If I could rate this place 0 I would. Let's talk about my overall experience, you know it's tea time . Moved in summer of 2025 and initially I thought this was a pleasant place to live but it quickly turned left. Renee moved me in and provided me with a quick overview of the house rules and told me to read them. I quickly read over them briefly and didn't think much about it. This property is a joke, one of the locals that live here told me you have to give up some stuff in order to live here because this is the low income side of the island . Well holy hockey sticks didn't think I would have to give up my sanity in exchange for a place to live . The level of micromanagement at this low income Taj Mahal is ridiculous. Rules, rules , rules , and more RULES. Living here feels like a nightmare. I have received more warnings and little notes on my door than anything here from these top flight security guards of the world , what a pest ‍. Anything you do expect a response from management immediately. Want to have family visit you ? Think again , want to have friends over think again. Every time someone comes over you'll be asked to request a visitor pass/ guest pass because the old hoot will call you out and say and I quote "I never seen you here before are you on the lease . If they are staying longer than 10 days go ahead and contact your property manager and be prepared to submit a request in writing guest name , dob, and ssn so that they can do a full background check before the person can stay at the property. This is not the Taj Mahal but they will treat it like it's the Taj. If your friends are coming over they better have proper documentation or else you can't park on the property. Doesn't matter if you rented a vehicle while you're in Hawaii and the rental agency doesn't have the updated documents, you will still not be able to park on the property. Get ready to wear a green wrist band around your wrist like you're entering the club (21) ; if you're a guest and staying here less than 10 days . If your parking decal isn't displayed properly in your car they will leave a written notice on your windshield, doesn't matter if you've been here for months and they know you , they will still document. If you want to have to ask permission for everything you do than go ahead and rent at the Taj Mahal. If you want privacy don't rent here cause they will be up in your business. Neighbors are nosy and will try to overstep their boundaries until you stop and put a on they ssa like Nike , just do it. Last but not least be prepared to have to do area beautification on the outside of the building. Never have I ever rented anywhere and was told to maintain the exterior of the property. ‍ here we go again. If you want to rent here expect to wash your exterior windows, fail to do so and you'll get a warning followed by 10 days to fix it or else $50 fine. I can't wait UNTIL I LEAVE THIS HOLE , because once the hits the fan it doesn't stop , just get ready to do the Macarena, bachata, twerk , or whatever you call dance in your culture cause this place is not for the WEAK. ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE , better hope you have 9 lives like the influx of cats that roam the property. Don't get a neighbor like me who deliberately placed a bowl of cat food at her door to attract them. ‍ and I let management know but of course nothing was done and I definitely didn't see a violation/warning notice on her door. Be prepared for loud noise and a lot of early morning construction because something is always getting fixed on . If you work from home this is definitely a nuisance because you'll will hear loud banging and drills in the background. Save yourself the trouble and rent anywhere but here . Hawaii is supposed to be paradise but this is definitely not. This is micromanagement at its finest giving very much motel 6. But hey, they'll still leave the light on for you if you want stress and anxiety. read more

