Parker Palo Alto Apartments

We were interested in a townhome at Parker and once one came available we were called and informed that we should apply. Unfortunately you have to apply with a $ 500 reserve deposit plus $ 50 (non refundable) application fee WITHOUT SEEING the home. You don’t get to see your unit until move in day.
This was not a big deal for us as we had friends in the complex and knew what the units looked like. HOWEVER what was a big deal was after putting down the deposit, and subsequently cancelling for a better place within less than 24 hrs (you have 72hrs to change your mind for a full deposit refund) WE HAVE YET TO RECEIVE OUR DEPOSIT BACK. On the website it says you will receive your deposit back in full within 5 – 7 business days. The manager however said its closer to 7 – 10 business days AND YET we sit here over a month later 23 BUSINESS DAYS later empty handed. In fact we’re moving to our new address and now have to deal with that nonsense!!!
We called last week and were told after being on a brief hold that the check would arrive by the end of this week (which it didn’t) with no explanation.
What a scam! Thank goodness money isn’t that tight right now or else we’d be in a pickle. Save yourself the trouble and find a better place to live.

Beautiful park right across the place, Greer Park.
I’ve found the management good, the place safe, the neighbors very nice. FYI, I see older comments that say the management is bad, but they changed the management about 1.5 years ago and now it’s pretty good. Charmae and Shyanne are very helpful.
The downsides:
My A/​C and dryer are aged, they almost don’t work at all. But the management was quick to offer me a solution re: the A/​C.
There is no store in close proximity. The price is high.
Overall, it is a good community. Especially if you’re into Palo Alto schools or you’re a young professional working at a company in close proximity.

I have lived here for 4 years. Not because it’s great, but because there are very few apartments that allow dogs in palo alto. This is not a luxury community by far. It’s barely above a tenement level in quality. They keep up the landscaping with incessant unnecessary upgrades to the lawn, the roofs etc, but the interiors are below average. Moreover, the place is infested with ANTS. I mean so bad that ANT EGGS were DRIPPING from the CEILING of my son’s room. It’s like a horror movie with the ants here. Then there’s the appliances. My dryer sucks up my clothes and burns them. To «fix» it, they swap out appliances so they give the bad appliance to their next victim/​tenant. And then that one does the same thing. So I have no dryer and ants falling from the ceiling. It’s a nightmare. Not worth the price. You can do much better than parker palo alto. Stay away. I can’t wait to move out. I’m so grossed out. This place is not habitable.

Love this place!

It’s a so so apartment. Living for a short time is okay but I do not know. Around here it is the cheapest one. That’s why I moved in here.
Cons:
1. the wall to immediate neighbor is too thin. I have only one quite neighbor. I can hear their TV sound and talks, even if they are not loud. It is wrong, I think. When I have visitors, I tried to be quiet and alway finish assembly before 9:30 ’cause I know it can disturb them.
2. Many burglary. I am from here. I have lived in LA for 2 years and never experienced car window smash. So I just left my OLD iPhone in my car and got smashed. Also after 6 months, I dropped my wallet in my driver seat and I got robbed. The parking lot under home is too isolated. No line of sight from anywhere. You should be careful not to drop valuable things in your car. I think burglars have regularly patrolled this apartment.
Pros:
1. good air conditioner and good heater.
2. Poor dish washing machine and just-​okay-​washing & dryer are built-​in home.

