Ely Properties

4 years in west campus and i’ve never been treated this poorly. My mail key did not arrive on time so I visited the office, In a very disrespectful manner I was asked to give them 48 hours. So I came after two days, the lady on the desk shrugged me off and said another 48 hours. So I emailed the management, and they replied to wait another 1.5 weeks for KEY?! I had already wasted 5 days for it and then I was asked for another 1.5 weeks.
Stay away if you can. Find better management, these guys don’t value customer service at all.

I’ve lived at the Quarters Nueces building for 2 years and I decided it was time to try something new for my senior year. The prices at the Texan Pearl are great (way cheaper than Quarters) & it’s in a great location. Probably a 15 minute walk to campus. But I have many complaints… I’ll only list a few. First off, unhelpful staff. Second, the apartment I was supposed to move into was filthy. It had not been cleaned. Looked like there had been a party in the room the night before. Not a safe place. Found narcotics casually lying around the room. I do not recommend this place. Don’t be fooled by the cheap pricing. I would give this place 0 stars if I could.

This review is about a specific instance of needing help over the phone and the stellar assistance of susanne! She was so patient and informative and really walked me through my problem. She really could not have been nicer, i’m new to west campus and I always appreciate when people are understanding!

This company has no idea how to treat their tenants. Between broken elevators, random sirens, and broken air conditioning units the problems with the properties should sufficiently prove my point. However, the way this company has handled these issues puts them higher and higher on my hate list.
There is apparently an emergency «maintenance line» that is never answered and my phone calls were never returned. I also sent numerous emails which were never replied to.
Additionally, the mass emails I was sent were extremely rude. They address their tenants as children or incompetent.
Mail is not secure, I have had mail delivered to the wrong units on a regular basis. I have also had important bills stuffed in my door frame instead of in my assigned, secure mailbox.
The list goes on and on. Honestly, their rates are great for west campus, and the property I live in, Texan 26, is actually nice, but the management company has solidified my decision in never renting from this company again.

I recently purchased a property through Ely and my experience was a good one. I have not had any problems with the individuals I have been in contact with for the past year. Issues that came up in construction were dealt with in a timely manner and I felt everyone was professional, friendly and accommodating. Eric Sanders was especially pro active in resolving any issues or concerns I had and made himself easily available by phone throughout the construction process.

I was a tenant at one of their properties for 2 years. Their maintenance procedures could use a tune-​up (or another employee), as I found them to be very slow in responding to requests. I often had to put in 3 requests to get any relief, and there was never any communication back to even acknowledge the requests. The exception was true emergencies. Without this constant issue over 2 years, I’d raise the rating to a 4 star. Did have a couple, after hours at that, and the men manning the phones were on it right away. Oscar was the greatest.
I was pleasantly surprised upon move out. After all I’ve read here, I half expected nothing back. Yet the return was very fair with small deductions (expected) for things that I just ran out of time and energy to do.

Terrible! Don’t deal with this company.
Highly unorganized and extremely bad with maintenance requests.
I did not have hot water, after 2 month of requests and complains, I received a email that Ely prop. will send an inspection.
I did not ask about the inspection! But bottom line is no hot water in 2 month. Besides, the managers/​employees are lying (consciously or not) about things, they promise that the things will get fixed, but it never happens.
Hot water is not the only issue in my house.

