Cityview at SoCo

I’ve lived here since August. The girls in the office are amazingly friendly and have always been more than helpful. Danny Urias and the rest of the maintenance crew have been Johnny on the Spot every single time we’ve had an issue. The location is awesome, the apartment is great, and the CityView team do a great job making its residents feel like they’re home. Two thumbs up.

I’ve lived at Cityview (formerly Camden) for 3 years and it has truly been a great find for me. I am a no-​nonsense kind of guy, and I haven’t had any issues with the leasing agents, maintenance crew, or the property in general.
The location of this apartment complex is prime time, so if you’re looking for a nice place in walking distance or quick über ride of virtually all the cool spots, then look no further than Cityview.
What sets this apartment complex apart from others I’ve lived at (besides obvious location) is the people that work there. They truly go out of their way to accommodate you. I can’t tell you how many times one of the lead maintenance crew members, Danny Urias, went above and beyond his scope of work to make sure the issue was fixed or resolved for me. I know if I ever have a problem, either major or minuscule, I can count on him or the other lead Rhett to help.
Thank you Cityview staff and Danny + team for holding yourselves to a higher standard than those at other properties in the area!

In attempt to be generous I’ll say that yes, the location is great. That is where the greatness ends. The problems stared from the very beginning and lasted right up until the end of our lease.
Imagine for a moment 110 degrees, no elevator, and that you live on the 4^th floor. Sure, it can happen. Elevators break. But elevators should not break and remain unfixed for days on end. It certainly should not happen every month with no attempt from the management company to make up for the «inconvenience»
Another thing that shouldn’t happen is enormous drifts of stinking rubbish and recycling piling up in and around the dumpsters. The 35 $ «valet trash» fee that you are required to pay on top of your rent apparently only includes removing your trash from your doorstep, not actually maintaining basic hygiene standards on the property. Rats and stay cats abound on the complex.
When the maintenance team requested access to our apartment to replace the fire sprinkler system (on a Friday) we obviously allowed them to enter. But then when the installation went wrong and resulted in out having water pouring out of the faulty installation and onto the carpet in the middle of the night the maintenance team was nowhere to be found. The water damage to the walls and carpet were never addressed despite repeated requests for repair.
Lets move on to safety at the complex. I always thought it a little odd that the key-​coded door locks to the common areas (pool, business center, gym) never seemed to lock. The real shock came when a homeless person took up residence in the communal kitchen/​business center. We notified the management on several occasions but it took more than a month for them to do something about the problem. It was so scary that we stopped using the gym and business center.
I could go on about lesser issues but I think I’ve made my point. What is most galling about this property is the fact that they continue to charge «luxury» rents for a property that is neither safe nor clean. In addition to that they do an excellent job of sneaking in extra charges of which you cannot opt out. You have NO CHOICE about paying for cable (50 $), Valet Trash (35 $) and their communal electrical and water fees are exorbitant. Renter BEWARE! Its too expensive for what you are getting, seriously.

I’ve lived here for over 2 years and only have good things to say! The location couldn’t be better, the amenities are awesome (great workout room– which is never packed; awesome pool area), and everyone who works in the leasing office is super nice and helpful (shoutout to Jen!). For the large amount of people who live here it surprisingly never feels busy or crowded, and I hardly ever hear my neighbors. It’s a great spot!

Lived here for almost a year now and can say I’m happy that I moved in. Awesome location and fun atmosphere… The girls in the office are friendly too. Close to a lot of restaurants and bars too. Overall it’s a pretty good value, rent seemed to be lower than the other properties in the area when I was looking as well.

Lived here 1+ years and find nearly all the comments posted by others to be relevant and true. The reason I stay is the location. The rent and fees are somewhat typical for the area although there are some gorgeous, new apartments within eyeshot that are competitively priced. My biggest beef is with the garbage. while we all pay the mandatory $ 35/​month for door side pickup, the dumpster is located in plain view in a parking space, is too small, and frequently overflowing. And it stinks. And the manager and associates could care less. There… now I feel better.