You have to be tough with them for them to do the right thing. Even then, they don’t always. I had to fight them hard on my move out charges. It was an exhausting few years living at Parker Palo Alto but I needed to stay for my Daughter to finish school… and, yes, they will raise your rent the maximum allowable every year. Yet, they will make no improvements to your unit, only to the grounds area which benefits them when trying to rent the units. The noise is awful. Not only are there dogs barking all over, but you can hear everything your neighbor is doing, including breath. Every Thursday night, I wore earplugs and still could hear my bachelor neighbor and friends on the other side of the wall partying, talking and laughing. I run a business and needed to sleep regular hours. I had one very noisy neighbor down-​stairs at one point with kids that bounced balls on the ceilings (I was upstairs) and screamed and yelled all day and night. I was told I had to have one of the security team members come into my bedroom at night and hear it for themselves in order to do anything about it. Of course I wasn’t going to have some strange man in my bedroom at 1AM so I just dealt with it. There was a very noisy (broken) fan motor in the bathroom below me that made my floors rumble. The tenant below would leave it on all night and all day sometimes. Parker Palo Alto said they would have to open up the ceiling to fix it and that they were not willing to do this. So I finally just moved out. I am paying half of what I paid there for a nicer place. So, keep looking.
While I lived there, a $ 2,000 toolbox was stolen from my *2^nd story* balcony and I noticed 1 week after they power-​washed the balconies. (employees had access, no one else) and their response was «You shouldn’t have valuables on your balcony». A month before that, I saw on the front page of the Daily that one of the staff walked in on a burglary in process in one of the townhomes there. When I inquired about it, no one would respond. I kept my bike up on my patio/​balcony as well because so many people’s bikes were stolen and management complained about that too. Telling me it was a violation of the lease. My next door neighbor was robbed in broad daylight my first year there and a gun was pulled on one of the staff members right outside of my building one morning. Yet, they lie and claim it’s the greatest place on earth to call home. The door locks are a joke. They are levers with a deadbolt. Nothing more. One weak lock and you’re not allowed to install anything else or an alarm. I lived there for 4 or 5 years, trust me, it’s not secure and it’s not the greatest place to call home. ;) Cheap materials used to «remodel» and «update» the places and my floor was constantly peeling up. It was hilarious when the agent showed me the place before renting it. She said they were hardwood floors. They’re laminate and I had to correct her. You will be constantly inconvenienced to move things off and on your balcony, your water will be shut off regularly, re-​landscaping jobs which they plan DURING holiday vacation times while you are home with your family. It’s the most unpeaceful plac-​e I have ever lived. Additionally, if you request Headquarter’s contact information for an upper management person, they will refuse to give you that information. They all look out for each other. Even when there was theft at my apartment, they had their own interests in mind. You will also receive charges added to your rent for water, garbage, sewer and trash. These numbers fluctuate and go UP, never down. You never will see an actual bill so they can just put whatever number in there. They will refuse to provide you with a copy of the water, trash or sewer bill for your building. Also upon move out, they will tell you that you are required to complete a move out form. Don’t do it. It incriminates you and will lead to you not receiving your deposit back. Refuse it. You are not legally required to do this. If you rent here, you need to be vigilant and be on top of every billing error and follow up on service calls. It’s a big greedy operation masked by big smiles and smokescreens.
Be careful.
The A/​C worked great. That’s about it. They replaced mine immediately when flames shot out of the intake the first time I turned it on one Summer. The fire department came because I did not know what was happening. It was to their advantage to replace it right away and not to have the place burn down. Otherwise, I’m certain they would have given me a cheap fan and called it a day.
That’s about it. Other than the fact that Parker Palo Alto has planted good reviews on here since this one. Lol! They’re sooo dishonest… DON’T BELIEVE IT.

This apartment complex review can be summed up in one word=THIEVES!!! My rent doubled in 5 years. Although the manager claimed that the paint fee would be waived due to our time at the apartment-​NOT SO!!! We were charged for paint-​$ 350.00!!! The 1800 deposit=$ 195.00.
HORRIBLE!!! The only benefit of this place is the location-​it was HOT in the summer (had a/​c) and FREEZING COLD in the winter. Bikes get stolen on a regular basis and the management complains about bikes on the porches-​but that is where they don’t get stolen. They have a bike storage room but not sure how to access it.

Worst apartment complex I have ever lived in. Management is run by children and email you spam all day about nonsense. I would never recommend this place for anyone to live in.

