BEWARE !! This is a scam company! They take your money gradually before they finish the job with an excuse of buying materials and then they disappear. No way to find them on the phone. My lawyer takes action against them. read more

Well, I just got my whole deposit back minus $25 for a kitchen bulb (fair), including my pet deposit, so I'm pretty happy with Active. Holley was the administrator for Active while I lived in an apartment off Duval, and she was great. They didn't lose my rent and the one thing I needed fixed was done timely. FYI - I was the only person on my lease and lived in a one bedroom in a small complex. I've had horrific experiences with other university property managers, so I am pretty pleased that I got my deposit back. read more

I may be biased, as this is my first time to deal with a management company instead of the landlord, but these people are just awful! If the duplex I'm renting wasn't such a great place in a great location, I would definitely be out of here! Twice now, we have had emergency maintenance issues. When I called the emergency maintenance line, no one answered. I called several times and left several messages. The first time it happened, it was a sunday afternoon and we had an interior water leak in a carpeted room. I left tons of messages. It was not until the next morning that i received a TEXT from an unknown number saying someone was on their way. The second time, our AC stopped working. Again, no one answered the emergency maintenance line. I went online and found the mobile number of some girl who worked there and texted her. she wrote back immediately saying she no longer worked there and said she wasnt surprised no one would answer my call. She personally texted the owner for me, who finally sent maintenance over. read more

I read a few negative reviews of Active, but I ignored them. I figured I was a good tenant who paid rent on time, so none of it applied to me. Do not repeat my mistake. Avoid this company at all costs. They are constantly making up fees that make no sense. My lease started in August; they tried to charge me back utilities for missed payments in May. Every time they make up a fee, they count it against your rent before the actual rent payment, so they can charge you a gigantic, constantly increasing late fee ($200 + 10 a day). The electrical system in the house is a complete disaster. At one point, one of our outlets literally caught on fire. Most of the rooms in the house are lit by lamps because the fixtures burn out bulbs once a month. The lease exempts them from basically all maintenance, so there's nothing I can do about it. COLLEGE STUDENTS: I don't know why, but Active Property Management has a special hatred for you. You are not allowed to pay with multiple payments, so have fun either paying hundreds of dollars in late fees every month or covering the entire rent yourself and getting reimbursed. If you give them multiple emails, they will switch back and forth between them randomly. You will never know if you're square with them because they may have decided to only email your roommate and not you. Bonus: their lease specifically prohibits alcohol and cigarettes anywhere on their properties, and says they can force you to give up your pets for no reason. In all seriousness, live under a bridge instead. read more

God. Awful. Is this Uptown Realty? Is it Active Property Management? Uptown routes calls to this number. Holley, who was managing my lease throughout the signing process, has mysteriously disappeared now that I have signed the lease and paid money. Someone informed me that she is no longer with the company...how about setting up a forwarding system for her emails or having someone monitor her inbox? I have been trying to get into contact with someone for over a week. read more

So I DID get my security deposit back, which was cool. This has not changed my opinion of them in any way, mostly because you have to pay to get the house cleaned (you're not given the option of doing so yourself), and the rates for the cleaning is about as much for the damn deposit. Since moving to a house outside of this rental group, my life has been way better. I have responsive landlords, no rats, and all my doors lock. Just remember, team. You deserve better than Active Property Management. There are landlords out there who DON'T hate you... I promise! read more

STAY AWAY! We moved into a house that was infested with bedbugs (the previous tenants were evicted for non-payment of rent, or so we were told). The place was a sty when we looked at it and we were assured that by move in, the place would be clean. Not only was this false, but besides the cockroach infestation (small cockroaches, large infestation), the carpets that they promised to replace (and didn't) were infested with bed bugs. NOTE: bedbug bites take up to two weeks to show up. They're also the most excruciatingly taxing and painful experience, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I noticed mine after the first week and immediately let them know. They claimed no responsibility and said since we didn't include it on the initial house move-in condition form, they're not responsible - and took no action. We had to call in a health inspector for them to take care of it. Being forced to take care of it, they chose the cheapest method (from our research, the ineffectual method, spraying) instead of the overwhelming successful heat treatment method. Needless to say, this got rid of a lot of them, but did not eradicate them. They came and sprayed a few more times and each time we told them that it was not effective. Never resolved. So we lived in a house for 4+ mos. with an infestation that they never took care of. Besides taking our security deposit, they charged us an additional $3500 to replace the carpets and pay for a bedbug treatment upon move-out. These are the sleaziest of the sleaze in Austin. Don't expect to have a situation resolved or even addressed if something pops up. If there's a way they can cheat you out of money though, plan for it! read more