Too bad I actually had to be generous and give one star. Where do I begin? For starters, leaving surprise drop-​in bullshit maintenance notices every couple months without warning basically so you can snoop, and force me to confine my pets to cages for 10+ hours for days at a time because some of us have real jobs, doesn’t constitute you as being very pet friendly in my book. Get your shit together and don’t give me excuses about why the planned snoop session wasn’t done on time. When someone is removed from a lease for legal reasons, let’s not keep their contact on as the main point of contact. I’d like to actually have my packages the day they are delivered, not the next day because you are too lazy to sort them. Have some manners in your front office staff, and try to keep them under control please. Why have business hours if you want to operate on your own terms and close on the only days when us actual working professionals can come in to pick up said disregarded packages? It shouldn’t take 4+ months and repeated calls for things to be fixed either. The trash situation that we pay an exorbitant amount for? That’s a complete joke. I’m no contractor either, but I’m pretty sure that constructing your walls with rice paper as insulation isn’t a standard practice. It would be nice to be able have a conversation in my own home without passer– bys on the sidewalk being able to hear. We had to call the police for noise so many times we lost count. We had a neighbor who would come home drunk nightly and throw screaming tantrums in the hallway and kick the wall behind our heads in our bedroom. And forcing us to only be able to time warner for cable, THE worst choice possible? The cable included with the price is barely a step above basic for ten times the price. Is this a dictatorship? Don’t waste your money here, move somewhere nice and use the difference to call über to take you downtown. It’s an absolute joke. If you are a working, pleasant, and sane person, my advice: STAY AWAY!!! I can’t wait to see the antics they pull when we leave, and the hidden fees they’re going to try and pull over on us. Any place who touts themselves as «luxury» shouldn’t have to have parking lot pizza sales and sad, decrepit cartoon characters out front waving signs.

The good:
The employees there are friendly, the location is great. The pool is nice. A lot of times there were some pretty big parties and people left garbage everywhere and in the morning it was always cleaned up. So kudos to staff for always taking care of that.
The bad:
When you move in they tell you they put all your utilities together on one bill– it is framed as a convenience they do for their residents.
The «rent» there is below market value and they inflate these utility costs to make up the difference. Unethical in my opinion. They don’t tell you how much the utilities cost when you sign the lease. Water and Sewer were $ 86 every month, which is crazy.
You have to pay $ 35 a month for valet trash. You can’t opt out of it.
Cable fee is especially malicious. Especially for cord cutters without any interest in cable TV. There is not a way to opt out of the $ 50 fee per month. The $ 50 is just for basic non-​HD cable through the wall. If you want a DVR, HD, HBO, anything like that you have to make arrangements for Time Warner for that, and obviously pay for it.
The parking garage houses the worlds loudest motorcycle, and its owner really enjoys revving that sucker up in the middle of the night to announce his arrival or departure. Like he will park it, put it in neutral and rev just for the noise pollution. This often results in car alarms being triggered. Can’t hold the Cityview responsible for the childish behavior, but in a perfect world I would have expected them to address the situation. I know I’m not the only one who complained.
There were two scary incidents when I lived there– once 5 cars on my floor in the garage had their windows bashed in. Another time I heard a loud noise, a scream in terror, and what was presumably a getaway car careen down the ramps and out of the garage. I called the cops who said they were already on their way. Multiple cars showed up and stayed for couple hours. I’m not going to fault the Cityview for the crime or say they could have done more to prevent it. But they didn’t notify residents of these incidents or put out safety alerts telling residents what happened.

I had the best experience at CityView SOCO the last few years! The front office staff (Natalie!) were always available when I needed them for maintenance requests, packages, issues, etc.
Rhett was great as well when I needed a helping hand with a maintenance request! He always showed up with a smile & took care of my maintenance needs!

Waiting to write my full review once I have successfully moved out and received my security deposit (that’s how much I trust management…). The quick and dirty though is that I do not recommend Cityview by any means.
Everything in the filtered reviews (at the very bottom) is 100% accurate. Please go read those for the truth.

