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Dishonest staff at leasing office- deal with caution.
From:
-Anonymous-
Date posted:
2/13/2008
Years at this apartment:
2008
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2008
2 responses
This is my story as a prospective tenant. It happened on the 11th and 12th of February 2008.
My wife and I were interested in renting a 2bed/2bath apartment. On Monday (11th Feb), one of the leasing consultants at Elan showed us a nice apartment and after looking around the unit as well as the Elan complex, we told her that we were definitely interested (telling her that we were interested was probably our first mistake). She also told us that the security deposit, for that day only, was being cut in half, from $500 to $250 but that the offer was a special one valid only on Monday and that it would expire the next day (Tuesday, 12th Feb). She further told us that in order to take advantage of this special discount, we would have to sign the holding documents (which essentially books the apartment for you before you sign the final lease) on the same day. So we signed the holding documents and also gave her a check for $250 for the security deposit.
Next morning, this person calls me saying that the security deposit discount had actually expired over the weekend and that I would have to give a check for an extra $250! How come she had the sudden realization over a 12 hour period' I mean, how come an offer that was valid only on Monday expire over the previous weekend' Did her system not have an expiry date for the special offer'
Looking back over the sequence of events, it seems obvious to us that they first lure you into their complex using a variety of discounts and then when they are confident that you like the apartment, they extract more money from you using such cheap tactics. I make a six-figure income and for someone who can afford to pay close to $2000 in rent per month for a period of at least 12 months (the lease term), an extra one time payment of $250 is no big deal. But it is just the dishonest manner in which these people deal with prospective tenants that infuriates me. It speaks of the character of the rental-agency staff in high-demand rental areas such as Santa Clara, San Jose, Sunnyvale etc.
Just because the demand for good apartments is so much greater than their supply and the housing market is not very affordable for a good slice of late entrants into the housing market (such as my wife and me), these big apartment rental agencies use the cheapest, dirtiest tricks to swindle you.
I have to admit that both my wife and I liked the Elan complex very much and it is just about the only one in the Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/San Jose area which appears to be so safe that there is not even one sex-offender in a circle of 1 mile radius (even mansion grove comes only second in this respect). However, dishonest staff members have really turned me off. There is no telling how these people will behave in the future, especially when you have lived there for 12 months and at which point, you are nicely ensconced in your apartment. My instincts tell me that at that stage, they have more leverage over you and that they will not hesitate to deploy every single trick to fleece you of your hard-earned money. You can safely wager that both my wife and I will never re-consider Elan in the near future.
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User Responses
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From:
Anonymous
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Date:
02/27/2008
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Well said! But it seem the dirty tactics and dishonesties are very pervasive in the apartment rental industry.
Wish someone, someday, to take these unfair and dishonest people to court, and have the court to give them $5000 punitive fine. Then, they won't dare to do it again.
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From:
Anonymous
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Date:
03/24/2008
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You made the right decision! We have lived there for three years, and we used to like our apartment a lot! But things went very ugly when Elan changed its management team last year! Terriable, terriable manager and management! We will not recommend Elan to anybody and we will move out soon!
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