University Group

All I can say is: DO NOT live with University Group.
Around a month after we moved in, the rain drops caused a whole in our ceiling –_​_​_​_​-​. And the rain dropped in our apartment.
Also, our fan in the bathroom broke after we moved in, we called them more than 5 times, and I went to the maintenance office 2 times in person. Every time they said they’ll come and fix it but they never did. Now we’ve lived here for 4 months and the fan still maintains broken.
Our handle on the apartment door almost dropped. Reported several times with the fan problem, UG doesn’t care at all.
By the way, a raccoon came to our living place a day ago. We tried really hard to keep it away.

Horrible horrible management, completely unreasonable and inflexible. We came into our place dirty and asked maintenance to clean it and make a few necessary repairs, they came in and did pretty much nothing (and this was after weeks since I first called in).
I’m about 3 months into my lease, and heavy regrets for choosing UG. I DO NOT recommend renting with them, unless you want some of the worst customer service I’ve ever seen. they are not customer centered and are simply greedy for poor college students’ money.
The positive reviews here are jokes, they’re probably UG workers.

The worst. We were out of hot water two separate times during our 12 month lease and it took at least five days to get it fixed. The apartment was dirty when we moved in. Just a bad experience all around. Don’t rent from them if you have a choice!

NEVER RENT THEIR APARTMENT! They do not care tenants at ALL. It’s suffering living in their apartment year round.

Horrible apartments and management. Lived in 309 N busey and regretted every single day. First they gave trashy apartment without cleaning. Second they do not agree that it is dirty. And finally when you move out, they deduct 230 dollars for cleaning. While I spent 2 days on cleaning it when moved out. I could challenge them to show even little sign of dirt. These realtors act like dictators. I moved 3 miles away from the school and am super happy with current management.

I moved in to my apartment on August 23. When I opened the door the stench was overpowering. Honestly, i sprinted to the window to start airing it out. It smelled like the last tenant was someone with 25 cats. And that was nothing compared to the fact it was so so dirty. Obviously, no one had even looked in the apartment (I found things of the last tenant’s still in the cabinets) or cleaned anything. There were even stains on the walls. To top it all off, I had no power in the apartment when I moved in.
When I called, the realty company basically told me that it was a problem with Ameren and not their problem. Now, I had specifically set up my power utilities prior to move-​in as instructed by U-​Group. I moved in on a Saturday afternoon. I called the realty company repeatedly about the problem, and tried to tell them that I HAD set up my power. Ameren’s office is only open weekdays so I couldn’t get a hold of them either. I spent Saturday night in a smelly apartment with no power.
On Sunday, I waited until 5pm and after I was still not getting any help from U-​Group, I paid for a hotel room. Monday morning, I was thankfully able to get through to a very nice woman at Ameren. She told me what I knew all along– that my power HAD been set up and that power had always been «flowing» to my apartment. She told me to call my landlord. Near tears, I explained to her that U-​Group basically refused to come help me, and could she please talk me through how to fix it myself. She explained to me how to go to the back of the building and find the meter for my apartment. All it took was a flip of the meter on the exterior of the building. The woman was surprised that I had to do it, as the meters are the responsibility of the building owner. I now had power. No thanks to U-​Group.
When I called again and tried to vent my frustration, I was basically brushed off (would not reimburse me for the hotel room) but they did send a maintenance guy to fix my (broken) oven. The maintenance man was very nice and told me the down-​low: the previous tenant had refused to move out after his lease ended, and when they finally got rid of him, they found piles of garbage everywhere. Long story short: they let me move into a disgusting apartment recently vacated by a hoarder that was smelly and dirty and had no power. To top that off this has been the worst customer service experience of my life.
Did I mention this apartment is $ 513 a month not including utilities??? I also filed a report with the U of I housing department to try and discourage other students from ever renting with them. I highly recommend any other company (I’ve lived with both Bankier and Roland before, they actually care about their tenants).

Maintenance is TERRIBLE! It takes a good month-​2 months for them to even get back to you. The leasing manager is terribly rude and the staff is clueless!!! There’s one male employee who works in the office who ALWAYS reeks of beer. AVOID! AVOID!

Very helpful staff

University Group took money out of my apartment complex’s safety deposits to install screened balcony doors that were never there. It took several phone calls and an in-​person meeting to get my money back. They wouldn’t even entertain the notion of their wrongdoing until I slapped pictures in front of their face. They were extremely rude when my roommate and I called them. I understand they get a flood of calls during safety deposit season, but they should really take more care into investigating claims and improve their customer service.

