Verve — Local services in Mountain View

An underwhelming community. My family has been here a little more than 2 years and "underwhelming" is the best way to put it. I've had my issues with the leasing office since move in day, so I am little biased, but I hope this review helps out others looking for a place to live in the Mountain View area.

Community/Location: It's a nice community. Relatively clean. The location on El Camino is great as it's next to Los Altos and Palo Alto and good access to freeways.

Amenities: ELEVATOR ISSUES. A few days in January/February 2024, again in August 2024. Again in September 2024 and broken until now. Today is October 22, 2024. This is a joke. A huge inconvenience for 20+ units as stairwells and elevators are on the completely opposite side of the community. I feel horrible for the elderly people who are impacted and everyone else as well. Getting to the the parking garage is a huge pain for all the impacted units so everyone is parking in the 1st floor Retail Garage, which takes away from visitors.

Pool was closed for 2+ weeks in September 2024. Opened for a few days, then Verve announced that the pool would be closed for 6-8 weeks for "replastering". It's been closed for close to 2 weeks and I haven't seen any work being done to the pool.

Staff: Aside from the folks that work in the office, the maintenance staff is fantastic. Very helpful, kind, and timely. The folks in the office just give residents the run around while never taking action. A few weeks ago, because of the elevator issues I asked the question why our parking garage and stairwells aren't secured by key fobs and accessibility - and the response I got was "the fire department said so". I find that complete BS, but the gentleman in the office was very adamant about it. Never even asked which stair well, or even bothered to check it out.

Security: 2 of the 3 parcel lockers are in an unsecured garage. I'd say 80% of the time, packages get delivered into the lockers (which is $5 fee) but a handful of the times, couriers leave packages out in the open for anyone to grab. It's an issue at many complexes I've lived in, and I just don't see any proactiveness on the Verve management end.

The parking garage is completely unsecured. Has there been any break ins? Not to my knowledge aside from a wagon that was stolen from my parking stall. But ANYONE can come into the garage. There are two access points that ANYONE can just walk into. On top of that, there is a stairwell that is not secured and ANYONE can come into the main apartment floors/units. But like the gentleman said a few months ago. "The Fire Department said it doesn't need to be secure"

Price: It's competitive with all the other "luxury" apartments in Mountain View. We were fortunate enough to get a decent lease term and renewal. but.......

NOTE FOR APARTMENT #249. Fair warning. Our unit is located right on the El Camino above the parking garage. You hear cars come in at all times of the day/night. There's a metal plate that is "PG&E's" responsibility so when cars drive over it, you hear a pretty loud "clank!" I even say a gentleman trying to fix it a few weeks ago as he lives a few levels above ours. #249 is right next to the trash chute. You hear the door open/close. Garbage being thrown, bottles and glasses being dumped at any time of the day/night. And lastly, this unit is right above a Dog Sitting (City Dog) business. You can hear the dogs bark at all times of the day and night as this unit is RIGHT ABOVE it. Oh and the 1st floor garage reeks of dog piss/shit.

Verve looks like a nice place and it's been "underwhelming" 2+ years given the price we pay to live here. We can't wait to leave this community and hope others speak up given all the issues presented in this review. I hope this helps other future residents as...

There are a few aspects to our experience so far and I’ll this them below:

1. safety - 2 stars. There were car windows broken of our neighbor who had a car parked in the gated parking. Our car was ok, but as I understood - it was not the first time. Also there were break-ins in the storage that residents pay for additionally. Ah yes - you pay additionally for mail room, parking, storage, bicycle parking - for every little thing :) be ready for that.

2. pricing - 1 star. After living for a year at the complex, the price of our apartment on the Verve website was listed $500 lower than the “special offer” we received closer to our end of leasing period. So I guess the management motivates people to frequently move around rather than stick with the complex. Disappointing.

3. Amenities - 4 stars. There are a few common spaces to use for a rather small community. Verve has - swimming pool (common for majority of decent communities), barbecue area (also common), but here are some that are quite unique - game room, chilling area with cute lights with outdoor furniture and fireplaces (the cool part there are no windows that overlook that place, so can gather with other people with decent amount of privacy). Everything looks ok, though you can tell it’s not a brand new complex. I’ll attach pictures.

