Capstone Property Management

Saw someone blowing leaves into the street in 400 block of aldine. This is illegal. Makes me wonder what other illegal acts the management does.

Capstone? No more like CRAPstone. This company was inattentive, apathetic and plain just bad. They managed the building I live in and I had to chase down the «building manager» for everything. Just easy stuff like keys to the common areas etc. Best part after hounding this idiot for a week he had enough nerve to call and say he needed my «contact info» I guess my calls and many emails didn’t get thru that thick skull. You know once someone emails you have their email address! Well luckily our condo association has kicked them out on their butts. Cept now the current one is after me for «unpaid expenses» from when Crapstone was in charge. Problem being they’re from before I bought/​moved into my place. Thanks alot morons.

Writing an update on my previous review on Capstone.
This place has gone down hill. When I moved in, they were really great to work with. Well it turns out that was just the old property manager I worked with (Kate). The staff that is there now is extremely incompetent and are terrible at communicating or doing their job. I had to find a subleaser very quickly, as I was moving out of state, and they were awful and unhelpful during this process.
Shalem Jonas is responsible for apartments now and she will take forever to get back to you. She will also give you short, brief answers. What ever happened to customer service?
So happy to be moved out and to have moved on from Capstone.

I’ve now lived in two different condo buildings managed by Capstone and it appears to me that whomever is the person responsible for the property makes a huge difference. The first building never had problems. Things will kept up, emergencies were handled, phone calls and emails were returned in a professional manner.
The building we live in now is a TOTALLY different story. Communication is poor. We have to sending nagging emails as we are never kept up to date on the situation of important matters. The more we ask, the less answers we get. Do you think we like having to manage our management? Hopefully, our condo board will decide to get services from another company as I can’t imagine having to keep trying to get things fixed/​questions answered in this poor fashion indefinitely.
If you are looking for property management for your condo association, keep looking. While I would recommend the person that managed our last building I am afraid that should they leave the company, you would be rolling the dice in a big way.

Unsure about whether to rent from a Capstone building? Let’s go over a few things that you may/​may not want in a prospective landlord…
Do you want a property manager who
–Doesn’t care at all about getting you into your apartment on move in day, even though you were promised your set of keys the day prior and you have furniture being dropped off in mere minutes?
–Has an «emergency» line that goes unanswered (so, good luck to you if anything really terrible happens while you’re a tenant)?
–Promises to fix things, ignores you/​your requests for weeks, and makes you feel like a jerk for following up with (ok, borderline harassing) them?
-«Loses» rent checks, forcing you to decide if you actually trust them enough to shred your check when they inevitably find it OR shelling out $ 40 for the bank to put a stop payment on it? (Please, don’t be dumb enough to trust them to shred the «found» check).
–Fires/​hires staff at such a rate that you never really know who is managing your apartment, because god forbid they inform you that the person you’ve been calling/​emailing for weeks no longer works there?
–Shows your apartment without the required 24-​hour notice when you finally decide you’ve had enough and want to move out?
If you’re cool with all of this and more BS, by all means. Sign that contract. Have fun.

I’m finally out of the Capstone apartment but am still dealing with their lack of professionalism. They refunded our security deposit late, refunded the incorrect amount, and did not include the lawfully required interest.

I am on the board of a 42 unit loft complex. We hired Capstone to manage our property about a year ago. Ann Miller is our property manager and she is wonderful. The organization is wonderful. They make it nice to be on the board of the complex.

I was living under Capstone Management for over 2 years and I was very happy having Howard in my building all the time. If there was an issue with anything, Howard was taking care of it within 24 hours! He is constantly working toward improvement in the buildings he manages. Also, once when you rent is up, you will get your security deposit on the very same day of the last day of your lease. Thanks Capstone for all of your hard work and cooperation!

I’ve lived in two Capstone properties the last two years and never had any issues. In my experience, the staff has always been flexible and accommodating. When a bigger unit opened up in the building, they let me
transfer the lease and keep the same rent. hen I thought I might have to stay an extra few months past my lease, Howard was very understanding. When it was time to move out; I was able to apply my security deposit for last month’s rent. There were a few minor maintenance issues that came up, but they were always handled promptly.

We have been with capstone for 2 years. Howard was helpful with any of our needs and was always polite and prompt. Security deposit was given back on the day we moved out.

I have had a great relationship with Capstone and I’m sorry I had to leave my lease early.
Getting my new apartment was easy and Ella was able to work my schedule to show the apartment. She also made it clear that she had to the give current tenant adequate notice before showing it to me, so I appreciated that for when I became a tenant.
Ella often communicates with emails, and is always very quick to respond.
I recently had to move and sublease my apartment, and Ella has been amazing to work with the entire time. I can’t recommend her enough. I’ll review again if I have any trouble with my security deposit, but I’m sure I won’t. Capstone is great company and you’ll be in good hands in one of their apartments.

This is by far the worst management company I have ever dealt with. The 2^nd month I lived in my apartment they lost my rent check, claiming they never received it even though I lived in the same building as them and put it in their mailbox. After that they had the nerve to ask my for another check and tried saying I owed a fee for paying rent late.

