Review History for tblasius

AVA Pasadena


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tblasius

Resident 2014 - 2015

4/28/2015

The AVA Pasadena has pleasant amenities, very nice rooms, and responds promptly to maintenance requests. However, their rent pricing strategies leave much to be desired. Firstly, after living in these apartments for 1 year, my rent is being raised by 15% ($300 a month increase), if I get another 12 month lease. No services or amenities were added to justify such a large increase - I am expected to pay significantly more for the same living conditions. The management's justification is that they believe this price increase reflects the change in market value of the apartment. In other words, they believe they can get away with charging me more so they will do so. Not exactly the behavior you would expect from a management that values and respects their tenants. I am neither ignorant nor obstinate and understand that rental rates may need to increase, but 15% per year is excessive. Secondly, a couple months ago I accepted a new job and will need to move out in January. Therefore, when my current one year lease ends, I would like to extend for 8 months only. AVA is making this exceedingly difficult. My current rental rate is $2100 and they want to charge me $3200/month for an 8 month lease extension. This seems WILDLY excessive. Again, I am neither ignorant nor obstinate and understand the need to charge more for a shorter lease term. Shorter lease terms increase the probability that the apartment will sit empty with no tenant. However, the proposed $1100 rental increase over 8 months equates to greater than 4 months of rent at my current rate. This means, AVA effectively wants to charge me for 4 months of vacancy at my current rental rate if I take the 8 month lease. However, I HIGHLY doubt that my apartment would sit empty for even 1 month. Bottom line, I have lived with AVA for 1 year, I have given them more than 8 months notice that I need to move out. Management refuses to give me a reasonable rental rate for those last 8 months. Their only offer is a rental rate 150% higher than my current one. I would not recommend living here unless you have the disposable income to absorb excessive yearly increases to your rent. You also need to be willing to live here for an exact integer multiple of a year - their short term leasing options will murder your bank account.

    Review 5 out of 30

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    AVA Pasadena

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