The M Seattle — Local services in Seattle

I've lived at the M for a year and a half and I've had a great stay with a few hiccups, but mostly enjoyable, made possible by the staff who work there.

I started renting at the M as a grad student at UW. I would advise any graduate school or non student tenant to really be sure about what they're looking for as a renting experience. A majority of residents are undergrads.

The cons: Unless you rent with someone you know or into a studio or one bed room, you could be matched with anyone. Even with clarity on your preferred matched roommate, this can be good or bad. Another con, the building is run with a relatively light set of staff. They are often called to run multiple duties, especially security for unhoused entrants. I have seen the number of homeless sneaking into the building decrease from when I first started renting. There are security staff that run a night and graveyard shift, however there's a small overlap in the morning where no one is at the desk. There isn't exactly a 24 hour line. Another con is that the ability to remove and evict tennants who are extremely out of line is difficult and slow, this is due to renters protection. Undergrad residents behave like undergrads.

The Pros: The ammeneties are excellent. Pre furnished rooms feel new. There are very small areas that could be cleaned like fan grates in the bathroom. The TV's in each room, and the wi-fi are great. The first generation of foam beds are softer and easier to sleep on vs the spring beds in my opinion. The basketball court is a great attraction, and can reasonably fit 3 on 3 and no more than that. I wish it had a large wood floor broom/dust mop on hand for residence to use but I can see why they wouldn't allow that. The upstairs lounge and study area are extremely polished and luxurious. They are clean and well kept. The upstairs microwave doesn't have a rotating pan but it heats well. The printing is straightforward and reserving the study rooms and movie room is easy. The Pool table in the movie room isn't level. The TV in the movie room is huge for a home but small for the room, I would have thought to use a projector. But it is a beautiful space that other apartments wouldn't have nonetheless. The movie room does suffer from having multiple people use the bathroom even if they don't reserve the room. It is annoying. The gym is excellent for the small space it takes up. The machines are all in good condition. The folding benches have even been replaced with wear. There are no 25lb dumbells. But they have 2.5lbs up to 80lbs. It could reasonably have 10 people in it, 4 on weights, 4 on cardio machines. The side choreo room has medicine balls, one set of ropes, weighted bags, and a punching bag. There are yoga mats as well. There are 2 TV's in the main gym and a TV in the choreo room. The only part of the gym I wish it had with the space given is a dip bar. The maintenence staff are quick to fix requests. The views out of windows on the 24th floor are very beautiful in all directions. All of the shared ammeneties are very popular, so it can be difficult to enjoy them in peace if that's what you prefer. Finding times that work for you can help. I stress that these are shared luxuries. If you're lifestyle fits with sharing sometimes, the very high rent can be worth it!

The stars: I had a very unfortunate incident out of my control that required an immedieate transfer to another apartment. This event made me realize how much the staff matter. Hannah and Odesa in leasing and John and David all did great work to help me move during a delicate situation. Hannah and David in particular were working in my best interest beyond what I expect. While I still feel there could be a bit more staff, the staff they have are excellent. They make efforts to improve the experience and safety of the residents and uphold profesionalism as far as Greystars lines will allow. I've lived here long enough to know that there are efforts to improve the experience, and that so far they are working! I am very fond of the staff that work...

DO NOT LIVE HERE UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET SCAMMED (read below for more details)! I really loved living at the M and their management team, even though our closets literally fell out of the walls, I still admired how the M team and their maintenance staff handled it. It wasn't until I moved out and they decided to charge me a $210 cleaning fee did I have a problem with them (did not charge my roommate, but given they haven't returned her security deposit...). I called them the day these charges came out and was told to email their management who can provide me the detailed responses, which was fine by me. It took me 17 days, ~10 emails, and 4 phone calls to finally reach someone. Also, does it even make sense for me to email Greystar if it was the M team who conducted the inspection? Needless to say, here is what I was charged and why I think it was 100% unjustified and that Greystar is totally trying to scam my roommate and I out of our money.

$25 for floor cleaning - this was 100% unjustified because when we first moved in, frankly the floors were already scratched up and gross which we noted in our move-in inspection and were assured that we wouldn't get charged for. I vacuumed before I moved out, and my roommate mopped before she did so I'm not sure what "floor cleaning" needed to be done?

