Urban Equities Real Estate Consultants

Jan: 0 stars
Volodymyr: 5 stars
Here’s why.
1) I repeatedly told Jan there was a crazy smell in my building one year after some builders worked on bricks. It got to the point where I was ill and had to go to the doctor. She said the smell would go away. After several debates for at least 3 weeks and me threatening to not pay rent, she finally had maintenance come to figure out the issue. Turned out it was a dirty filter in my air conditioner. She never admitted nor even acknowledged that I was right about there being something wrong INSIDE of the apartment.
2) I have had two sets of neighbors who love to play loud music. Normally I’d say the floors are thin, but for 6 of 8 of the years I’ve lived here, I never had any major problems with neighbors. One took the cake and decided to purchase a treadmill (sounds like elephants above me every morning for about three months), blast music, (adorable) baby crying loud through vents, and the couple have had two extremely loud, stomping, screaming matches at 4 a.m. I reported it. After seven months of dealing with this and renewing my lease, I said either I had to go or they did. Originally UE tried working with me and the upstairs neighbors calmed down for a week or two. But then they were right back at being insanely loud all over again. Jan told me to «put a lid on it» by phone. Later on, she had another worker e-​mail me to tell me that Jan felt it «would be best for all parties involved if you move.» How someone can possibly do EVERYTHING against their own lease in ONE year and you feel the person who’s been living in the apartment for 8 years and never done anything against the lease is beyond me. I regret nothing. If I ever hear a woman scream that terrifyingly loud and sound that scared, I’D REPORT IT ALL OVER AGAIN! The police have had to get involved at least twice. After I was told it would be better if I move, I was told «Just call the police» on the neighbors upstairs if they do anything else before I moved out. I feel sorry for whoever lives below this couple though. Unless they change their behavior (or the wife goes back to UE to cry again), Jan will deal with the same complaints with the new tenant.
3) It wasn’t always like this, but within the past couple of years, my kitchen water never gets hot. Like ever. Always lukewarm. And the heating situation in the winter is bizarre. It’s just cold, and they send out notifications of when you legally have to turn on the heat or the exact temperature before the heat will come on. Normally I’d go for that, but the apartment used to be super comfy from the time I moved in in ’07. Something odd happened when it comes to heat in the past couple of years.
4) The new rule as of a couple of years ago is that tenants can’t smoke in their apartments. Problem is they took down the «No Smoking» sign near a stoop so cigarette smoke and smells go directly into any open windows along the sidewalk area of the building.
5) Jan has a habit of blaming everything on maintenance, including issues that she should resolve, such as loud neighbors and broken sinks that need to be entirely replaced.
6) Jan is rude as hell. She told me to «put a lid on it» for pointing out neighbors screaming at the top of their lungs at 4 a.m. and knocking down furniture.
7) I’ve never been able to figure out why, but there’s this persistent need to paint things that rarely need to be re-​painted. Seems like a waste of time.
So why am I giving it three stars anyway? 100% Volodymyr. He deserves five stars alone.
1) He is professional.
2) He’s a jack of all trades from giving me car tips to fixing my plumbing.
3) He’s always upbeat. When he actually looks tired, it makes me kinda sad because he usually has a grin on his face.
4) He does have a habit of saying «15 minutes» and «I’ll come tomorrow» so I don’t always hold my breath for him to get here. But when he does, there’s 100% it’ll get done correctly.
5) The lawn and flower setting are spectacular all of the time (minus when these electricity trucks drove across the lawn and ruined all of his work).
6) He makes sure any kind of security issue is handled promptly. (Apparently there were a couple disgruntled people who cut screens and broke the front glass window one year.)
A building is ONLY as good as its maintenance staff. If tenants can keep their interactions to just Volodymyr, they’ll be content. I have loved the 8 years I lived in one of their buildings because he’s such a good guy. I didn’t even know who Jan was until about year 3 or 4. Try as much as you possibly can to avoid speaking with her directly and you’ll love the place.
Would I recommend an Urban Equities building? As long as Volodymyr is the maintenance guy I would absolutely do so. Lovely neighborhood, too.

I have a small business and have rented space with Urban Equities for the last 7 years. During that time all has been well taken care of. This year the space required some updates and renovations. I worked directly with Bob the owner and found him to be very amenable, helpful and pleasant. It was a pleasure. Not only was the work completed well on time but it was done at a higher level of quality than I expected. The space looks fantastic and so many of our clients comment on the clean, fresh look. Thanks SOO much Urban Equities. We hope to be here for many more years to come.

I’ve been in my apartment on Thome for 10+ years and I love it! Any maintenance issues are taken care of quickly and the staff in the office are always ready to help and will answer any questions I may have. I really can’t see going anywhere else, location is perfect for me.