Don’t use Ely Properties. First off, they emailed tenants telling us they would pay us $ 15 dollars to write good reviews on Unilocal and CitySearch.
Second, after living in the same apartment for 2 years, almost $ 20,000 in rent, they repay me by allowing their maid service to steal my MacBook and Matt Ely told me «there was nothing they could do about it».
The lady at the desk at the leasing office is always very nice and she genuinely seemed like she wanted to help me locate my stolen MacBook, however, the management did not care.
Moving out took longer than expected and I ran out of moving boxes and I emailed Ely Properties at 5:00am saying I would be back in a few hours for the rest of my items. I needed to get a couple hours of sleep and take a half day off work. I arrived back at my apartment at noon and the cleaning crew is already in there.
First thing I notice is that my bike is gone. So I calmly asked the cleaning crew (man and his sons?) to return my bike, which they did, telling me they put it by my car. At this point I was too afraid to leave my apartment in case anything else would get taken. So I go to my room and I see that there’s an entire family in my room and the cleaning crew’s children are playing with my stuff and some of my clothes are in bags ready to be taken.
Granted, this was technically no longer my apartment for the past 12 hours but I notified Ely Properties that I would be back and I even apologized in the email. Any sane person can tell that no one would leave their entire wardrobe, bike, laptop, etc to be «thrown away».
After about 1 hour of cleaning my apartment and finishing packing, I notice that my laptop is missing. I immediately find the man in the cleaning crew and tell him that my laptop is gone. I don’t accuse him of stealing and I was very polite to him. An alleged «Becky Gomez» and her children are nowhere to be seen at this point. They have conveniently left and the only thing they «threw» away in my apartment was my laptop.
I called Ely Properties and no answer so I left to tell the leasing office. After leaving a message with the nice lady at the front desk, I get a voicemail later that day from her saying that Matt Ely says «there is nothing they can do.»
Sure there was a contract saying we needed to be out by midnight, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act like a human being. There was no sincerity and no effort to locate my stolen MacBook, with all my pictures and personal information, from a cleaning crew that they hired.
The management is greedy and lacks humanity. It seems that they have forgotten that these college students living in their overpriced apartments are actually people and not just checks coming in on the first of every month. We even received an eviction notice on our door because we owed them $ 2…

Fitting with the theme of many other establishments within the student living/​west campus realm, this is a sad excuse for a property management company. Customer service is nonexistent, «wifi» (through Time Warner) is generally unreliable, parking space striping in the parking garages barely accommodates Smart Cars (YOU WILL BE TOWED), something is always broken without explanation or indication of when it will be fixed, they’ll try to charge you for maintenance visits, etc… You will likely get the runaround on every single issue with upper management outright ignoring your inquiry.
Ely is good at a few things however: taking your money, avoiding your concerns, having your vehicle towed, and delaying repairs for (overcharged) amenities.
Oh, but the maintenance guy is really nice.

This review is not about my experience as a whole with Ely Properties, but a review on the way they handled a single problem I had a couple weeks ago.
I live at Texan Tower, and the parking garage there is nothing less than frustrating. Some spots are bigger than others, and some spots are squished so close together that it’s impossible for 3 cars to fit into a section, so it’s understood that only 2 cars park there at a time.
One late night during spring break, I parked my car in a spot that was obviously only going to fit one car. There was no way another car could have fit between my space and the car next to me, so I didn’t think to re-​park my car even though I was maybe 2 inches over the line next to mine. I was tired of parking so close to the pole, and I figured 1. it’s spring break and everyone is gone so this spot won’t be needed and 2. no one could fit in that spot anyways, I’ve never seen 3 cars fit here.
I wake up the next morning and see that my car is gone. I’m livid. I had my parking sticker on my car, I didn’t think I did anything wrong. When I called the towing company, they said they towed my car because I was «parked in 2 spots.»
I threw a FIT. I told them I refused to pay them for towing my car because another car would never have been able to fit in the spot next to mine even if I had parked completely in my lines, and it wasn’t my fault the parking garage had ridiculous spaces.
The towing company said they couldn’t do anything about it, so I called management at Ely Properties. I eventually got through to the manager, who was surprisingly calm with me as I was throwing a fit about «are you really trying to make a college student pay $ 200 for your ridiculous parking spots.»
He called the towing company and convinced them not to charge me, and explained to me that the parking spaces are of legal standard (if you’re driving a smart car, I’m presuming), and that he apologizes for the inconvenience.
This isn’t to say that everyone should park outside of the garage lines and expect a comp when your car gets towed (because now I learned my lesson and am finding wider spaces to park in), but I was very impressed with the way the manager handled an infuriating customer.
He took care of my problem within 15 minutes, and I walked away relieved.
Although the parking sucks, I think that’s unavoidable in all of Austin, so I can’t completely blame them. In the end, Ely Properties took care of my problem in a swift and gracious manner.