Started out okay when we moved here to Austin. Finally, during the last couple of months of our rent lease we've had issue after issue. Most notably with our roof. It was leaky during the rains when everything was flooding, we had discoloring and bubbling in or ceiling that we reported but nobody seemed to care. Then during this summer they started to do work on the roof, 7 am daily for a month or so. Then it rained good and hard. Our ceiling leaked like a sieve. It filled up one of our light fixtures, we had an ice chest catching water that we had to dump out 10 times, blah, blah, blah, during the rains was frickin terrible. I got in touch with Active, got in touch with their specific property manager, and they told me they would be out to check on it. They didn't show up that day. They next morning, at 848 am, a good portion of our ceiling collapsed. Just fell right on in. Luckily we weren't up at the time otherwise it likely would have fallen right on one of us. The hole it left was approximately 3 feet by 4 feet. again I called the property manager and they said someone would be there right away because they were already working on the property. Fifteen minutes later a dude came to our place, looked in side, said "Oh my god." then left. That was all that was done for the next 3 hours. I finally texted our property manager and she said she was aware of the problem and that some one would come fix it... When we got home that evening (Who wants to hang out it a studio apartment in such a condition) The sheet rock was taken off of the ceiling (Roughly 9 foot by 3 foot) leaving the insulation exposed. I talked to the property manager, she said that no one was coming out till after the weekend to do anything. I talked to Active and told them that I was uncomfortable living in a home were I could see the moldy underbelly of our roof, they told me to call the property manager. I got in touch with the property manager again and she had the construction company call me.... In the end we lived in a building that was exposed to mold and fungus for a weekend. The fixed the hole after that, didn't replace the light fixture were live wires are hanging down. And now they are hammering directly above my studio apartment at 7 am. Active property management should be avoided at all costs. They don't care about the health, safety, comfort or livability of their properties or the people in them. they just want to penalize their renters and get all the money they can out of them. read more

I can not think of a single thing redeemable about the way this company handles renting a house from them. They have been completely unresponsive and downright irresponsible at every step of the way with us. Our house is newer construction, 2007, but still has lots of problems with heating/AC/appliances/utilities, ill-fitting doors and seemingly no insulation, as well as large holes in the laundry room leading to the outside (not just like vents - just, holes, so birds like to nest in our house)...not here to complain about the house. It sucks. We're 3 dudes in our 20's paying at the upper range of our capabilities, $1500/mo for a small house with lots of problems. Whatever. We were desperate for a roof - not complaining about that. The worst so far has been that they started showing our house after we have lived here for 2 months. For a year in advance? Really? I mean, I guess people are planning ahead, but come on. So after a handful of last-minute showings from numerous different realty companies - who knows who all these people are? I can't even remember - and after some personal possessions went mysteriously missing after one of these "showings" when none of us were even present in the household - we talked to one of these people that came by the house who apparently represents Active, and asked that we be given at least 24 hour notice before a potential showing. Doesn't that benefit everyone? We can clean up our messy rooms, make sure things look pretty, and make sure one of us is at home so we can answer questions and stuff (and, well, make sure nothing gets stolen- something I can't believe I have to worry about)? That was about two months ago - **literally every day this week** we have received a call from a realtor from a different realty company informing - not asking - us that they'll be showing our house in an hour or so, or even better just not providing a time. We all work 5 days a week at various times. I work on electronics and build my own musical instruments/equipment in my spare time. I have plenty of sensitive and expensive components sitting out on a regular basis. My roommate is a bartender. He has literal piles of cash sitting around after a busy night at work. There's a thing such as reasonable expectation of privacy. That's not okay. We have EIGHT MONTHS left on our lease and they've attempted to shuttle some unsuspecting college students through our house every single day for a week. We've had to call the realtors individually and tell them to please schedule "at least a day in advance, for christ's sake". I'm sure it's not their fault. Also, these realtors have recently only tried to call me and left a voicemail, not informed my roommates at all, almost always during the day when I'm at work, 8-5: what if they just showed up and unlocked the door while one of my roommates was at home in the shower or with their girlfriend or something? I have no way of communicating this to them. That's poor form, y'all. But yeah, there's no communication at all with this company. That's the theme. We've all sent emails, talked on the phone, and even talked face-to-face with someone who supposedly represents Active about these and other issues and either have just been ignored or placated with remarks that proved to be empty promises. Our garage has sat empty for the entire time we've lived here. They won't provide us or the other people in the unit with the remote or keys to it despite repeated inquiries. All maintenance and yardwork has been done by us - they say they absolutely don't handle anything in the lease and will charge you exorbitant fees if you even think about contacting them about any problems, no matter if they were (almost surely) pre-existing or known, like non-functioning outlets - and our carpets and walls were in bad shape when we moved in. We took careful notation of this and hope to not be screwed out of our deposit. We'll see. I lack faith. It's just dumb that we're spending this much money to live in a house that isn't ours - but that we have to do all the stuff to make it livable/useful. I could go on. This is a novel. Just take this away from my rant: please, please, exercise every other possible course of action before you decide to make the mistake of renting from this company. They don't care. They're not professional. Their properties are low quality, or at best, inconsistent. Their contact page on their website (at least from last year until this writing) says, please email us or call if you have any concerns - and they don't list an email address (either general or personal for any of the "staff") anywhere on the website. That about sums it up. read more

