing more than an expendable commodity to them and I am expected to change my schedule to accommodate her lack of proper scheduling, there was no way in hell that I was going to be renting any of their properties… EVER!
Again, I’ve never actually rented from there, so maybe it is different than what I perceived. However if this is how they treat you when you haven’t even signed a binding contract yet, I can’t even imagine how they would treat you when you’re bound by a contract and you don’t have the liberty to say, «F YOU» and walk out of there!!!

I can tell you though that I was very happy with this company when searching for an apartment. Calling different realty companies was a nightmare, they either didnt pick up the phone and didnt return messages, or they acted like you were a total inconvenience and didnt want to talk to you (Maybe you were inconveniencing them, but why did they post an ad then?)
Brownstone was one of the only helpful companies I could find, one that would actually talk and conduct business with me. And untimately I ended up choosing an apartment from them, so there you go. That sucks that CS had a bad experience :(I did just move in, so I’ll see how things go when I leave. I’ll be posting a review at the time as well.