Friedman Investment Group

I would never recommend anyone apply for an apartment through Friedman Investment Group. We paid $ 70 for the two of us to submit an application for an apartment that we were more than qualified for. That huge fee is meant, in part, to cover the cost of a credit check. Friedman Investment Group never performed the credit check (and over a month has elapsed since we applied,) meaning that they took money for a service they failed to provide. Furthermore, under California law, a property management entity has to let applicants know if and why their application was approved or denied. We called multiple times and were told by an extremely rude woman, «I have no information about the status your application.»
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that Friedman Investment Group is not fulfilling their responsibility by a) taking money for a service they don’t fulfill (credit checks), and b) denying applicants their right, under California law, to learn the status of their application.

I’m not sure why the 2 other reviews of this place are hidden/“not recommended” because they are absolutely spot on.
It took this place a full MONTH to approve or deny us for an apartment. I was told it would take 5 – 7 business days. They only take the 35 dollar per person application fee in cash, which seemed a little shady to me, but whatever. Oh! And I almost forgot to mention that I looked at this apartment and made an appointment with the agent to come back 2 days later at 3:30pm to turn everything in. That was the time she gave me. Guess what? She wasn’t there. I waited outside for her for an hour and nothing. I called the manager’s number, which was on the For Rent signs, and she was kind of rude and told me that I was Veronica’s client and she couldn’t help me. Cool. Thanks.
Two days later, Veronica finally calls me back and apologizes for her hours being switched around and she forgot to call me. Ugh. Needless to say, I really loved this apartment, so I put my frustration with that event aside and went to her an hour later and turned in our applications.
Once the application was submitted to their liking (they refuse to do any verifications any way other than faxing, despite the fact that many business, including my current landlord and my boyfriend’s past employer, do not have fax numbers, because it could just be anybody lying over the phone or via mail. Really? It could also be me waiting at Staples for your fax to come through and then faking my employment history that way, so really, nothing is 100% these days…), they just kept requesting more and more paperwork. They wanted a letter explaining what exactly my boyfriend does with his paychecks if he does not have a bank account. Really? Is that really any of your business? Some people don’t like banks. I know several people who do not use a bank. You wanted SEVEN CONSECUTIVE PAYSTUBS from him. You know he has a steady income. Why do you have to know WHERE exactly he keeps his money, too?
About two weeks later, Josephine, a woman who works at the main office, called my boyfriend, because his paystubs «didn’t add up.» I will tell you why. He got a promotion to a manager position and so his checks were being pulled from a different account than when he was a sales associate. This woman spoke very rudely to him for a good 20 minutes, talking to him like he was a 5 year old, because she just did not believe that that made sense and that he wasn’t just lying about his employment. All the stubs blatantly say the same company on them. But she just didn’t get it. Then she spoke to me and she didn’t understand that the school I work at is part of a larger network of schools and that our home office/​HR was still the same company as my actual school location. Ugh.
Veronica, the leasing agent I filed paperwork with never had any information or updates for us. She would always say she didn’t know/​nothing new/​etc. That is, when she wasn’t requesting some other paperwork from us. I got so fed up that I just decided to call their office myself, because this lady is obviously not proactive about getting this place rented. One of the first things she even said to me was how she hated that when there were vacancies, they made her work on Sundays.
There is no way to leave this office a voicemail when they’re out of the office/​on lunch/​whatever the case may be. If you can get someone on the phone and leave a message with that person, you still will not get a call back.
FInally, more than 3 weeks later, Josephine from the main office answers the phone and I ask her what’s going on. She said she was not in a position to tell me anything, because she did not have my file, but she would give me a call back. This was on a Friday at 2pm, so I already knew I wasn’t getting a call back until next week.
Monday rolls around, exactly one month from when I turned in the application, and it says we were denied because our application was incomplete or they were unable to verify information.
Wow. I can’t even wrap my head around this. We gave these people MORE than enough paperwork. It was absolutely insane. At this point, we didn’t even want to live there anymore anyway if these are the kinds of people we would be dealing with. Especially since I saw those other Unilocal reviews in the mean time about how they never fix anything and everyone has a bad attitude. Forget it. Please, Unilocal,do not «hide» this review. People need to know what a hassel and a joke this is before they waste their time and money. Especially if by some magical act of the powers that be they actually get approved, it doesn’t sound like somewhere you would want to committ to a year long lease with. No matter how gorgeous that townhouse apartment is!