4. Application process - 1 star We had to reach out numerous times - email and phone with no response on consecutive work days. Got an impression that people are not interested much in getting people moved in. It was a big pain, we even had to drive up again to the property. Have to note though that the leasing rep was super nice and tried to calm us down… I’d give leasing office 4 star rating.

5. Apartment - 4 stars The floor plan is rather thought through - very convenient I’d say. Seems like there was some upgrading done after previous renters. However one disappointing aspect for me was discovery of 5-6 dead cockroaches in the apartment. I hope that’s the end of the story and they are completely destroyed out of the apartment. Otherwise, I’d drop a rating to 2 stars as cockroaches are not just disgusting, but also they transmit diseases.

6. Notifications of maintenance works - 5 stars I really like the transparency - every time there is upgrade or maintenance works, I receive email notification. I find it much better, than finding out that something doesn’t work on the spot - when I already allocated some time to use the space for example swimming pool. Update: swimming pool was professionally cleaned only 1 time for the duration of our entire 1 year stay… :(

7. Events - 2 stars For the duration of a year there were about 3 events for residents. My friends leave in a complex that has such get together at least once a month…

8. management - 1 star Communication is very poorly handled. You might not think of it as an issue until you need some of the questions answered- like lease renewal or booking a clubhouse (be ready to pay $150/h for that). So as for communication- I didn’t get any response for days on email and nobody picked up the phone that was provided in the renewal email we received.

All in all, I’ll give this place 2 stars for poor management work and apartment discovery (cockroaches) I mentioned above. Also keep on mind this is not a new apartment complex - at...

Verve is as good as it gets. My girlfriend and I looked at literally every single apartment from Palo Alto to Santa Clara and there is nothing that compares. Right off the bat, Pamela our leasing agent was top notch. She didn't just give us a tour, she made us feel like we were already walking into our new home and community. Turns out she was right, as we leased it the same day. There are agents we dealt with at other properties that were so bad I would have specifically not leased from them, Pamela is literally the polar opposite of that. The rest of the leasing and management teams are nothing but a pleasure to deal with. Every question was answered and our move was so easy (apart from the moving the way too much stuff we have). Any tiny issues during the move in were resolved immediately.

Pros: Brand new building, we are the first to live in our apartment The finishes are fantastic, Nest thermostats, stainless steel Frigidaire Gallery appliances, keyless doors around the complex. The extremely well-maintained property is spotless, the pool, the grounds, the gym. Everything. 1 bedroom with den = amazing. The extra space in the den is awesome to have and the closet in the master is the biggest I have ever seen. Even without the den the floor plans are really well laid out. Space where you need it most. Amazing community. The neighbors are all super friendly and immediately made us feel welcomed. Amenities - the amenities are in a class of their own. The pool is large and you're able to swim full laps. We were very pleasantly surprised considering how low the competition in the area set my expectations. As a born and raised New Yorker, a good pool was a must have. The community center has all the typical options TVs, pool table, BBQs, but goes above and beyond with the kegerator (I can't wait to throw our housewarming party there). There's a huge scrabble wall, which once I get into playing daily, I will update this review with all the big words I learned. There's also what I've codenamed the man cave, which has 4 huge TVs for multi game watching, classic PAC-Man video games, and giant Jenga. The fridge is a side by side thank god! I hate the ones with the pullout freezer (horrible design). Hardwood floors in the kitchen/living room and carpet in the bedroom. 10-foot ceilings (at least in our apartment) Complex hosted events - Wine and Cheese nights, summer BBQs, and more to come. Big gym with all the equipment you would use. They even have a boxing machine. Gated below ground garage, you do not have to worry about your personal items here unlike some other locations. Retail is coming at the front of the building, coffee shops, a pet spa, etc.

Cons: Added approximately 2 minutes to my commute.

TL;DR - Verve is far and above the best community in the area. Do yourself a favor and forget every other place and go with Verve. I promise you won't be disappointed. FYI, if you tour and leave without leasing there is a very good chance you will lose...