I’m a small business owner in Lakeview and have leased from Urban Equities for 4 years. The management staff along with their entire maintenance crew, have always been very responsive & extremely helpful with all of my business needs. Management is friendly, accommodating & a pleasure to work with regarding any issues or concerns that may arise. I had a pipe burst last winter late at night, fortunately I was at the building. I called UE and they sent their crew over right away to take care of the matter & help with clean up. I would highly recommend leasing through Urban Equities. Great staff!

Honestly, the bad reviews on here surprise me a bit. I lived in one of their properties on Thorndale in north Andersonville for 2 years, and I had a great experience. And trust me, I did my research, because I have had nightmare experiences with another company (cough, cough, beal properties!)
Anyway, my building was always clean, and our apartment was absolutely beautiful and HUGE! For the price, you can’t beat it in the area. Tom, the building manager was friendly and was always responsive to any issues.
The only reason I didn’t give them 5 stars is their office staff apparently does not communicate with one another. We received two leases to renew one year with different prices, among a few other issues related to moving out that I won’t go into (though we did receive our deposit very promptly, so that had nothing to do with it).
All in all, I would say renting from Urban Equities has been one of my better rental experience while living in the city, and I would recommend them to someone looking for a beautiful, vintage apartment.

I have lived at their N. Paulina building for going on three years now. I know it’s hard for a management company to gain any sort of street cred around here, but I think the property i live at is great. It’s very quiet and the exterior and lobbies are kept clean and the lawn is mowed on a regular basis. Snow removal of the sidewalks in the winter is good, given the amount of snowfall we get. Non urgent maintenance requests sometimes fall along the wayside (ex: new screen door) but all other inquiries i have had have been taken care of very quickly. Marius is our janitor and he is pretty good, although sometimes he has an attitude, but i just overlook that. Rents are reasonable and i love the location of my building, nestled right in a residential street with more houses than apartments.

I have lived at their 1600 W Granville location for two years. During that time, I had good experience with the management company. Arturo has been generally responsive to maintenance issues and has done well to keep the place up. The Property Manager Jan is responsive and courteous. The office staff seems to be good and handling issues, even though I have not had too many issues.
I did have some issues early on in the leasing process, but those issues got resolved after I demanded I get the unit I paid for. The problem was that the management company had double booked the unit that I had actually put down a deposit down on. I had gone through Apartment People to find the unit and went through the application and deposit phase (even though it was not a real deposit, like a security deposit, because no management company in Chicago really does that anymore). They tried to give me a different unit, but the other units didn not have a dishwasher (mine did). After some discussions and such, I got the unit I wanted.
Before I moved in I asked them to refinish the floors and repaint it, and they did.
When I had issues with the drain clogging or cockroaches (which their solution was not the best), they were responsive to fixing the issue; the cockroaches were not a problem after we employed some tried and true solutions. Don’t think this was a rampant problem with cockroaches, because it was not.
Overall, I have been pleased with Urban Equities and would rent with them again if I was in the area.

I’ve had experience with several of their properties over the years and found them to be decent and responsive. Regarding the negative reviews regarding the property at Lunt and Bell, every apartment lease I’ve ever seen makes it clear that the tenant is responsible for their own personal property, not the landlord.
In other words, if you want your belongings protected from fire damage or theft, it is YOUR responsibility to purchase a renters insurance policy to cover your contents.
I’m very sorry that this building had a serious fire, and many people lost all of their possessions, but it is not the landlords responsibility to provide temporary housing for those displaced nor is it the landlords responsibility to pay for your possessions damaged in a fire.

The Urban Equities building I was living in at Lunt and Bell had a fire that was caused by a floor re-​finisher during a renovation being conducted by UE on one of the units in the building. Everything I had was destroyed. The only contact that I received from UE was to tell me that they wanted me to sign a waiver holding them harmless for any damage and to authorize them to dispose of any of my property left in the apartment. How unbelievable is that? They provided no assistance, no notification of the damage or cause and absolutely no acknowledgement of their involvement. This is a perfect display of their civility and commitment to their tenants.

Look, here’s the deal with Urban Equities: they do the minimum. If you live in a relatively new building or have a particularly great maintnance guy, you’ll probably be pretty happy. Their rents are pretty good. My husband and I moved into an older building on Granville knowing we would be moving within 2 years, so we didn’t expect perfection. However, we were surprised by the staff insistence on doing the absolute minimum on almost everything.
Examples:
— When it started to get cold our first winter, I asked when the radiators would be turned on for the whole building. I was handed a flyer on the legal minimum temps in Chicago and told the heat automatically turns on when the temp goes below the legal limit. On moderately cold days, this means you are comfortably warm for about 30 minutes a day (during the short bursts of heat) and cold the rest.
— We live 2 floors above the Urban Equities office, but we are required to mail our rent checks at our expense so that the office staff does not need to be responsible for safeguarding the checks.
— Our windows are so old that the wind comes straight through. They have also not been cleaned from the outside in the 1.5 years we have lived there.
— When the person who checks the voicemail for maintenance issues went on vacation, nobody checked that voicemail for a week. I left a few messages before just trying other extensions to see if I could talk to someone about our ongoing hot water issue.
Our maintenance guy is very prompt and friendly during business hours. That’s a bright spot as long as you don’t have an issue on the weekend.
Like I said, they do the minimum like so many landlords. If you are going to rent from them, try to find out how things are in your particular building before signing and remember to keep your expectations low for responsiveness.