To condo owners and sellers: It appears from my research that Eric Sanders of Ely Properties is outselling all other agents by far for 1-​bd, 1-​ba condos in the UT area. Of the 40 1 – 1 condos sold in the past year in 78 705, Eric Sanders sold 9 of them. I’ve had trouble selling a condo, so I’ll see really soon if they can sell this one too.

Thieves, Liars, I would rather eat dog shit than to ever rent from this property management company! They don’t even deserve one star. I was placed in an apartment that was infested with Roaches, had crackhead neighbors upstairs that never slept (therefore I didn’t get much sleep), was attacked by said crackheads, my window busted out by neighbor children, had a constant ceiling leak from the neighbors above me with black mold. Never once did they address any of the issues with this place, basically told me everything was my problem and they weren’t responsible. Then sent me a letter after my move out date saying I owed them $ 500 for an air filter, a small stain on the carpet, and screens that were never on my windows to begin with? They will NEVER see that money.

Probably the worst apartment management place I have ever dealt with. By far the worst on UT campus. Around Christmas break they sent an email saying «your current rent is $ 1300 and your future rent will be $ 1300 dollars» me and my roommate though, YAY I guess we can consider renewing… and once we did, we got an email in spring saying «your rent will now be 1650»…umm WHAT the fuck!!! 350 dollars more? They promised they wouldnt raise it and trapped us. Plus the are sneaky about making sure no one gets their thousand $ plus deposit. The secretary and women who answer the phones are rude and need to be fired.

Probably the one of the worst property managements I have dealt with. PLEASE avoid them at any cost.

0 star worthy. Worst service in town. The bad reviews that you may have heard about is 100% true. I learned this the hard way by leasing with them the 2k10−2k11 year.
My complaint is more about their management, moreso than the property. I lived in Texan Pearl last year and found the property to be decent. Ely however was absolute crap. They accused me and my roommates of missing rent payments 3 – 4 times when in fact, we had every single payment on time. They had misplaced our checks thanks to a very unorganized system so as a result, they sent us eviction notices on our door instead of asking us if we paid or not. Not very pleasant. In many other instances, they tried to tack on 300 $ worth of late fees (we were not late on any payments). We eventually got these problems fixed, but let me tell you, it is never convenient when you are being threatened for eviction and being charged bogus late fees. The lady at their front desk was honest enough to tell me and my roommates that they have a very faulty mail system in which they misplace a lot of things. How can a leasing company not have an organized mailing system? I have no idea…
First month we moved in, they lost my roommates check and told him to send a new one in. He did, only to find out that they had already cashed the first check.
Secondly, a few times, they barged into our apartment without ANY prior notice that they would be giving out tours for people looking to lease. Maybe my roommates got the notice but it wasnt very explicit.
Thirdly, they are well known for not returning your deposit. I got 3 $ dollars back from a $ 1000 dollar deposit. Being charged 400 – 500 $ for paint is very sketchy, considering the fact that we kept the walls pretty damn clean. We lived in a 900ish sq ft 3 bedroom apartment. A gallon of paint usually costs 15 – 25 $. This means that Ely supposedly used 15 – 20 gallons of paint. The funny thing is, a gallon of paint can usually cover around 200– 400 sq feet worth of walls, according to a bunch of online sources. It’s funny how a simple google search can expose the lies and BS that this company feeds it’s residents. I’m considering asking for documentation/​receipts on the supposed «repairs» they did on my old apartment.
Lastly, if you have any sort of credit left with their offices at the end of the lease, expect a long time to get your money back. They are completely incompetent. Me and my roommates paid extra so at the end of the lease, they were supposed to mail out this extra back to us. They mailed out a credit of 300 – 400 $ dollar to the OLD ADDRESS we used to lease from them at the Texan Pearl, as opposed to the PERMANENT ADDRESS I provided when I first signed my lease. Their reasoning for doing this stupid act: They said I did not provide a forwarding address. Why not EMAIL ME or CALL ME for it then? If they can send out emails threatening us of eviction and late fees, then why can’t they send out an email asking me for my new address or my permanent address? Can’t they see who is currently living at a property they manage, before they blindly send a check worth 300 – 400 $? As a result of this mistake, I had to go back to my old room at the Texan Pearl and asked the current tenants if they had received any mail under my name. They said they had not received anything. So this means that my check is being returned in the mail (seems unlikely, it has been 3 weeks since they apparently mailed it out), or Ely Property has misplaced my check. There is no sight of my check anywhere. EDIT– Got my check back, but there was a 35 $ deduction fee for check reprocessing. smh…
Avoid Ely at all costs if you can… Unfortunately, because Ely has a big ownership of various complexes in West Campus, many people are going to end up doing business with them. I have some tips: Always get a receipt from payment, and never ever mail your check. Always hand it-​in in person because they tend to lose checks a lot through the mail. Also take pictures of everything at move-​in and move out.