The first year was great and then everything went down the drain. It all started with front office personnel being rude. First incident occurred when a package was signed and never notified. I asked what was the common practice and the person there just got upset. Then there were service request placed and never documented because the same person refused to put them in. Reported this to management and Headquarters decided to change management instead of this person. Not able to use the pool during the summer was a huge complaint. They said that they had a policy to have the pool at 80 degrees Fahrenheit and that pool was never at that temperature. It was a constant argument with them forcing us to not use the amenities. Unfortunately apartments in the surrounding area are pricy. Parker Palo Alto will raise their rates just to get you out. We went from a $ 2600 dollar rent to $ 4300 in less than three years. Paying this much to be treated bad, and not allow you to take advantage of what they advertise it is ridiculous. Upon exit of your apartment you will never receive a refund you will receive a bill with ridiculous overcharge items that they claim to have completed. I would not recommend this place unless you want to be treated bad.

We lived here for one year, from Jan 2012– Jan 2013.
Pros:
1. Office managers (Clarisse Tan, and others) are very nice and very helpful.
2. Maintenance crew is very fast, responsive, and resolves your issues in a timely manner.
3. Close to shopping areas
4. Allow pet
5. Pay online & Request service online
6. New appliances & interior
Cons: (Read more details on Cons below)
1. Noise
2. Big rent increases year over year.
1) Extremely thin walls and horrible noise from all 3 sides (left, right, below).
I could hear neighbor’s cough, walking, regular TV noise, and worst of the all was the loud music and loud noise from the ghetto neighbor downstairs.
We told them to lower the music, not much happened. We got the office involved, and after a couple of month the office basically disconnected her «base» speaker as she had a big house super speakers for tiny apartment, which would shake our building!
If that wasn’t enough, her son and friends would yell and play games and keep yelling all the way past 11 pm, so we had to get the office involved again.
It took most of the year to get this noise issue «somewhat» resolved.
Keep in mind the walls are «extremely THIN»! You will suffer if you want peace and quiet!
2) Too expensive. Our rent for 2 BED /​1 BATH (850 sq. ft.) was at $ 2400, and it was going to jump to about $ 2700. After negotiation we were able to keep the same for one more year, but we ended up buying a condo and moved out anyway.

Long story short, if you want to live in an apartment that 1) is highly likely to have mold issue 2) be overcharged with careless property manager, here you are, otherwise, stay away.
My roommate and I started our lease with Parker from Oct 2012, primarily because it’s close to where we work. The first year had been ok. The second year, rent went up 15%, but it’s common in bay area.
The drama started shortly after our second term of lease when a service staff found mold in our apartment during a routine check. We were confused as there was absolute nothing unusual about the way we lived there, except according to the manager «you didn’t have the window wide open every other day». Fair enough, we didn’t do so, but I didn’t do so with any of the other apartments I’ve lived in; the real problem is that they don’t have ventilation system in the restroom, which we asked for after we moved in but was turned down.
Shortly after that, we were told that we needed to move out for two weeks for renovation with an extremely short notice, and when we asked for reimbursement for hotel, apartment manager shun away from answering and instead informed us that we may need to pay for the renovation. wtf. We contacted our insurance company and after some lengthy negotiation, they determined the mold issue is under coverage, fortunately. However, the apartment manager completely pissed us off again when they purposefully mis-​counted the number of days we were forced out from our apartment to reduce the amount of money they had to subtract from our rent bill. This is just RIDICULOUS.
We moved out two months ago, now they sent us another bill telling us our deposit was not enough to cover the almost 1000 dollar cleaning fee.
People who manages this property know that most renters here work in tech company with good pay, and they will work hard to leverage that and overcharge you. PLEASE DON’T LET THEM DO SO.