I have a small dog who has always been very well behaved and have never received any complaints in the past of him barking but Capstone tried telling me he barked incessantly and the owner Howard threated to call ANIMAL CONTROL when I was at work to have him removed, even though they allow dogs and I know my dog does not bark when I am not at home. Even if he was barking, he is DOG for goodness sakes, you can’t call animal control for that! To make matters even worse, Howard used his keys to enter my apartment when I wasn’t even home to let my dog out of his cage which he thought was the reason for this barking. THAT IS ILLEGAL. I should have called animal control on him.
When we initially moved in they had removed one of the walls in our apartment to do the exposed brick look which I was promised would be done prior to us moving in. The day we moved in not only was it not done but they came the very next day to work on it which completely covered our entire apartment with dust and grime which I of course had to clean and 5 months later when I moved out, the floor was still torn up and the wall was never completely finished. How does that happen?
After 5 months I decided to sublease my apartment and was told there would be a $ 250 sublease fee which I agreed to and I would be responsible for finding someone to take over my lease. A friend showed the apartment for me because I was living out of state at this point and Howard showed up to the viewing and started showing the apartment himself so that they could keep my $ 800 security desposit for themselves since I was not the one to find a subleaser, even though the girl who took over my lease replied to an ad I had posted on craigslist!!! I had to fight for my deposit and in the end they did give it back to me once they realized I had figured out their scam.
These people are completely unprofessional, impossible to deal with, they are scam artisits and I would strongly adivse anyone to run the other way if they are looking at any apartments that capstone property manages.

Save yourself the time, and go with A. Saccone &Son.HORRIBLE…Worst experience EVER w/​a Management Company. I wish I could say they are Rude, But I can’t because they don’t return phone calls EVER!!! Ella is the worst. Emails, Phone calls never returned. Stick w/​the little guys the Private Owners when renting. At least they care about their Property’s and Tenants. The Maintence Men are really nice though… Oh did I mention they sent me someone else’s rent check and said I had to fill out the address. Then when I called them and told them it wasn’t our check, they wanted me to bring it back to the office. Suck it!!!

Just wanted to let the Unilocal community know that I’m still very happy with Capstone and Jackie. Our condo building is from the 1920’s, has around 30 units, and we’ve put off a lot of maintenance. But, Jackie is great about gathering the bids and giving us advice. She also plays the role of bad-​cop when the board has to lay down the law.

Interesting comments. I own a condo and Capstone is the property management of the courtyard building. To this date, since them taking over from the previous mgmt company, which was about 1 yr ago, no issues have been observed. My tenants have not complained to me directly. Capstone appears to keep the building and common areas clean. To my knowledge, they are cleaning the sidewalks when it snows quickly. When building maintenance is performed and outages occur, notices are sent out one week prior and a few days prior restating the outage is going to occur. So, being an owner who has an investment property with their mgmt company, no issues thus far. However, I will ask my tenant how everything is thus far.

Too bad there’s no option to provide zero stars. Howard Kruse should have his law license revoked. CPM «managed» our property, fired our manager (who was great), then dropped us with 4 days notice on a Sunday via email. During the transition to the new company, they did not maintain files on ANY of the unit owners. Horrible experience.

If four letter words were allowed in reviews on this site, I can assure you that this review would be full of them.
Filthy apartments. Building was not kept up (locks often did not work). Phone calls were rarely answered. They lost my rent checks several, several times, then charged me late fees. When I moved out, they gave the keys to the next tenant a week BEFORE I had moved out. I came home and she was walking around my apartment, with all of my things still in it. Then they never returned my security deposit. This is my revenge. Jerks.

So apparently Capstone is no longer working with apartments, which is a good thing. The employee who showed me the apartment a year ago was really nice and promised that the painting, repairs, and cleaning would be done and ready for move-​in on July 1^st. Well, we get the keys and open the door to find a ladder and paint supplies throughout the place and a huge filthy mess of an apartment. Luckily I have amazing friends who helped clean the place, but they probably contracted some weird disease.
Howard, the head guy at Capstone, tried to tell us that it was clean. He said that his maintenance guy swore that it was clean. Right Howard, how about you come look at these blinds? Eventually we were given a very small amount of money for the labor and cleaning supplies, but the nasty blinds still remained. Did you know that Chicago housing code states that it is the renter’s responsibility to clean or replace blinds when a tenant moves out? Howard and Capstone apparently did not.
The furnace went out on a Friday when it was below freezing outside, so we got to live in a freezing apartment all weekend since Howard wouldn’t pay for someone to come and fix it on a Saturday. That was a lot of fun.
Any types of requests — like for an exterminator or any kind of maintenance — was met with an abrupt, «I’ll look into it,» then a hang up. We were only given one set of keys, neither of which unlocked the back door or the hallway door. We requested 8 times to get the correct keys and never received them.
All-​in-​all, a horrible renting experience from a rude company.