Good building, greedy management
Pros
The apartment itself is very nice, spacious, gets great light, and is in a great location. My unit has been updated, and I believe the management company are updating each unit when people move out. The whole building is rent stabilized, and there’s a super on site who is so great. He’s super helpful and responsive and will come fix whatever you need. The neighbors in the building are super friendly too. I’m a quiet and self sufficient tenant, so I haven’t had any issues overall.
Cons
The management company is super greedy and will increase your rent by as much as possible every year. Whenever they make any possible improvement or general building maintenance, they will pass on the costs to the tenants. The entire building had the gas shut down for 3 months because it was not up to code and a safety hazard, and they replaced all of the gas lines and then submitted the charge to the city to have all of those costs passed back to the tenants so our rents went up by by a few dollars per room each month in the middle of our leases. (Not to mention the fact that we couldn’t use our stoves/ovens for 3 months). It happened again when they replaced the hot water heater too. Also pretty sure that they illegally increased the legal rent stabilized amount based on rental history, but that’s a separate issue. Garbage management is also poor - tenants in the building don’t properly recycle or compost and management doesn’t enforce it. No laundry in the building and no roof access, which seems ridiculous given that the management company keeps updating units and charging us an arm and a leg. Also the building itself is poorly maintained - I’ve lived here for 4 years and the common area (staircase, entry) have been cleaned maybe 2 times.
Advice to the owners
Clean the building, give us some more building amenities if you’re going to keep increasing our rent