OK, so I still rent from Uptown, whose properties are managed by Active, but I figured I'd write a review before I move out to help students make a decision for pre-lease season. Active and Uptown are basically the same entity. Their buildings are old and they have lots of problems. This is just the nature of old units. For example, the tiles in my unit are peeling off the floor, there is poor insulation, and everything is kind of ugly. But that's why I'm not paying $1000 rent. First day moving in, we ran the window unit for about 6 hours and the apartment was still 100 degrees. We called them, and they sent the maintenance guy out the next day. The maintenance guy (Demecio is his name) is the BEST DUDE. Here's why. When he came to look at the window unit he knew right away it was broken and needed to be replaced. He called his boss in front of me and you could tell from hearing his own side of the conversation that they were trying to convince him to try to repair it and see what happens. He was saying that was unacceptable and after about 15 minutes back-and-forth, he won. We had a new, functional window unit two hours later. The maintenance guy is ALWAYS prompt and is on the side of the tenants. The dude deserves a raise. People say Active ignores the tenants and doesn't care that the units are falling apart. This has not been my experience. They just overlook emails. Seriously. It's a stupid and simple mistake, one that shouldn't be made, but it's happened multiple times. Everytime I can actually make contact with someone, maintenance is here fixing the problem the next day. On another occasion my car was towed from the parking lot even though I had the parking pass. I called the towing company and they said I'm shit out of luck. I then called Holly and told her what happened, she called the towing place and 10 minutes later called me back telling me I can go pick up my car without paying for it. So I don't know obviously if I will get my deposit back. But my friend who lived here for 3 years who just recently moved out received his whole deposit and pet deposit. They didn't try to nickel and dime him. all these other reviewers ranting about how their units are falling apart... I have to imagine they never complained, and just expected Active to know that things were wrong. It sometimes takes a while to make contact with them, but once you do, they are out here resolving the issue. The lesson to take is if you rent with Active, and you have an issue, FOLLOW THROUGH until you receive a response. They seem to overlook a lot of emails. I still have 6 months with them so I will update this review upon moving out read more

I have never in my life experienced property management quite like this. I have never received so many threatening, RUDE emails either. Policies of this company are unclear; the "late" date for rent is constantly changing and this company's website has a tab to pay rent online. DON'T do it. Apparently they don't allow rent to be paid online anymore, but they won't take the option down from their website. Don't expect to be notified about anything until it's too late, and don't expect to be treated politely and with respect. read more

This place is awful. Everyone who works there is either incompetent or dishonest. In only a couple months, they lost 3 of our checks and rather than tell us, just sent us late rent notices. When we finally got them on the phone to resolve they just said, "Oh well, seems your check was 'misfiled' please drop another one off in the next 24 hours or we'll charge you a $50 late fee." Then time came for them to return our security deposit that was a full first month's rent, so a couple thousand dollars. Not only was it over 3 months late, they deducted several hundred dollars for "general damage" and failed to tell us what we were supposed to have done. When I called to ask why the money was deducted, my calls were "transferred" to the property manager. I called a total of 10 times and was unanswered every single time. By the way Krystle N is the name of the office assistant at Active Property Management, so I wouldn't take that bright cheery review too seriously. read more

