I’ll start this review by saying that the two stars stand for two things: location and square footage. This complex is in a great location, just a block from the Van Ness red line metro stop. The apartments are spacious and in pretty good condition. These two things convinced us to live here and for 10 months we loved it.
Now on to the bad part. Equity Residential actively participates in a “bait and switch” rent scheme. We viewed a 800 square feet unit in October 2015 that was listed on the website as $1,770/month. Julie, the leasing agent, told us that since we were moving in during the slower winter months, that the rent wouldn’t go up that much after a year. We loved the building, location, amenities (pool - which is not managed by Equity, by the way) and we even had friends in the building that had moved in within the last year.
We proceeded with renting the unit and at the time we put down the security deposit and signed the lease, we saw that the “monthly rent” on the lease was listed as $3,400. Underneath that section, the lease said we were receiving a “monthly concession,” which brought the monthly rent owed to $1,770. We were told that this was a formality. We signed, not understanding that this was the “bait” of the “bait and switch.”
In July 2016, we received a notice that our new rent was going to be $3,468 starting in late October if we didn’t sign a new lease. This came as a huge shock, so we asked Equity what we would pay if we signed another year lease. They came back with an “offer” of $1,930/month, which is $160 more than what we were paying. We knew that DC did not require tenants to sign a new lease, that we could go month to month after a year. We also knew that DC law says that landlords in rent controlled buildings cannot raise rent more than 2%+CPI (which is 0 this year).
What was even more shady is that when we questioned the leasing agent about this via email, she suggested we discuss this in person because “there had been a misunderstanding.” We continued to pursue our case, emailing all of the DC laws as proof that Equity was out of line in raising our rent more than the 2% allowed by DC law. We even presented them with their own listings of apartments in the building larger than ours that they were renting for less. They refused to negotiate and in an email told us that their original offer was their final one, and attached the notice to vacate form for us to fill out in case we wanted to move out. That’s what we ultimately decided to do. Equity completely lost our trust and we will never consider renting from them again.
For more proof that this is not an isolated incident, as one can see from the recent reviews here. Also, search Google for the Washington City Paper article on the rent concessions.
Other things to be aware of:
Security - multiple thefts in the garage, doors are left/propped open
Fire Alarms - Go off frequently and not on all floors.
Elevators - Constantly being repaired and/or not working
Smoke - Vents do not work properly and smoke smell can seep in, their solution is to put a filter in your apartment but it only helps slightly.
Danger to Pets - A dog was electrocuted and killed last spring. Again, this information is public and can be found on several local media websites.
Katie P