We have been living here for the past 8 months. Overall I would rate my experience with the unit itself 3 – 4 stars, but my experience with management is about 1 – 2 stars.
My main issue with the management is that they are a not-​so-​charming combination of intrusive, yet unresponsive.
If you live here, be prepared for frequent mandatory «habitability inspections» in which management enters your apartment during the workday to inspect the premises. In our 8 months of living here we have been notified that this will be occurring a total of 3 separate times. You cannot refuse or prevent these frequent intrusions on your privacy.
In addition, our leasing agent has been responsible for numerous errors including:
— Failing to provide us with the information necessary for an on-​time move-​in, leading to our not being able to actually move into our unit on the starting date of our lease (meaning we ended up paying for days before we could actually move in)
— Overcharging us for our rent
— Serving notice that our rent would be increasing with less than the 30 days notice required by our lease contract
We were able to get these last two items resolved, but only by speaking directly to the manager, Sara. Sara is actually quite helpful and responsible, but the people she supervises are generally not. In addition to our issues with our leasing agent we have also had issues with another leasing agent not following up on items he promised to look into (specifically regarding our rent price).
In addition, it’s fairly common to go to the leasing office during their posted business hours to speak to someone and find the place either deserted or both deserted and locked, with no indication of when the staff will be returning.
Finally, I’ve had mixed results with the maintenance staff. Once they arrive they have been helpful and courteous, but I’ve found it takes multiple requests to get them to actually come to your unit.
Ok, now for the unit itself.
Unit Pros:
— Granite countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms
— Appliances aren’t the newest or nicest, but they work fine.
— In-​unit washer/​dryer
— Central AC
— Some units have fairly spacious outdoor patios
— Pet-​friendly! But be prepared for pet rent and extra deposit.
— Great location in a residential neighborhood with easy access to the 101, a big park (Greer) across the street, and Safeway/​CVS/​Walgreens/​Starbucks a short drive away (not walking distance)
— Contrary to some other reviewers, I haven’t had any noise issues with other units.
— Flexibility to get a month-​to-​month or short-​term lease (though it will be pretty expensive, possibly close to $ 1,000 higher per month than for a 1-​year lease)
Unit Cons:
— The windows and window casings gather a lot of condensation, especially in the winter, which leads to them growing a nasty black mold around the windows. You have to stay on top of cleaning them pretty often.
— I’ve had sketchy people attempting to sell things (candy, newspaper subscriptions, etc.) come to my unit with some frequency, since it’s an open campus
— The units are pretty small for the price you’re paying. I know it’s Palo Alto, but still… you can get a lot more space for less elsewhere.
— Highway noise from the 101 is constant, especially outdoors.
— Old plumbing — if someone flushes the toilet while you’re in the shower, watch out!
In conclusion, I would only recommend this place if you’re looking for a long-​term lease, don’t need a lot of space, don’t mind frequent inspections by the management, and need easy access to the 101 for commuting. Otherwise I think you can do better elsewhere with a lot less hassle of dealing with your landlord.

I have been a renter for over a decade now. In all these years I have never received better service, diligent follow up, efficient follow through, ABOVE and BEYOND help and all with a gracious smile than from Ben at Park Palo Alto. Ben has a strong work ethic and a commitment to customer service. Ben truly is a stellar individual and the Parker should feel privileged to have such an incredible employee. Thank you Ben.

Complete lack of respect for tenants rights! BE CAREFUL WHEN MOVING OUT THEY WILL CHARGE YOU FOR EVERYTHING! I mean everything. Take pictures and clean thoroughly.
It’s an expensive motor lodge when it comes down to brass tax. Watch out for criminal activity in the park at night!

Parker Palo Alto is one of the worst apartment complexes I’ve ever had to work with. Here is a prime example, this weekend (Labor day 2011) is a long holiday weekend. I sent in my rent check earlier than usual and honestly thought at latest it would come on Saturday. Because they did not receive it on the 4^th which is Sunday when mail does not deliver, I have to pay $ 50 late fee? I have rental income myself. Just because a tenant does not pay by a specific date I don’t immediately charge them a late fee even though I could. This is called being human and having something called «understanding.» Parker Palo Alto management has no such thing in their vocabulary. They are soulless robots. Do yourself a favor and stay away from Parker Palo Alto. I sincerely hope they go out of business.

