Zukin Realty — Local services in West Chester

STUDENTS PLEASE READ:

THIS REALTOR WILL DO WHATEVER THEY CAN TO EVICT YOU SO THEY CAN RENT IT OUT TO OTHER PEOPLE AND MAKE DOUBLE RENT. THEY DID IT TO MY APARTMENT AND THE ONE LIVING UPSTAIRS. THEY ARE GLORIFIED THIEVES.

I'm shocked this realty has above two stars. I've had a terrible overall experience throughout this past year. These people love to talk down to the students renting out their apartments. They don't care about their tenants in the slightest they just try and squander as much money as possible away from their tenants. To elaborate a little bit:

As soon as we moved in, our dryer and washer both did not work. The washer didn't wash the clothes, but just got them wet, and then the dryer took around 3-4 cycles of 45 minutes to actually dry the clothes. We went to the front desk and politely asked for them to send someone in to fix this issue, and the lady at the front desk gave me attitude and kept telling me that they can't send a work order in unless they know the problem. It took multiple visits to explain to them that simply the washer did not wash our clothes, and the dryer did not dry the clothes.

So, they finally send someone in and what do you know, they realize that both the washer and dryer are broken. So they install what looks to be a new washer and dryer about 3-4 months after we told them about our problem. Problem fixed right? Wrong. I guess the dryer wasn't new because it only has the ability to run for 10 minutes before stalling. So we have to stand by the dryer and restart it every ten minutes in order to dry our clothes. I've called twice about this new problem about 3 weeks ago and they have taken no action to fix the problem. (Ps: they finally fixed it after two months, hallelujah) (I've been writing this as the year progressed)

It's not just the washer/dryer, we smelt something weird outside of our house and called PECO since Zukin is practically useless. PECO comes in and says that a pipe is leaking outside of our house and the carbon monoxide levels are over 2000 when they are supposed to be under 50! 50! He said that if the pipe were on inside of the house it could have been life threatening.

To add on to the safety concerns, none of the windows in the apartment had locks on them so the house was a target for robbers to break into. We had our place broke into twice, once in the beginning of the semester when no one was home and my roommate had his laptop stolen. The second time was over Christmas break when my roommates safe got destroyed and had $800 taken. Both times all of the doors were locked.

I don't have the time to even name all of the other problems I've had with this realtor. Just please if you have any other options take them because I will never deal with Zukin ever again. Not only is our apartment overpriced, but everything is outdated and basically falling apart. And their service is HORRIFIC. Maybe they'll think twice next time about treating their student tenants like imbeciles since one of them actually decided to...

I lived on a property of Zukin for about one year. I just recently moved out about a month ago and the whole process and living situation in general was a mess. Let me start by talking about the apartment itself. We were overcharged by so much for such a poor quality apartment. The toilet seat when we first moved in was absolutely disgusting (like uncleaned human waste on it) and we requested to have it replaced which they just completely ignored. I ended up going to Walmart myself and buying a new toilet seat because I couldn’t even imagine using the bathroom with that seat on. There are multiple things wrong with the apartments such as rotting cabinets, loose molding and just very cheap appliances. The power went out every time it snowed or rained and we were left without electricity for hours on end. The apartment itself are very old and has very poor insulation causing us to have extremely high PECO bills every single month, I’m talking $280+ for a 580 square feet apartment. Aside from the high electricity bill, the air-conditioning was absolutely god awful. I’m really hot day the air-conditioning will stop working all around and we were stuck with an extremely humid conditions as the air conditioner just circulated humid, moist air into the apartment causing condensation everywhere. The smell of the restaurant cooking down below came into our apartment every day despite asking before we moved in if this would be an issue (they assured us it wouldn’t). The water stayed hot for all of 10 minutes so good luck if you need more than one person showering. Our washer broke, which is a pretty imperative appliance, and when we called the office for maintenance the lady answering was clearly aggravated we were calling so much, like it wasn’t their responsibility to fix. At one point a lady that lived right across from us got evicted from her apartment. There would be eviction notices from the court house plastered on the front door for all the tenants to see which honestly seems inappropriate to do instead of just taping in infront of their door. Fast forward to our move out day. We were scheduled to leave at 11 and the person who had to inspect the place came at 9 and just lingered around making us feel rushed and uncomfortable. When we got the bill for our security deposit, we pretty much got screwed out of our money. We got charge for cabinet replacement for damage we didn’t do. Got charged $150 for a smoke detector that costs $10 at Walmart. $220 for wall repair when the walls had absolutely no holes and we spackled the walls with any blemishes, sanded it and repainted so I’m so confused why we were charged so much. Honestly, if you’re desperate, live here but you can find much better for much cheaper with a realtor that won’t screw you out of...

If you are in the process of searching for an apartment in West Chester, stay away from Zukin Realty. In the beginning they were nice and helpful but once my roommate and I signed the lease, things quickly changed. I have had so many problems and conflicts with Zukin that I cant list them all on this review, it would be too long. But I'll give one example of Zukin's lack of knowledge and reason to help you understand. My roommate and I were having problems with our water meter. After one month of using water, the bill said that we used $260 worth of water(in one month!). A large building does not even use that much water in one month. So Zukin sent us the bill and did not think twice that something was wrong. We immediately contacted them saying that this is wrong and there's no way we will pay that. They responded by saying that the bill is correct and we need to pay it. We refused and this went on for a couple months. They took forever to send someone out to check the problem and when they did, they couldn't find the problem. Zukin claimed that every time he came to our apartment(for repairs, showings, etc) we were always in the shower and using the water, which was far from the truth. This claim was unprofessional and overall absurd and yet they still said that the water meter was correct and we need to pay. After about the third month of conflict, they checked the meter thoroughly, which they should have done to begin with. They came to realize that they were reading the meter wrong in terms of decimal places. So instead of $260, it was $26. That is all that it was, their error in reading a number. They did not apologize or anything, they just said they misunderstood the meter. How hard could reading a number be? From their overall lack of knowledge to their over priced apartments to their inability to reason, Zukin is the worst Realty in West Chester. That is a pretty bold statement because I have gone through two other Realty companies in the area and I thought they were horrible. They also have problems with following the agreements on the lease, which is a LEGAL agreement that, I guess, they don't think they have to follow. My advice, stay...