If you want to be away from the hustle and bustle of Waikiki this is the place for you. HOWEVER, be prepared to deal with an abundance of homeless, and just plain filth. You can find much better places for the same price, if not cheaper on nicer areas of the island. I'll break my review down by catagories. UNIT: The unit itself is family owned by my friend that I traveled with. It's beautifully decorated, well kept, and fully stocked (boogie boards, snorkel gear, beach towels, coolers, beach bags, toiletries, spices, sugar, coffee). I could go on and on. You literally just need to bring your clothes and groceries. But check the cupboards before you go shopping, you'd be surprised at what it's stocked with, we sure were. Unfortunately, this building/unit is directly adjacent to one of the many parks that contain homeless camps, which are viewable from the unit. SECURITY: * Friendly, but don't do much else. They sit in a booth at entrance, look up and wave. The only time we stopped at the security office was to check in. *Although the entire complex is surrounded by fencing, and keyed entries, we watched people come & go as they pleased. Some security gates were not locked, and at times people on the inside just opened the gates to people on the outside. DO NOT GET A FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY. *We had to move parking spots 3 times as they kept putting us in reserved spots. *We had an issue with our neighbor directly across the hall on our second night. Partying, loud music, loud voices from midnight to 3:30am. Called security at 2:30am but nothing was done. BUILDING: Its an older building, but overall it's decently maintained. It could use a good pressure washing. SWIMMING POOLS: Both pools are well taken care of. Plenty of chairs, and tables available. Never overly crowded. RESIDENTS: We encountered both extremely rude/racist comments towards "tourists", and some that were incredibly nice. Beyond the condos, out in the community everyone was pleasant. OFFICE: Hoku is the office manager, she was pleasant enough, but the office phone is rarely answered. If you need assistance, you'll have to walk down to the office. I saw zero enforcement of the MANY rules. LANDSCAPING: The front and back are beautifully landscaped with lots of plumeria trees. **The exception to this is the far West end of building A from about A-XX1 to A-X14 looks like a catchall for anything that has fallen off the buildings such as gutters, garbage, landscaping debris, etc. PETS: Regardless of what the rules say, there are numerous tenants that have dogs, and cats. I saw cats roaming the grounds. And tenants walking their dogs on the public beach area to do their business and NOT pick up after it. BEACH: Although the beach directly out back is convenient, it is NOT a private beach. It gets very crowded during the day with locals, and homeless who can get very loud until late into the evening. And typically leave their trash. One group even left their huge BBQ, never to return to pick it up. AREA/LOCATION: *Located on the most SW part of the island. It's approximately 45 min to an hour drive from Waikiki, depending on traffic. *Very congested. *Its the dirtiest, low income part of the island, and I've been over every inch of the island. *Lots of homeless camps at the parks/beaches even thought it posted "no overnight camping". No one is enforcing it. *Lots of trash everywhere. *The only positive thing I can say about the area is that there is a heavy police presence DURING THE WEEK, over the weekend we saw none. *There are loads of fast food restaurants, only a couple sit-down restaurants, and numerous grocery stores. *I'd recommend steering clear of the beaches due to the homeless population. read more

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It was a really nice and super close to the beach we walked right down definitely would stay again

The beautiful location is the only good thing about this place. I stayed here for a 30 day vacation rental while waiting for my home loan to close. It was horrible from the first day. The property manager was rude and discriminatory. I had recently bought a used car, and because of Covid, had to mail in the title transfer, I had the bill of sale/insurance/safety check, but obviously no valid registration yet, I even had proof of a DMV apt for the next week. We arrived around 9pm with two toddlers and were not allowed to park my vehicle on property, even just for that first night. We had to drive all the way across the island to leave the car at a friends, because there really isn't anywhere I felt safe leaving my car parked overnight in that area. The next morning, I hear a pounding on my door, it's the property manager...I have a service dog, and mentioned that during check in. She proceeded to yell at me that pets aren't allowed, I informered her again that he is a service dog, she told me that I need to have my "pet" approved by their board, which takes ten days, and that I needed to remove my service dog from the property until getting it approved, or I would be fined daily. The form she gave me literally asked every illegal question about ESA/service dogs (see pictures). I obviously never filled it out, but provided them what paperwork I had for him, and believe that may be part of reason we were treated so poorly during our stay... The first time I needed to do laundry (the machines-which are dirty and a rip off- were quite the trek from our third floor condo), a maintenance worker sees me struggling with two laundry baskets and two kids, headed towards the elevator, I am waiting and waiting, and it's not until another family came up behind us, that a worker informed us that the elevator was "out of service for cleaning/maintenance", then proceeded to turn and laugh with a coworker about the situation, forcing me to take the stairs (at least my legs appreciated the workout!!). After starting my load of laundry, the elevator was back in service and hadn't been cleaned at all. In fact, the elevator wasn't sanitized or cleaned one time during my entire stay, despite the sign inside the elevator claiming that they were sanitizing high touch areas daily. Oddly, they pressured washed the walkways outside of my condo almost daily, coincidently during nap time. If they weren't pressure washing outside my condo, they were mowing, weed whacking... it seemed like pretty much anything they could do to make noise during my children's nap time(thank goodness for white noise machines). One morning I revived another knock on my door, saying that I needed to move my truck out of the visitors lot, because "it was in the way of them emptying the dumpsters", so I drag the kids and dog down to the guest lot, only to find my truck literally surrounded by ALREADY EMPTY dumpsters, they were sitting so close that I had to scrape the doors against the sides of the smelly dumpsters to climb in. They obviously didn't need me to move my truck, they just wanted to harass me and made sure that I noticed, because the next trash day, my truck was parked in the exact same spot, and they managed to empty and clean all the dumpsters away from my truck, with no problem. We received eight ridiculous notices on our door during our stay, all threatening fines. One for leaving a large cardboard box outside our front door for a few hours, the cardboard box was long gone by the time they left the notice the next morning, one for allowing my children's life jackets to dry on the floor of the lanai overnight, we got a notice for backing into our parking spot in the parking garage (apparently there is one specific section where backing in isn't allowed), we got another notice because my child jumped into the pool (no one else was there, he wasn't running or screaming, just climbing out and safely jumping back into the pool from the ladder). They also tried to tell us that I couldn't allow my dog to use the bathroom (pee or poop) anywhere on the property! After the first few days, I realized they have all of these rules because of the vile people that live there. A lot of the units smelt extremely bad, the nasty aroma would fill the walkways and corridors, people were smoking cigarettes in their units, and the central HVAC system would waft the smoke into all the neighboring units. There was a lot of meth use and drunks wondering the property. Makaha Surfside felt like a horrible, dirty prison. I would not recommend renting or buying there. read more

