in santa barbara and basic mathematics.

I looked at an apartment, a very nice one, listed at $895. The security deposit was $1295. An ungodly sum, to be sure. On top of that, they would have required another $400 for pet deposit. All well and good. I was willing to put up with this, because the rent was $300/month cheaper there than it is where I currently live.

Let’s add it up…on move in, for a 6 month lease, I would have paid roughly $2600. That’s one hundred dollars shy of three months rent. That amount would have guaranteed one half of my lease, almost a full three months. So even if I had to move out say 4 months in, they would have had the other two months taken care of with the security deposit. That being said, and the references on my application backing things up with how much I’m paying NOW, one would think that I would be a very safe renter. In the words of the agent that I was working with “Your credit and your rental history look very good”(this was before they wanted cosigner info)…and yet, even with a cosigner, they wouldn’t give me the one bedroom.

Rather, they wanted me to take the studio apartment. Because that was $95 cheaper/month. Let’s look at the difference from a monetary standpoint: in a 6 month lease, they’re worried about me making $600, the difference between a 1 bedroom and a studio. Wtf? So you’re NOT worried at all about a $2600 security deposit, but $600 is a limiting factor? Let’s be serious here…as in, it’s not going to happen. Sorry, I will live in an apartment, but I will not lower my dignitiy to live in a studio. Not gonna happen. So, I’m assuming that this place wanted to rent out the studio prior to the one bedroom to some college student (me) so they could save the one bedroom, as those are easier to rent out. Assholes.

And, just in case you’re wondering what company this is, here’s the yahoo review page on them.

I’d have to say, after dealing with them, that these are pretty accurate portrayals of their business. Here are my problems with them, summed up:

1. Phone calls. They took forever to return phone calls. I began this process the last week in september, and here it is half way through October and finally have an answer. Wtf.
2. Trying to push me into a studio apartment. They were doing this before my Dad’s info got out to them from the cosigner standpoint. C’mon. WTF? I very clearly wrote on the application which apartment I wanted. If I wasn’t appropriate for that apartment, tell it to me upfront, and then suggest the studio. not the other way around.
3. Unorganized. “I’ve got to clear it with my supervisor”….dude, you’ve got 3 other people working there, and you don’t have that many properties listed on your site. Don’t give me that shit and expect me to believe it. Be a man, grow a backbone, and just flatout tell me that it’s not going to work.

In summation, don’t deal with cochrane property management. This is the most current in a long list of problems that either I or my family has had with property management companies. Buncha jerks.