I’ve lived here for the past 7 months and I CAN NOT WAIT to get out. Although pretty on the outside, this is probably the worst place I have ever lived. Here’s why:
Overpriced — For the area, this is way overpriced. I know Palo Alto can be expensive, but this is not worth the money you pay. Typically a community like this can be on the high end because 1) they’ve had recent renovations or 2) there are amenities that are useful that are included in your rent. The renovations that they’ve done are shoddy (there are splatters of paint all over the floors and the painted moulding is not smooth as pieces of debris are actually painted into it). The included amenities are the pool and gym, but the gym equipment is often broken, and since I’ve moved here several items have been stolen from the weight set and not replaced.
Furthermore, they use a «dynamic pricing» model meaning that they may advertise a price online, but then raise the price in the days that follow based on the number of inquiries they get. I should’ve recognized this when I first moved in as a «bait and switch» tactic — but was in a bind and needed a place to stay quickly.
Crime — I’ve received at least 1 formal notice about a burglary in the community since I arrived, and have seen lots of suspicious behavior at night when coming home. I definitely don’t feel safe given the people loitering around. It’s an open campus (ie. no security gates) so anyone can come on the property at any moment. Most communities of this size have a bit more protection — hence, that’s why you would pay more.
Staff — They staff are hit or miss. Sometimes they are nice and helpful, other times, they are not responsive, hard to get a hold of – or downright rude. Once I was charged a late fee because they did not get my online payment (even though I received a confirmation) — and when I produced the receipt — they still gave me a hard time about it.
Electric and Plumbing — Although the maintenance men are very prompt and easy to contact, I’ve had at least 1 electrical issue since moving in, 2 plumbing problems, and 1 appliance fail. Given I’ve only been here six months, this is problematic.
I would recommend you stay far away from this place. There are several other options in the area that would work if you have the time to apartment hunt.

Made a visit today.
The staff was very friendly and gave me a tour with no pressure to sign any lease.
A large park in front and it seemed like visitors shouldn’t have a problem finding parking.
It is next to 101 and you can hear the freeway, but it’s not so bad in the inside units.
You can tell it’s an older building but it’s maintained well. Great location.

I have been living here for 2 months and it is totally fine. Yes we pay an arm and a leg but I have a GIANT washer and dryer and air conditioning. Also a large balcony that views the park.
There are 3 pools and my key opens 2 of them. Only one has been heated the last few times I checked but that’s still ok.
The battery in my car died last Sunday and luckily the leasing office was open at 9am. One of the girls immedialty drove her car over so I could jump mine. I really appreciated that. (+1 star)

If I could give no stars I would…
First off if I hadn’t had signed a lease I would have moved in and out faster then you could have blinked.
For the highpoints:
It’s an ok complex. Most of the apartments have been remodeled within the past several years. The biggest bonus, a washer and dryer in the bathroom!
Lowpoints:
— For what they are charging you are pretty much getting ripped off, there are cheaper and nicer places in downtown…
— I found the leasing office to be somewhat unresponsive.
— Several thief’s and drug dealers in the complex
— Occasional raids by PAPD on those who are on parole (yes, I have observed these raids)
— The walls are so thin in this place; I could hear people not only below me, next to me but almost the ENTIRE building (and I don’t like to hear that many people getting it on, no thank you)
— When I moved out the leasing office will charge me for a bunch of un-​needed crap, such as unnecessary painting and when I ask for detailed info I was basically blown off

So here’s what we moved into: Broken bathroom light switch, broken kitchen cabinet handle. Keys don’t work on the pool gate, combination lock (not mine) on our storage cabinet, garbage disposal doesn’t work. BBQ adjacent to the unit not installed.
Not the best greeting I’ve ever had moving into a new place. Hopefully I’ll update with a better review after they fix their problems!