DO NOT LIVE HERE.
If I could give this apartment complex a negative rating, I would. For one, the staff has no idea what they are doing.
I toured an apartment and was told that they had the same layout directly over the pool with a nice view. I was intrigued because the price was decent compared to most other places on South Congress (or proximal to downtown Austin for that matter). When I arrived on my move-​in date, the apartment I was supposed to get was not ready for me to move into, so they just put me in another apartment that had «the exact same view.» It did not. Also, upon arrival into my new cozy hallway-​of-​a-​room, the A/​C was broken. I had to call 5+ times to get them to send a repair man to the room, and he brought a huge temporary air blower that had to suck air in from the window and told me that was all he could do. For the next few days, in the middle of a hot austin summer mind you, I sweated it out while they kept telling me it would be fixed. Also, the kitchen in that place must’ve been designed by a someone who hates cooking because it was the most awkwardly arranged ensemble of weirdly sized drawers I’ve ever seen.
After a few weeks, my roommate and I (who are pretty adaptable I’d say) couldn’t take it anymore. We had a friend living in a single bedroom apartment in the same complex, and we decided to try to move into a 3-​bedroom place. There was a $ 500 convenience fee to do this, which we actually didn’t think was too horrible (I guess). We were shown and apartment and decided that anything was better than where we were living at the time, so we moved in.
After a week or so, we all started getting calls demanding we turn in the sheets that said what was wrong with the apartment when we moved in, like the stuff that was already damaged so we didn’t get charged for it. That was fine, except that they had never given us those sheets. They acted like it was a huge inconvenience for them and tried to blame it on us. It was ridiculous. Anyway, there were several things wrong with the apartment, which we eventually documented and which were never fixed. The lock on our sliding glass door didn’t even work, and we were on the first floor!
After a few more weeks had gone by, we had a few friends over for dinner, one of whom was surprised we lived in that particular apartment. She proceeded to tell us that when she moved in to CityView, she was supposed to have lived in our room, but it had flooded and had several inches of standing water in it, forcing her to live in a different room. Sure enough, weeks later, as the rain poured down one night, our apartment began to flood. We threw towels down and thankfully it subsided, but it could’ve been much worse.
Moving on, the utility bills are absolutely outrageous. Here are our charges for a particular month, NOT including our Time Warner Cable bill (which you are forced to have) or our Texas Gas Services Bill (those guys are actually nice).
Water: $ 39.15
Sewer: $ 64.21
Trash Charge: $ 25.00
Pest Control Charge: $ 18.99
Cable Charge: $ 50.00 (Yes, they say the room comes with standard cable and HBO, but no, it’s $ 50.00 on top of everything else.)
Valet Trash: $ 35.00
Credit Card Processing Fee: $ 3.00
TOTAL: $ 232.35
This is on top of a $ 182.36 Time Warner Cable bill, and a $ 78.00 gas bill. Not to mention electricity.
I could go on and on.
DO NOT LIVE HERE.

I agree with April D. The management of this apartment complex is HORRIBLE!!! Camden actually cared about their tenants. This place has gone to hell since it became City view. I stayed in apartment 314 from 2011 to 2012. Cityview turned this complex into a customer service nightmare. Charges for «valet trash» but the pick up was sporadic at best. $ 3 to pay-​online. Service request getting ignored.
DO NOT RENT A PLACE HERE!!! These people will nickle and dime you for everything! Management is rude and completely unprofessional., I have received better service from the drive-​thru at Taco Bell than Cityview.