University Group staff is incredibly friendly and helpful.
Specifically, the maintenance department is professional and quickly attend to your maintenance requests.

The apartments that they offer are OK, but maintenance in them is not good at all. The thing that I am most disappointed in is the unprofessional service, and the sneaky (sometimes illegal) charges that they try to put on your bill. TENANTS BEWARE — If you rent with The University Group, make sure you go in monthly and ask for a bill of EXACTLY you are being charged for. I personally have had miscellaneous charges that have been as high as $ 600 on my bill that was for no reason what-​so-​ever. I do not recommend renting from U group at all. There are much better apartments, and much better landlords in the Champaign-​Urbana area.

Really really bad expereince. When we moved in (not early move in) the apartment was completely wrecked. There were wires hanging, place was dusty broken furniture everywhere, and my roomates bedroom door was broken, lying on his bed. We called them several times but maintance guy was rude and did not come till almost a week and said he was not responsible for the broken furnitue and was arguing with us about the broken door, Even though we called him about it literally 5 minutes after we picked up our keys. He took another week to come fix it because he was ‘busy’ with other stuff.
The apartment is old badly insulated and run down. Last year we guys had electricity bills of 50 –80 bucks. When we moved in here we got a bill of 220 dollars. The heater is old and consumes a lot of power but barely does any work. There is cold air coming through almost door and window.
University group is really shit. People our extremely nice till you sign the lease, and then dont give a dam once you have signed up.

Since my sophomore year, I have been a tenant with the University Group. Overall. I find myself very unhappy with their service.
Yes, their apartments are cheap– they’re also rather dirty and old. (When they say they clean the apartment before you move in… they don’t really. The first time I moved in, there was a wrap around the toilet seat that said «cleaned» but there were bits of old throw up all over the seat).
Their apartments are also probably in the best locations around campus (close to the quad).
It ends up being a trade-​off between a landlord you trust and a cheap apartment in a good locale.
Several instances that really upset me in my time (3 years) with U Group not including my toilet seat cover story:
— I signed a contract with them to transfer apartments after the summer was over and upon my return from summer break, BEFORE MY LEASE HAD ENDED all of my roommate and my things had been completely cleaned out. They admitted that it was their mistake and «reimbursed» us for a fraction of what everything they took cost (clothes, TV, lights, desks, cleaning supplies, dishware, etc…), and that was only after constant in-​person and phone badgering for about a month.
— This happened a few times, maybe three times; I would place a maintenance request in August when I got back to school, and no one would show up unless I called again and again.
— They do this thing where they show your apartment (which is fine!) but they do it at weird hours of the day with no warning. One October morning I woke up at 10 am to a tall man standing in my bedroom doorway with about 3 other people by his side. (I’m just saying, they could call or something right before they get there; they have all of our numbers on the leases– and, its fking 10 am.)
— This past summer, when I called the office to ask when our official transfer agreement was finalized before school started (I’m from California, so its a bit of a hassle when summer rolls around to deal with apt stuff) and at first they told me they would tell me in a week. A week turned into two weeks, turned into the next month. As you can imagine, it gets frustrating because I have to buy my plane tickets– when I eventually told them about my situation with the plane tickets, the lady that I was talking to told me that I needed to be patient, and that I needed to give them a chance blah blah and then HUNG UP ON ME. (I think ALL OF SUMMER is a pretty good «chance». I wasn’t able to buy my plane ticket back to school until about the second week of August.)
— There seems to be a lack of communication within the employees in the office. And I say this completely neutrally. They «lose» documents very easily. One of the summers I sublet my room to another girl, and U Group complained that she wasn’t «technically» on the lease, even though previous to subletting another employee told me that it would be fine.
— This happened to my roommate: U Group called and told us that they didnt recieve rent from one of the girls in i think September last year (that would be my roommate), which was strange because on my roommates online bank statements, the check was shown as cashed. This problem, I remember, took a while to sort out as well. Even after my roommate physically walked over to the office with her computer in hand and an online scan of the cashed check.
Pros: relatively cheap apartments and locations very close to main campus.
Cons: Management that could use some improvement. Due to their good locations, they know that people will always occupy their units, and hence the shoddy service.
Avoid if you can, but I don’t know if thats possible given the limited options on campus. JUST BEWARE AND TAKE PRECAUTIONS WITH YOUR THINGS!

When I went looking for apartments, the employees were very helpful and accomodating to my apartment preferences. Most of the apartments are in okay shape, however, the cheaper ones look like they haven’t been updated since the 80’s. Overall, I think they are a good bet and the monthly parking fees are pretty reasonable.