Elan City Center Apartments — Attraction in Raleigh

DO NOT RENT HERE!

ECC may appear to be a great complex to live in - from its great location, decent amenities, and close proximity to Person street. But don't be fooled. Its management company, Greystar, is currently under investigation by the NC AG, for price fixing and collusion. They WILL take every opportunity to separate you from your money. They WILL take every opportunity to show you that they DO NOT CARE about you. This apartment complex will hike your rent even when offering new residents upwards of $200/month cheaper rent AND 2 months free rent. If they negotiate, they will force you to move to a new unit rather than allowing you to stay in your unit just to spite you for attempting to receive fair PRICING. They will give you 36 hours to move and still claim to have done you a favor. ECC won't offer current tenants any retention pricing, opting, instead, to screw you into oblivion on rent, or force you to move. Upon renewal, they will not notify you until a week prior, giving you only 7 days notice to vacate or receive only a modest increase in rent. If you miss that tiny window, you will incur prorated rent for not giving adequate notice, or you will be subject to much higher rent increase. Even if market rate decreases, Greystar will gaslight you into accepting a rent increase. They want you to sign a "lease addendum" that acknowledges that market rate as $400 more than what YOU SIGNED YOUR LEASE FOR. They're named in a class-action lawsuit for this exact action. ECC's "sponsored" events consist of bringing you a popsicle at the pool. Their best events rely on residents to welcome others into their apartments so that management can say they're having events. They don't even compensate the hosts! ECC gives you no leniency. I had to get a new car, and when my parking sticker ripped off my old car, they forced me to purchase a new one for $25. For a sticker. When I was trying to give notice to vacate, my grandmother was moved to hospice care and then died. I gave 30 day notice, which should be adequate seeing as they gave me until the day before my lease expiration to renew. They opted to charge me prorated rent, equivalent to 1.7x my normal rent to vacate my apartment. They forced me to pay that much despite having to assist my family with planning my grandma’s funeral, meaning frequent trips out of town. I understand that 60 day notice is great but have some decency. As tenants, we don't choose when life happens to us, we can only work with what we've got. Elan City Center refuses to help you unless you bend over backwards or pay exorbitant amounts of money. The staff and management company ARE VILE. ECC will victim blame you for having your car broken into. When you ask them to make the building more secure, they say, "park in well-lit areas". IT'S THEIR PARKING Deck whose lights are out. They took an additional 4 months to actually change the lightbulbs. Elan claims to be an "incredibly pet friendly apartment complex". However, they will take your money and do absolutely nothing to maintain this place for your pets. They refuse to renovate the dog park. The dog park contains nails, shards of glass, floods whenever it rains, has rods of metal sticking out, and routinely has issues with owners not cleaning up after their pets. The only thing that management will do is tell you to contact the HOA, who never respond to an email. Elan will exercise their power against you to force you to pay junk fees, but will refuse to use their power to help make lives of pet-owners better, by telling the HOA to clean the community dog park. Elan will force you to pay a fee to have your dog's poop DNA tested so that they can take samples and punish those who don't clean up after their dog. They did not once have anyone come to do that. They also routinely ran out of dog excrement bags and would leave them empty for weeks. On a separate note, the maintenance staff are genuinely great. They're helpful and do their best, despite no help from management, who won't hire enough people to help maintain...

When I first moved here everything was amazing: Staff, location, amenities, etc. A month after moving in the downfall started. I have dealt with a noisy neighbor for the 8 months that I’ve been here. It started off with her fussing with her boyfriend on the phone regularly during what is noted as “quiet hours” (11p-7a). I reported a few instances and it’s seems like she’s transitioned from the arguments to now playing the sound of bells all night at a high volume. I have recordings of her fussing on the phone during different times during quiet hours. I have recordings of her playing the music during quiet hours. There’s no reason I should be able to pick up sound on my cell phone recordings from someone else’s apartment. I thought documented recordings would help show that I’m not just…complaining, however, no one has even asked about my proof. While this individual may have been addressed, nothing has changed. She’s noisy! There are 3 apartments on the same floor that are readily available. I asked about moving into one of these and was informed that I needed to provide a 60 day notice and $500. So, I’m complaining about a noisy neighbor for months, WITH PROOF, and you all can’t offer me a nice cross the hallway or a few units away from her? My apartment is well kept, I’m sure it could have been marketed quickly! I would suggest that if you are a light sleeper that you think before moving here. It’s beautiful here but if you decide to lease, I hope you don’t end up besides someone who constantly has something going on. The walls are super thin and my bedroom appears adjacent to my noisy neighbors bedroom. It baffles me that a company would rather I seek external options than to CONSIDER an ask that could better my living experience on the property. I’m not a bad tenant and I pay my rent on time. Several emails about the noise and I need to give a 60 day notice to move to another unit? That’s hilarious. I guess I thought I was doing my due diligence by having proof that I’m not simply complaining but I feel as though I am going unheard and my issue is unresolved. I have been touring other places and at other properties they are amazing that I wasn’t offered another apartment and that I even had to ASK about it. I REFUSE to renew my lease...

Sharing my opinions, I would avoid this apartment complex at all costs, although slightly cheaper than other downtown apartments it cost me in the end. Issues started on the day we moved in; a bedroom door was missing, a shower head was missing, and our AC unit was not blowing cool air. Not a good move in experience to a self-proclaimed luxury apartment complex. The issues did not stop for the duration of our time here, we had 6 maintenance requests for our HVAC unit. The most inconvenient being a stretch of a few weeks without the heat properly working starting in January. We were told there needed to be a 70-degree day to complete the repair, which does not come around too often in the middle of winter. We were stuck with a large electricity bill to keep our apartment at a reasonable temperature. We also had an electrical issue in the kitchen when one of our outlets stopped working. A fix was attempted by the maintenance team, which made things far worse, taking out all the outlets in the kitchen except one. We lived with this for an extended period, until finally I pushed hard enough on management to have a professional electrician come fix the problem. I'm not sure why they found this timeline as acceptable. A large foundation crack appeared in a bedroom, in which we asked to be fixed, we were told due to not having matching paint it would not be fixed until we moved out. Through all our issues we were reasonable, treated the staff with understanding, respect, and patience. We did not feel the favor was returned upon move out; we were charged over $500 for full carpet replacement of our 2-bedroom apartment. When we asked for more details, we felt we got conflicting information from the managers of what process was used to hold us responsible. The only evidence provided was one image of the carpet pad with a very small stain. No picture of a surface stain was provided of what prompted the carpet to be lifted. Upon moving in there would have been no way of us knowing if the pad was already stained and adding it to our damage sheet. In an invoice we found the carpet was put down well before we moved in. Other residents seem to be hit with the same fee, and I'm guessing many more to come. I would not recommend...