I was just asked by a Unilocal reader for more information regarding Urban Equities, so I thought I might want to add a bit more info and update my rating.
Since last summer, my rent was increased $ 20/​month. Granted that’s not an insane increase, but in this difficult economy, it’s quite a bit to me (I work in the education field and haven’t had a raise in 3 years). I went to talk to Jan, the manager, about my concern, but she basically told me she could raise the rent more if she rented my place to a new tenant. I tried to explain that I’m a good tenant, but that didn’t seem to matter much to her. My rent went up.
One of my dogs died last summer. I had to pay a $ 250 deposit for each of my dogs before moving in. I asked for $ 250 back, but I never got a response. I have since requested the money back two more times. I was told I had to provide a letter from my dog’s vet confirming his death. Nothing like putting more salt on the wound, but I sent the letter. I got a message that they would get back to me, but that has yet to happen, and that was about a month ago. I could put that deposit towards my next rent increase, which I’m sure is inevitable (that or my moving costs if I continue to find them unsympathetic to my financial and animal issues).
If you have other options, I would explore them. And if you find an affordable dog-​friendly place in a safe neighborhood that you like, please let me know.

I have rented from Urban Equities for over three years now (Edgewater location) and have nothing but wonderful things to say about my apartment and this management company. Moving in was a breeze, they opened the back gates for me so I could get my things in easily. Everything in the lease was as expected, and the rent is comparable to others in the area. The place is well maintained, and has tons of vintage charm — hardwood floors, built-​ins, walk in closets. Plus my kitchen was fully remodeled — dishwasher included!
I am surprised by the negative reviews for the maintenance staff and response from the office. I have had the usual small problems (slow drains…) and one big one — the people upstairs had a break in their dishwasher — water seeped all down my walls! Each time the maintenance staff has been here within a few hours — sometimes less! I have never waited more than 24 for a response. With the leak they were calling me before I knew it had happened! They fixed everything so it looked like there never was a bit of water from above. Further, my husband is in the military and when he was gone for almost a year the maintenance people helped me with things I couldn’t do on my own — take in and out my air conditioner, change high up lights, etc.
Overall living with Urban Equities has been the best experience of my 10+ years renting!

I had a ton of disgusting, unidentifiable black sludge spit out of the shower drain yesterday afternoon, making it impossible to even use the shower. It also happened to my neighbor at the same time. UE was called to fix the issue and they said they would come the next morning (thanks for the hussle, guys!). I’m still waiting for them to make an appearance but until they decide to show up (probably in about two weeks) I have no shower and I HAVE to get to work. I hate waiting around for them. It’s such a waste of time.
I also had electricity go out on me everyday or a couple times a day over the last month or so. It was so bad I couldn’t use my oven if the light in the kitchen (I can barely cook without the obstacles, thank you!) was on and I couldn’t watch TV if I wanted the air on. I called and complained about six or seven times, NEVER got anyone and NO ONE called me back. I had to threaten not to sign my upcoming lease for them to call me back.
The security is now non-​existent in this building. The two entrance doors for our building never work properly so they are always open. You can’t get them to close either. But what did UE do to fix it? They repainted an otherwise aesthetically-​pleasing door instead of just freaking fixing the malfunctioning lock. They don’t care if something works properly they are just paint happy and want things to appear nice so people rent. They also temporarily shut down the laundry room, with NO warning, because they needed to paint the floor. Painting, again? Ummm first off, who PAINTS a floor? Secondly, how about you fix the grimy, rusted, bug-​infested laundry room with your crappy, money-​eating, non-​working washers and dryers instead of painting everything you can get your hands on? They have no common sense. I think the paint fumes have officially gotten to them.

Yea… If you rent in Chicago, AVOID THIS LEASING COMPANY AT ALL COSTS. These guys are a bunch of idiots that clearly don’t care at all about their buildings, or more importantly… their tenants. First off they are WAY overpriced for the area, and second, you put in a repair request and it takes FOREVER to get any response. My apartment was at 58 – 60 degrees for almost a week with me finally threatening to go to the city before they decided to actually do anything about the heat. Go elsewhere… there are P.L.E.A.N.T.Y of places you can rent from without going this route.

