11/7/24
No heart even during Tornado recovery
The current owners seem to have little to no heart for residents. They have been owners almost two years. They doubled the rent when they came in. They grandfathered in current residents when they came and slowly raised the rent for those people. However, after the Rogers, AR tornado, they could have handled things much differently. They had a lot of damage which is sad, but they have not been very sympathetic with those displaced residents. They have put restrictions on some of those people... they couldn't meet. They offered other apartments to some at full cost and evicted a couple for moving things to the new apartment without getting them professionally cleaned. People living at this complex do not have money for professional cleaning. Things could have been handled differently.
Reseña de Apartments.com
Administrador de la propiedad en Azalea Trail Apartments respondió a esta revisión
Though I am sure we have learned valuable lessons through this disaster, to state we have "no heart" would be a gross misrepresentation of our actions, thoughts & feelings and those of our staff. In fact, as we work to restore and improve the... property, we are ever mindful of the impact to our tenants and have pledged always to treat them with grace, compassion and respect.
• When we purchased the property in March 2022, the average rent was 39% below market. We delayed any rent increase for almost a year. Even now, over 2 years later, the average rent for our grandfathered tenants is still 35% below market. To provide context, most new landlords will raise rents immediately to market rate upon renewals of leases.
• As it pertains to the individual tenant situations stemming from the devastating tornado in May, we worked day and night to provide compassionate support to our displaced tenants. In some instances, even knowing we would not receive insurance reimbursement, we paid for hotels in the immediate aftermath of the disaster and did our best to move tenants into unaffected units - NONE of which were asked to pay full rental rates. Again, to provide context, leases contain a "Force Majeure" provision which allows a landlord to vacate ALL units in the event of a natural disaster. Because we are insured for Loss of Income, that would have been the easiest thing to do, but it wouldn't have been the best thing for our tenants.
• Lastly, due to test results from some of the most damaged units, tenants were informed they could not bring contaminated belongings into the unaffected units they were being relocated to as it would cause further damage to the buildings and affect surrounding tenants. Any professional cleaning was the responsibility of the Tenant and should have been paid for by the Renter's Insurance they were mandated and agreed to maintain per their lease.
We always look for opportunities to improve and welcome honest feedback from Tenants. Unfortunately, little of this particular review is based on truth.