The Pearl on Wilshire Apartments — Local services in Los Angeles

The purpose of my review serves to be a WARNING to potential people applying to the Pearl on Wilshire and to describe the poor experience in the application process. I did not live here. All views are my own. My partner applied and is someone who is a bit of an untraditional applicant. The MISCOMMUNICATION from the property manager and ALMOST PREDATORY BUSINESS PRACTICE done here are reasons for the bad review.

I write this from a first-person's point of view to be effective in communicating my warning. I was very involved in the whole process.

Essentially, tl;dr, be super certain that you plan to live here when you apply!!!

This is because at the time of submitting the application online, you are asked to pay an application fee (reasonable and standard practice) + holding deposit of 200 dollars (strange and unusual to be doing this upfront before approved/denied). Note, you have 48 hours from SUBMITTING APPLICATION DATE if you decided to get your deposit back. When I toured the place, the property manager told us something different. He told me that 1) if my application was denied I would get a full deposit back. 2) He also said if I was approved, I had 48 hours to decide whether to sign the lease or not and get my full deposit back.

This was not the case for me. Partially my fault for not questioning the verbiage used in application before paying and signing. Since it took them a week to approve me, my plans changed and I decided not to sign the lease anymore, thinking I had two days after the approval to get my deposit back. When I asked for the refund, property manager denied ever saying I could get my refund back and that it was actually non-refundable two days after the application was submitted. Now, why would I make this up when my partner was there too as a witness and we both heard the same thing. If I knew this was the case, I would have canceled my application within 48 hours from applying, since it was taking so long to get approved. I know the manager is like you and I, just an employee to a company and probably needs to defend company policy and his upper people. Whatever, but I know he knows what he said and told us originally. How frustrating.

A better practice would have been to deny my application within the 48 hours if the things requested from me were insufficient. This way, potential residents are able to get their deposit back. Or at least communicate with them that documents are pending and after the 48 hours, we are subject to losing the deposit. This costly miscommunication just provided a bad experience at the Pearl. So be wary of this malicious business practice and question anything before you sign. Especially if it does not match what you heard during the tour.

Another suggestion to the management here: how about break apart this application process into steps: Ask potential resident apply and pay the application fee, review and approve/deny. THEN let potential resident consider and decide again and then pay the holding deposit. This is pretty standard is it not? Not this double payment upfront poor business practice which gives the business more control. Especially if it was Thursday/Friday submitted and they're off on the weekend.

If you made it this far, thanks. Hope this review does not get paid to deleted/taken off. It is an honest review that needs to be heard. We relied so heavily on reviews while considering places, it seemed and looked like this would have been potentially good place, and unfortunately, it was not.

Since they're keeping my 200 dollar holding deposit, hope The Pearl/Greystar donates it to LA wildfire relief efforts on my behalf instead of pocketing it for yourself through this bad business practice.

• This is my response four hours after to their response, since it's worth my 200 dollar time in getting my message out. You see how their policy and timeline described benefits them? Mine and your decision making strongly swayed in their favor after two days, but they have ten days to string you along. Make it make sense, please. My opinion...

I’ve lived in 4 apartments in LA, and the Pearl is the worst one. The noise issue and rude staff are my nightmare.

I had a noisy neighbor who would be active from midnight to 4am. I heard their heavy footsteps every night. I called the front desk, and they said they would send a security to check it out. Well, it doesn’t work at all!! I called the front desk three times a night but I still tolerated the ridiculous neighbor for months. I was so annoyed so I made a noise complain to the leasing office in person. The woman told me that it was her first time knowing this. However, I called the front desk constantly and they should have recorded the situation in their report. The leasing manager just let me sent the recording evidence of my noisy neighbor to their email and then talked to her colleague in Korea complaint something about the office. I was shocked about their attitude and by the way I heard nothing back from them. They never replied my email and did absolutely nothing about the noise!! The lady I was complaining is not Helen, her name starts with a R.

Also, the elevator was broken for 3 times in a month. It made harsh noise at night while they refuse to shut it down. I asked them what’s the solution, they told me to wait for the mechanics to fix it in the morning. Besides, the recycle vans come in the early morning. If you are facing the Hobart Blvd, well, it’s your luck to be waked up in 8am. This is a design flaw! Every apartment else would let the recycle vans enter the building from the parking lot, but at the Pearl, the trash just came out of the ground level and annoys everyone who face the Hobart Blvd.

In terms of the rude staff, I have too many to say. One of the front desk staff is the rudest person who works in the service industry I’ve ever seen. She would star at you for over 5 seconds and said nothing, like she owns the whole building. I ran into her in the morning and she did it every morning to me. So no excuse. She’s not having a bad day, but just a rude person. (However, she’s much nicer to my male friend:) it’s 2023 girl, grow up) Also, she was not willing to assist you unless you asks for multiple times. She didn’t even bother to move the bell cart herself, but asked the residents to do so. For the residents, avoid going to the front desk in the mornings of workdays. Wait until 3pm so that you’ll be treated much more friendly. What’s more, the Korean leasing agent I mentioned before is a person cares nothing but her nail extension. I found a key chain once and I handed it to her. She didn’t even looked at me. She was playing with her nails all the time when I talked to her. I also asked her where’s my parking spot when u first got there, she had no idea. I think they should consider hiring someone who’s more responsible and also fluent in Korean.

Despite all the bad service and noise issue, I do met several nice staff. Almost every front desk staff were very friendly. As for the leasing agents, Bryan and Helen are great and responsible. The location of the Pearl is great, walkable to many restaurant and clubs. That’s where the only star comes from. I know many of residents are pretty happy about the apt, well, unfortunately, I had a really bad...

I was always here visiting my girlfriend when it was first built and the place looks nice except for the many problems you will encounter living there. Right out of the gate she would complain to me because two elevators went down and she had to walk all the way to another operational one to get to work causing her to be late a couple of times.

The parking gate went down for quite some time making me as a visitor park on the street since guest parking was very limited. I wouldn't say it is the best area so you don't want to be parking way down the street at night which I had to do for awhile until the Pearl fixed the parking gate. Very inconvenient and throughout her stay which was 15 months since they make you sign for that minimum amount.

Also when we would walk her Frenchie we had to use other doors at times as well to enter the complex since a bunch of them became nonoperational. Also found out that a bunch of security guards we got to know from our dog walks were fired only after months of staying there.

My girlfriends' neighbors I witnessed smoking on their patio and in their rooms. She is super sensitive to smoke and I thought this was a smoking free building but the Pearl allowed it which was very infuriating. The fire alarm went off many times throughout her stay probably from the smoking right in the middle of our dinners.

Also I think people must have complained because the Pearl expects you to pay absurd rent and had minimal hours on the weekend to enjoy the court yard and pool area. For all of these issues and paying so much per square foot of space I recommend looking elsewhere.

About management - Chris the property manager is very arrogant and intimidates residents(I heard from others I became friends with that lived there). I looked up the property management company of the Pearl and found out that it is Greystar which would make sense since they are rated 1 star out of many reviews on the Better Business Bureau. Terrible company and treats its customers less than human. Business received an "F" rating score by the BBB. I would stay far away from this property or any Greystar properties because you may run into legal trouble and they will harass you from the reviews I read on BBB. Close to 300 complaints just on BBB...