Definitely the worst business I have ever dealt with and for sure the most unprofessional. Not to mention the people that work there are rude and do not know what they are doing. First of all Sierra De La Cruz is one of the rudest women (girls) I have ever talked to and was laughing at me over the phone. We had problems before we even moved in. They messed up our lease by having the wrong move in date when my roommate and I had to be living in Austin on that day. So we were basically stranded. Not to mention when we finally moved in the apartment was not cleaned and in terrible condition. Broken doors, unfinished floors, broken appliances, the front door key wouldn't even work and more. I am so disappointed and never working with this company EVER again and strongly recommend you don't either. read more

HORRIBLE! Never have I ever encountered so much unprofessionalism in my entire life. First of all, the property manager we were dealing with communicated the incorrect amount to be paid for first month's rent to our realtor. After promptly paying the (seemingly) correct amount, we received an email directly from the property manager weeks later asking for even more money. Confused, we consulted our realtor. He was infuriated that she had not only screwed up, costing us about 1,000 more dollars, but that she had gone behind his back making it seem like it was his error. After emailing them regarding the situation, demanding that we not have to pay the extra 1,000 dollars the company simply ceased to return any of his emails. We really wanted the house so we all begrudgingly accepted the mishap and paid the remaining balance through their rent portal. However, three out of the six payments "did not go through." Our realtor noticed these discrepancies and contacted the manager himself and was met with a reply saying that "everything is fine! There is nothing to worry about." A few weeks later my roommates and I received an email stating that it actually wasn't fine. Mind you, the notification of this came three months after the initial payments had been made and was followed by hollow threats of not being able to finalize our lease. After investigation, two of the three payments had, in fact, gone through. The company's platform just didn't record them to have been processed. My payment was the one that appeared to actually not have gone through, but upon my attempts to re-pay through spark rent, my account had been deleted. I emailed the property manager asking how to remedy this and was met with no response. One of my roommates ended up taking out a money order and paying them AGAIN (unbeknownst to her at the time, her payment had actually gone through three months ago). After learning that her payment had been made the first time around, she demanded that she get her money back. Initially the property manager said that she could possibly write a check to my roommate, but that she had to come back some time later. The next day when she returned to the office she was met with complete indifference about the situation. They told her that they would not write her a check, placed the blame on spark rent, and told her that she had to directly contact the government, send them numerous forms, and wait a few weeks before only *possibly* getting her money order returned. They placed the blame on spark rent though the money order was made out to Active Property Management. Ridiculous. I WILL NEVER USE THIS COMPANY AGAIN. The lack of professionalism and timelyness was unfathomable. read more

Since my last review I ended up renewing my lease contract and have been here another year. Over the time I have lived here the management just keeps improving, it is so helpful. In the beginning the staff was good, but I didn't have too much interaction with them so I was kind of indifferent. (Not much interaction because everything in my apartment had been fine). Over the years I have had routine maintenance needs and they have always promptly addressed my concerns. The maintenance worker is very professional and helpful. Usually when I submit a request he will be at my house within 24 hours, sometimes sooner. They are really good at answering the phones and getting their tenants the help they need in a timely manner. This year they have upgraded to a system that allows you to pay online, this is a huge time saver so I was glad when this happened. Many of my neighbors have been here for years like I have and I definitely understand why. My complex is well kept, I like my apartment, and the staff actually cares about their tenants. I would advise against reading the low star reviews...they were very misleading when I read them before I moved in 2.5 years ago, I haven't experienced any of those complaints. Good job active property management/uptown realty! read more

We leased our current apartment through Uptown Realty and we loved our real estate agent that helped us. Active was our managment company and they were great. They always answered any questions we had. The managment got changed to Everyday Properties and they are awful. They have no idea what they are doing. I wish we had Active Managment back, they were always great!! read more

My husband and I have been tenants with Active Property Management for over a year and a half, and we recently extended our lease two more years. We have had nothing but good experiences with this company. Any time we have had an issue they have been on top of it and even follow up to make sure we are satisfied. At one point we had some financial issues that caused us to fall behind. The staff in the office showed us nothing but compassion and were willing to work with us every step of the way to make rent. This goes to show that they actually care about their tenants and not just about a rent check. One night last January when it was in the 40's our heater stopped working and they were here in less than an hour after speaking with them to fix the problem. They've also continued to maintain their property since we've been here with scheduled maintenance and lawn care while working with the fact that we have pets we try to avoid kenneling. To sum our experience up, it has been a pleasure working with Active Property Management and I would recommend this company to anyone. Hope this review has been helpful. read more