We all know that Ely Properties is the worst in Austin.
My friends and I have met 3 realtors to find a new apt. and none of them showed us places from Ely.
Also when you move out of the place, they will do everything to
keep your deposit.

if I could I would give this company a zero stars (if not less, lets move to the negatives.)
Right now, I am completely raging.
I’m living in the Texan Shoal Creek and there are so many problems wrong with this apartment complex.
1. the elevators never WORK.
doesn’t sound like a big deal?
think about how it would feel to have to carry all your furniture up 5 flights of stairs in mid-​summer, where the sun is burning through your skin?
2. they did not even clean up the apartment before we moved in. Nasty carpet, dirty sinks. Whatever not a big deal (I ended up steaming the carpet and cleaning it up)
3. theres mold on my ceiling, i have no lighting in my restroom (wiring issue i believe.) everything here is so f-​cking cr-​ppy!
What I AM FURIOUS about is this:
Tony from Ely properties bought some people to check out the apartment when I WASN’T there. My roommate and I went to go eat together– (this is an important part in the mystery.) When I came back, someone had taken a DUMP in my restroom. Not only that, they had clogged it up. There is literally FECES about to flood out of the toilet.
Not only that– but whoever (tony from ely or his guest) shoved a whole roll of toilet paper down my toilet.
So who was it?
It wasn’t my roommate and I.
The door was locked. Let’s do the math here.
yeah, the most unprofessional company I have ever had to deal with.

This place sucks and Andre is a lying scum bag!
I fell in love with an apartment leased by these jerks but instead of moving in I got totally screwed!
I signed the lease and paid the deposit a month in advance of the move-​in date and was told to phone a couple days before to set up a time to get the keys. When I called the day before move in I was told the place wouldn’t be ready due to construction and «the city» and I should find a new place! Thanks! I have a job, a life and a TWO MONTH OLD BABY and one day to find a new place at the end of the month when everything is already rented???
I had a feeling Andre was feeding me a line of bullshit about the construction so I did some investigating, called the city and the contractor on the job who all told me it was fine and I could move in but for some reason Andre was hell bent on not letting me. Baby discrimination? I don’t know. this dude is super unprofessional and just a flat-​out liar.
Although, after reading the other Unilocal it feels like a blessing in disguise…

DO NOT DO IT!
I lived at the Texas Tower 2 years ago and although the atmosphere was not terrible, dealing with the management company was a nightmare. They were always so rude every time I came in and took weeks to respond to maintenance requests.
ISSUES:
1) Our washer/​dryer would break every other month.
2) There were cracks on the ceiling. They tried to charge us for the apartment’s foundational defects when we moved out.
3) The doors did not fit the frames and at one point expanded so much that my roommate and I were locked out of our apartment. We had to call the maintenance guy (who was SO nice) and he drove from north Austin to come break open the door. They also tried to charge us for that as well.
4) The elevator was ALWAYS broken.
5) The parking garage was ridiculous and impossible to move around in.
6) Out of our $ 1200 deposit, they returned $ 200 because they charged us for their apartment’s defects. One of my roommate’s dad, who’s a lawyer, had to get involved.
As I was finding a place to live afterward, I would not look at any apartment complexes run by Ely Properties.

I won’t speculate on their intentions. I will not call them scam artists. Often, property management companies have their hands tied by the property owners, so it some cases, they may not have much of a choice in the matter.
But it doesn’t matter why they do what they do; the short version is, their priority is to avoid expenses, even when it comes at a great cost to their tenants. You’ll have to issue multiple requests for all things, deal with broken pipes, leaky ceilings, cracked foundations, etc.