Well. This is going to be a lengthy one.
I moved here in February 2013. From the start CityView was unorganized, unprofessional, and very misleading. When I signed my initial lease I was guaranteed my move in date of February 15, 2013. I set this up precisely so that I would be out of my old place and into this place to avoid paying double rent. One day before move-​in CityView told me my apartment was no longer available because the previous tenant was sick and could not move out. Their only means of resolving the issue was to put me in a different apartment (mind you the reason I signed the lease was specifically for the South Congress view, not a parking lot view). I refused the offer. I ended up restructuring my schedule, taking off work, and reorganizing my moving plan to move in after the original move-​in date. Whatever. I moved in. That’s that.
Then goes the lies about the First Billing Services. When I moved in I was told by the leasing agent that typical fees were around $ 75 per month. BULL. I pay $ 172 a month for WATER and VALET TRASH. Oh, that’s not including the $ 3 fee they charge you to «pay online». Valet trash is not outsourced. They use their own maintenance team to pick up the trash, of which — they have ONLY picked up twice a week ON A GOOD WEEK. Therefore, they are charging residents $ 70 per month for a $ 15 trash fee and pocketing the rest. I have filed multiple complaints via email and telephone with CityView requesting that my trash fee be abolished because they are in breech of contract by not picking up the trash between the designated 6a-​9a time frames M-​F. NO RESPONSE. No acknowledgement whatsoever. Don’t worry, I have now escalated the matters and am in touch with The Connor Group Properties.
Maintenance requests: I have never had any repairs done within the «24 hour» time period. Every single request including flooding of my washer machine, broken sink, no hinges on the cabinets, etc. have taken over a week to repair and were only catered to once I began calling in the office and leaving voicemails.
EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE LINE: they do not answer it. They do not check the voicemails. They do not call back. Okay, let me specify, there is ONE maintenance worker who has been extremely helpful, friendly, and efficient. Other than Jerome, maintenance has been a nightmare.
I left town and my dog sitter was not able to get into the apartment because I mistakenly forgot to leave the key (yes, my mistake). I called emergency maintenance 13 times over a seven hour time frame. I left three voicemails on the emergency line and two voicemails to the office line. NOT ONE CALL BACK. Finally when I did get ahold of the person on-​call for the weekend he sounded drunk, and made the following statement «Oh, I know who you are. I have heard of you. I am not doing shit unless you pay me $ 50 in cash.» Real professional, MIKE. SO, if a dog trapped in an apartment is not an emergency, I don’t know what the heck is. The $ 50 fee, not a problem. I WAS OUT OF TOWN mind you. No possible way to hand the man $ 50 in cash. I explained this, he refused to unlock the door, I had to call a locksmith to go to the apartment and let the dog sitter in. STILL NO CALL BACK FROM THE MANAGEMENT OFFICE.
Painting. They put notices on the entire complex advising residents that they would be painting and we would be informed of exactly when our buildings were painted. I was never informed. Instead, I came home to my entire patio inside of my house, all décor taken down, and wet paint on the walls. When I asked when the painting would be finished so I could move all the patio furniture back outside I was told they would call me back. Never got a call back. I had to wait 3 weeks to finally move my furniture from inside back to my outdoor patio.
I have quite a hefty list of complaints and unresolved matters that have been neglected by CityView of which I am taking to The Connor Group Properties and having it handled from the top down. If you live at CityView and have the same issues, I would advise doing the same. The management team clearly has no urgency to fulfill their portion of the leasing contract, and I am confident that I’m not the only «tenant» that has unresolved complaints.

LOVED IT… when it was Camden. I signed up here because there was boot camp Wednesdays, free cookies at the lounge, guest parking, and overall pretty good value, albeit still a little pricey ($ 1776 before utilities, around $ 1900 after).
A month later, a new management from hell took over. First, they switched our water billing services to a third party service, who charge a RIDICULOUS rate for water and sewage. My water bill that used to be $ 30 is now ALWAYS over $ 120. When we asked about this, Cityview said that Camden cut a deal with the water company to get lower rates — pretty sure utility rates citywide are the same, but third party billing services can charge whatever the hell they want, then charge a convenience fee for paying them. We definitely paid twice for october, to which the new management responded «right, your second water bill is for the coming month», which makes no sense but we thought, fine whatever, it’s only $ 120. My roomate and I moved out the last week of July, and paid a bill due August 1^st. For our last month, I was only in that apartment for one week, my roommate was there for 2 weeks. Then we get a bill due September 1^st for $ 150! Our move out day was the first week of August, how is that possible?
Also, my friend’s car got towed in the once designated guest parking.
No more free cookies, no more bootcamp. The sanitizer machine at the gym is always out of sanitizer, so the equipment smells mucky. The pool closes for no apparent reason. The ladies downstairs don’t support fitness and health.
But hey, for our «early bird renewal rate» (that they tried pitching to us 5 months before our lease was over), our rent only went up $ 200. That’s only if we sign by that same week.
What else… They painted my building and neglected to put a «wet paint» sign, so when I leaned my bag against the wall to look for my keys, SURPRISE! I have huge permanent paint stains on my purse and pool towel.
That’s $ 130/​month for my water bill down the drain, $ 200 for my friend’s car that got towed, $ 70 for an external gym membership that I thought came with my lease. Take into account these extra expenses.
Management is a wreck. Staff always blaming whoever you talked to previously for untrue statements — no accountability whatsoever. They also always talk down on Camden, which pisses me off because Camden was 10 times the business Cityview could ever dream to be.
Get the stuff together, Cityview.

When we were under the Camden things were great. Now we have trolling tow trucks and convenience fees on all online payments including rent and bills. But they won’t accept handed in checks to circumvent that. This once great apartment has turned into a nightmare… It’s really unfortunate CityView feels the need work against their residents instead of with them.