Apartment Review for The Block - Austin, TX

I live at the Block Pearl-North right now, and like all new emerging apartment complexes in West Campus, it comes with its share of disappointments. The value in these apartments is strictly in location,so unfortunately they don't necessarily need to guarantee quality. However the cons are not enough to discourage me from renewing my lease for next year. I have never experienced any major problems with my apartment, my appliances work, nothing is falling apart, it looks nice, the location is awesome, if you get a good deal the rent is manageable. I usually walk to campus, but if I'm feeling lazy, the WC bus takes me where ever I need to go. The one problem that does get annoying is that the elevators in my building break down pretty often. Once you've moved in, its not that big of a deal, even with living on the 5th floor. It was a lot more of a problem when I was moving in and the elevator was broken down for an entire week. (Yes- someone had to carry my bed and couch up 5 flights of stairs!). Since then it only breaks down for 1-2 days at a time. Also, the front door is rarely locked because our door doesn't close all the way! I hardly use my clicker. When we first moved in, internet was really slow, but they switched providers after some complaints and its a lot better now. Noise in West Campus just comes with the territory, there's plenty of it on the weekends, no matter where you are in the neighborhood. The Office Staff aren't the most useful people in the world, they seem more focused on you BEFORE you sign the lease. I studied abroad the summer before I moved in, so the only way my roommate and I could get in contact with them was over the phone. It took several days of trying before we were able to talk to someone! Emailing the offices doesn't get your issues resolved either. Going to the office is the only way you'll get something done in a timely manner, and that is extremely inconvenient at times. They were disorganized and they seemed to make a lot of promises when we were signing our lease that they didn't come through with. At the last second, they raised our rent $50/mo from what we had previously been told. They failed to mention to us that our location was the ONLY one that does not have a rooftop feature- one of their main methods used to attract new leasers. Upon picking up our keys, we were told that we didn't have to pay anything (even though I mentioned that they told us to have one months rent ready). Two months later we get a build with $500 worth of additional fees for not paying our first months rent- my roommate and I were forced to come up with $1600 that we were not expecting to pay! (the fees were waived) We were able to see a model of exact floorplan. When we moved in we found out that our living-room is big enough for a couch and a coffee table and that's about it. I've never had any need to call for maitenance, so I can't say much for them. Parking- is ridiculously priced when you park in the garages under the building, I opted for paying $85/mo for the garage across the street (owned by the Quarters) as opposed for the $125/mo it would have cost with the Block. This is normally very convenient- except when THEIR elevators are broken too! I always feel pretty safe, I don't see anyone in my building that I'm uncomfortable with, and only one random solicitor has knocked on my door since moving in last year. Once I was done dealing with the office staff's bs during move-in things got a lot more calm. Now that I'm done with all of that, I enjoy living where I do.