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I waited to write this review until I had time to see how things are after reading a lot of negative reviews and comments online. (A lot of the negative feedback came from people on TripAdvisor who were doing long term rentals and had very clearly not done any research first. Complaints included no free cable tv and too far from Waikiki beach so their fault for not doing their research.) The first time I stepped on to the property here I was a bit nervous because of comments about bad attitudes towards white people - and clearly I am very white - which has NOT been an issue once. (I assume it's just people acting entitled and giving attitude.) I am a new owner in Makaha Surfside and these are my observations so far: The crew that makes up the security team are all friendly and actually do their job; I watch them walk the grounds (regularly) and I see them correct behaviors that are not allowed on the property (like jumping in the pool). Hoku in the office was very kind, answered questions for me when I was registering as a new owner, and even helped us get the lock on our mailbox changed. (The office smells great too!) There are three buildings on the property (A,B, &C), two laundry facilities, two pools, a small gym, restrooms and saunas located near the pool, BBQ area, beach access, and plenty of guest parking which is nice. Pools look well maintained and are even closed when "chemicals are out of balance" so that they stay nice and clean. From what I can tell thus far, the grounds are well maintained and there's plenty of pretty landscaping to look at. When school is out like now, the drive to town is about 45 minutes give or take - still worth it to me to come HOME and feel like I'm living in a nice hotel. read more

First of all, this place is BEAUTIFUL. The grounds are well kept and the landscaping and maintenance guys do an awesome job of making sure everything is clean, and beautiful. The guys are friendly and always working hard every day. Next is home security, this is a secure gated community. It's nice not to worry about my cars or about my safety. The men who work security do a good job of walking the parking garage and the entire property. There is no reason to feel unsafe while on property, they really are on top of what's going on. The problem is I have a service animal, and dogs are NOT welcome here. Legally they can not prevent people from having service animals according to the Federal Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988 [Civil Rights Act of 1968] , but they threaten to fine with a FEE if the animal urinates or defecates ANYWHERE on the property. In addition, they want personal information about the disability, which is a violation of the Hawaii State Civil Rights Laws and fringes against HIPAA laws. I have a disability and the word disability does not equate to stupidity. The whole "dog thing" has been a royal headache and really unnecessary. The experience I have had with the office has been less than pleasant, and at this point try my best to avoid contact at all costs. Now just counting down the days until the lease agreement expires. The property is really beautiful, with picture perfect landscaping and mesmerizing ocean views. However, the office staff really made a bad name for themselves with their attempt to intimidate this person with disabilities. This person with disabilities chooses to just move on and to share the experience with others. So, if you don't have any pets or service animals this place is Beautiful and pretty nice. It is fairly quiet, and the view from the windows is breathtaking. But, if you have any animals do yourself a favor, skip this place and save yourself a huge headache. read more

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The surfsides a decent place to live your close to the beach & security is ok your not to far from tamuras waianae store....

We stayed at the Makaha Surfside the summer of 2016. The property, and the crew are really great. However, avoid the landlord in B 311 ... Audrey. A nightmare! read more

We stayed at Makaha Surfside through Airbnb for a family vacation to Oahu. The lady who owns the condo we used was super nice and gave us a bunch of tips and recommendations for the condo and for getting around Waianae in general. The inside of our condo was very nice and clean. And the view of the ocean was just THE BEST!! It was a bit warm however, probably due to the fan in the bathroom wall that constantly sucks air out. There is condo access to the beach, which is so perfect to walk on or to watch the sunset on. However, I feel that it's not so private, because we have seen a lot of people that don't look like they live in the apartment hang out there. We have even seen a few people camping out. Not too far down the beach is where a lot of homeless people hang out, so we always have to be alert with them around. You do have to pay for laundry here, which is kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world. It's not too bad of a place to stay, at least short term. I can't speak for anyone who has been here long term. read more