$150 for paint damages - this pissed me off the most. While living at the M, our closets fell off of the walls on four to five separate occasions. Of course there was paint damages from this, but this was also not our fault as the maintenance person had told us that the closets were installed inappropriately. In lieu of this, we were assured that we would not be charged for paint damages as there was a lot of moving around of our stuff during this time to accommodate for the fact that our freaking closets had fallen! Yet, they are still trying to charge us... Very suspicious and very scammy... May have to contact my attorney about this...

$35 for "trash out" damages - my roommate, who moved out after me since I had to go on a trip before the end of my lease, told me that they had taken out everything in our apartment and had to haul it to the large garbages downstairs since the one on our floor was full. Still unsure what this even means, maybe this is just another last ditch attempt at a cash grab as they are preying on college students?

I am giving the M and Greystar a chance to make things right by holding off on pursuing legal recourse. Thank god I documented all of the floor damages (on my resident portal) prior to move in and closet issues that caused paint damages, because unless they have clear proof that these offences were caused by us, then we have a lawsuit on our hands! Here are some pictures of our closet problems so that you can see the clear severity of the issues we had and yet, were still nice enough to not leave a bad review until this instance! Keep in mind, there were damages to other parts of the wall in my room because the maintenance team and I literally had to move my entire closet out and scatter it across various parts of my room, causing wall scuffs but I was assured that I wouldn't be charged given the circumstances! Also, the dust from the closets falling damaged a lot of my roommate's clothes, yet we were nice enough to give them leniency and not pursue action then...

Edit: my first email to them was on September 12th (aka the day the charges came out), it is now September 29th and I was finally able to talk to somebody who proceeded to tell me that it may take up to a month to dispute and that they needed to contact the M now (ironic because the M allegedly "could not help me"). Very disappointed in their customer service... Is this how they treat college students who work three jobs to pay their rent on time (never even a...

I've been reading a bunch of reviews for this place and I might just say that I can totally relate to those people who can't move in this fall but are expected to find people to sublet their lease. However, that is not the case for my situation, because luckily I move from Seattle area and was able to move into The M safely in this pandemic. However, the situation is different for my roommates that I originally intend to move in with, because I now have to live with total strangers which I'm not quite sure I'll be comfortable with. I hope their roommate matching services will do the trick. But, we'll see.

It is not fair of me to judge the place solely on that matter, because there are plenty of good things that happen in my 2 weeks experience of living here. First off, the WiFi is amazing for starters it has great speeds and everything. I just hope that they'd figure out a way to make it stop disconnecting whenever the device is idle and include more than 5 devices in the free package. Next, the quality of the place from picture to reality really came through. From the gas oven, to the beautiful countertops, they really look like what they advertised and not some cheap knock off. The only difference I find is the size of the room for most people. The 4 bedrooms total unit area 1000 sqft, which sounds big on paper but when you narrow it down to individual rooms, they are only 100 sqft (measured with LiDAR sensor, don't count on me for accuracy). I know, pretty small.

Customer service at The M is where I got iffy about. Let me start off by my experience when directly contacting them through their website. They sound very friendly and reply very promptly and even initiate a phone meeting to discuss quotes more thoroughly. This is my first time renting an apartment as a college student, and might I say it made me felt like an adult. I then continue to go to their temporary leasing office, which I find okay but honestly there is nothing you could find there that wasn't already online. Well you could always touch their mockup kitchen, but that is about it. After I signed my lease, service dropped down to zero stars. I lack any contact with them but literally how to pay that $600 deposit fee and my last month's rent. As I move into the apartment, the customer service started picking up again, I got more attention from Angela who helped me move in and also Katie who come by to do touches to the unit that aren't quite done yet. I'm not sure how often this happens in other apartments but as of right now Angela is available to me almost literally 24/7. So good job on that and I'll certainly update this review if your services drops in the future :)

I have rambled a lot at this point, and I must end this novel review somewhere. If you're looking for a cheap apartment, this won't be it. If you are looking for high end luxury apartment, go look at those in Bellevue or South Lake. But here, the main selling point is really for those who needs to be in close proximity to UW, wanted the convenience of living in the Ave, and wanted a new building with all new appliances where you don't have to worry about molds or bacteria leaching off surfaces as tenants switches. I would get it if you're just looking for a place to stay in U-Dis and aren't concerned with money (but...