I apllied for an apartment through Apartment finders. I made the mistake of being completely honest on my application. I told them that I had moved out of my previous apartment because of bedbugs and that I had reached an out of court settlemnet with J&B management in which I was released from my lease. J&B issued an eviction because I reduced rent as allowed by Chicago law. Their lawyer came to us five minutes before the hearing and offered several monthes rent refund if I would leave by December 1.
Well, apartment finders promised me that they would not reval this to Urban Equities because they are the ones that vet previous landlords but in fact they told Urban Equities that I had been involved in a law suit with J&B management. There was no law suit but Jan at Urban Equities saw the word law suit and that was it! I know this is true because when I called her at Urban Equities to see why there was a hold up with my application the first thing she asked me about was my lawsuit!
Ultimitely, Urban Equities claimed that they rejected me because they were concerned that my employer didn’t provide pay stubs and they were concerned about the reliability of my income although I have worked for the same company for 15 years! They never called my employer and the fact that my credit checked out was irrellavant to them.
Yep, they completely screwed me — perhaps, because they were afraid I was a latigious guy that might cause problems for them. So they used my finacial character as an excuse. Unfortunately it’s an excuse that won’t hold up in court.
I am 47 and I have never hired a lawyer until this year. Maybe Urban Equities will be right about me after all! Thanks to J&B management I have realized there is great joy in seeing their type of scum spend money to defend themselves!

I have lived in one of their Ravenswood locations for about 6 mos and had one ‘incident’ with maintenance and the maintenance manager from their office responded quickly. Since then they have been responsive and above average for a med/​large management company. My maintenance guy is decent, the halls and common areas are pretty clean and overall not bad experience. I’ve never had radiant heat before, so I hope it is warm enough in the winter. Thats currently my only concern.
There are some seriously terrible management companies in Chicago (see Planned Property and ICM), and although my place isn’t perfect, it is far better than most rental property out there.
–Update 5÷30÷08 —
The winter heating was more than adequate, the maintenance man seems to get better as you get to know him and my already competitive rent did not go up with my renewal. Aside from an obnoxious neighbor downstairs (that Urban Eq has been very helpful in addressing) I have very little to complain about here.

Possibly the worst experience of my life! I cannot wait to move out of this place. Maintenance staff is totally unresponsive. Unless you’re a handyman yourself, forget it. You can expect your apartment to be in poor repair for the duration of your lease. Since the very moment I’ve moved in, I’ve had nothing but trouble. In fact, my apartment wasn’t cleaned after the prior tenant, so I spent an entire afternoon picking her nasty hair out of my bathtub! My windows won’t close. Horrible water pressure. Cracked tile. Rotted wood. And a nasty smell permeating through our stairwell for the entire week! And to think, I get all this for only $ 900 a month. I’m a lucky gal. Do you like bugs? If so, Urban can provide you with all types of insect companionship. Moths? Ants? Roaches? I’ve seen them all in my apartment! I spoke to the maintenance supervisor and she told me that I «wasn’t living in a condo» and nothing was done. STAY AWAY!!!

As with most businesses, they are friendly and helpful before you sign your contract. However, when it comes to non-​emergency maintenance issues, they are largely useless. We moved into our property in January. The maintenance man was very friendly and took time to show us the apartment and tell us of work that would be done before we moved-​in in two weeks. Of course, this work was never done, but since it was only re-​tiling the bathroom floor, we didn’t mind too much. Since moving in, it’s non-​stop hassles to get any maintenance work done and anything that the maintenance man can’t fix by turning a wrench, you can pretty much forget about until you put your complaint in writing and send it by certified mail. This worked for us once and we were finally able to get several things taken care of, but again, there is a problem with our windows that we asked the maintenance personnel to fix and we’re going through the same battle again. Let’s put this in perspective. The windows are relatively new and have tabs at the top of the window that can be released so the top part of the window can be pulled inside the room and the exterior of the glass cleaned. On several of these windows, these tabs are broken so that if you open the window, the top part falls on your head. This makes the windows unusable. We first mentioned this to our maintenance man in January. We were patient. In April, after our first written complaint (about other problems) we explained this problem to the maintenance supervisor, the maintenance man for our building and two other UE maintenance personnel. It is now June and still nothing. Last week, I spoke with the personnel in the office and was told they would call me back and let me know what was going on. Still nothing. Now, I’m about to send my second certified letter detailing the problem and hope for the best. I’ll be happy when my lease is up and we can move from this place. It’s a shame because I like the area and the apartment is nice. Too bad about the management.
About a month after writing this, they finally sent someone to «fix» the windows. The repairs weren’t very professional, but at least my windows won’t fall on my head anymore… in fact, they can no longer be opened at the top. Good thing, I wasn’t planning on cleaning the outside of my windows!