Berkeley Apartments – Acton Courtyard

I have had such an amazing experience renting my adorable studio apartment at Acton. The building is gorgeous and in a safe part of Berkeley. The maintenance staff is efficient and friendly, and helpful for any problem you might have. The building is clean. The best part, is the office staff, who are always friendly when I walk in. Anna Keesling was instrumental in helping me with my apartment paperwork, and happiness at Acton. She is so friendly and helpful, and really a dream to work with. I really appreciate her time and effort working with me. Everyone in the office is nice as well, including Andrea and Milinda, everyone is always friendly and helpful. Really happy to be in that building and looking forward to staying on for a long time!

Five stars for Milinda!!! I have been to the leasing office a few times. I was overcharged by $ 400/​mo for rent, $ 60 for a pet (I don’t have a pet). When I brought this problem to Lauren, she told me to get a letter from the previous tenant stating that the pet was theirs, and not mine, so then Lauren could email the Chicago office so that they would then «look into» taking the charge off the bill. Lauren was totally unhelpful, or incompetent (not sure which). Thankfully, the next time I went into the office I was helped by Milinda, who was clear, efficient, and friendly. She was able to reduce my rent to what I had agreed to pay initially, and erase the pet charge without making me jump through any Lauren-​created hoops.

The management company is the worst I’ve ever experienced in my 13 years of renting from different companies; very disorganized, a constant influx of new staff coming in and out who have no idea how to manage apartments. From the very beginning of my experience trying to rent from them they lost my money order for the application, failed to notify me of the additional 60 $ per pet rent a month in addition to an additional $ 500 pet deposit until after I started paying rent. Office staff is very unhelpful and even rude. I have never had a call returned when I’ve called the office (at least 10 times)
However,
The MAINTENANCE; I would give a 5 PLUS STAR rating to! Larry, Tyler and Bryant are AMAZING, so kind, thorough, and will fix or repair anything you ask. They are really the only good thing about this company! I’ve never experienced such quick maintenance service until living here.

Pros: Modern; Fairly clean; Safe; Nice location (Near the BART and bus stops); Laundry machines on every floor; Pet friendly (but with monthly fees…)
Cons: Expensive (Very); (Most) utilities not included, and expensive parking; On the smaller side; Random, apartment-​wide fire alarms (weekly and lasting for hours); Elevator is down for maintenance a couple of times a month; Inconvenient renovations; Spotty internet service; Unusual (and noisy) tenants; Cigarette smoke in the halls; Trash area is disgusting (sometimes you can’t even go in to throw out your trash because of all of the trash surrounding the dumpster. And, there are rats and your occasional shady bottle/​can collector); Useless and annoying Berkeley Apartment employees (they avoid answering any concerns, and constantly email/​text/​mail you starting six months before your lease ends, trying to get you to renew for another year)
It’s a shame. If they’d just address some of these issues then acton would be a great (or at least decent) place to live.
When I think of more cons I’ll make sure to add them later c:

We lived at Acton Courtyard for two years. It is a fairly new building and overall I’d say it would be a three star place except that the management company is awful. They office staff are nice people but seem to be constrained by the management policies. We were told that we could go month to month after the first year and then shortly before the lease expiration they said we either needed to sign the lease in three days or renew for a year. They also let us know this with an email that looked like it was written by a high schooler. Really, an official email with u instead of «you»?
Our car was stuck in the parking garage for two days and they don’t seem to be very motivated to fix it. Because the garage lift wasn’t fixed I missed a full day of work and also wasted $ 100 of event tickets. While these kind of things do happen sometimes, the main issue is their handing of the problem. Their response was «the office doesn’t open till 9 AM.» That’s great but I have to be at work. Further, it would appear that the reason the reason for the problem is that they let people store all kinds of random stuff in the parking spaces.
The internet is provided by webpass and goes out about every other month. Also, watch out if you’re unloading your car in the garage, you might end up with one of those nasty stickers on your window.
They start harassing you 4 – 5 months before your lease expiration to renew. Is that even legal? About once a week somebody would throw their sour milk in the lobby trash can. Oh yeah, somebody else put up a sign in the elevator threatening to pop a cap in another resident. That will make you feel safe a home.
Overall, the place is just a disaster. It’s sad because it’s one of the few newer buildings that is dog friendly.

here is an awesome picture of my aloe plant after the millionth party on the roof and someone threw a fat cigar down, it was on fire smoldering all night… we are REALLY lucky that there wasn’t any sort of cloth/​fabric [on patio furniture] to catch the building on fire… but then again, since we are always told that the POLICE will handle building management, I guess calling the FIRE DEPT. is just another cool thing you can expect to do on summer weekend nights relaxing in your 2 thousand dollar a month apartment.

I am living in a nightmare… how did my life ever become dictated by a bunch of 20 something trashballs roaming all around my door at all hours of the night? Oh yes thanks to ACTON COURTYARD, this nightmare has become a reality. The weekend party train has been picking up steam since 6 this afternoon and now 5 hours later, the police have been called, the building manager has been called and no one has done anything to stop the madness of drunk 20 somethings «just having a good time». I wish I would’ve read Kendra S. post about this place from 4÷2÷2008 because it’s obvious that nothing has changed. One more Friday night file for my list of grievances…

My husband and I have lived here since July 2007. Overall, the building and apartments are very clean and residents seem to keep to themselves.
However, there’s frequently large, loud parties on the rooftop and personal balconies with music blaring, alcohol and cigarettes, and a ton of dancing. Normally, I wouldn’t care. Our apartment, however, is on the top floor. We hear everything, are woken up on weekdays and weekends from screaming, talking, dancing/​hopping around, and frequently have cigarette butts and broken beer bottles on our balcony after our neighbors and their guests have decided throwing them off the roof is the proper place to disguard these items. Building management is non responsive to our complaints due to his second job and lack of physical availability; and most of the time we ask individuals to leave and they do not. We have had to get the Berkeley PD to break up larger parties. Property management has been very appreciative of the situation and are willing to find alternative solutions in order to keep access to the roof open for everyone.
Wheelchair access to the building is 3 out of 5 stars. Although there is an automated door opener, it’s hardly ever working and it’s the responsibility of those who use it (i.e. not the property owners) to dish out $ 100 everytime it needs to be fixed. There has been someone here to «look at» or «fix» the door three times in the last six months. All of the apartments I’ve been in (three in this building) have amazing wheelchair access to the bathrooms and kitchens — with larger turn space, roll under sinks, lowered countertops, and ample bottom cabinet space for use. The laundry rooms, although relatively clean, are not ADA accessible. The auto-​closing doors are extremely heavy, and all dryers are stacked on top of the front-​loading washing machines so that wheelchair users and people of short stature are unable to reach them. There are two wheelchair accessible parking spots in the garage; however, management has taken one of them for use as the building manager’s Hummer location. The other spot is already reserved for another individual with a disability. Don’t park in the able-​bodied manager’s disabled parking spot as we did while unloading our belongings moving in – you’ll end up with horribly sticky orange stickers plastered all around your wheelchair accessible van for «violating» signage.
As for the additional amenities — basic cable comes with your rent package, as does free DSL service. The DSL, however, is slower than dial-​up due to their lack of sufficient bandwidth. We ended up purchasing our own DSL service through our telephone company.
So why did we sign a lease for another year? We live on the west side of the building, on the top floor of the building. We have our own private balcony the entire length of the apartment, and the view of the bay, Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, Oakland, El Cerrito, and Marin County is extremely breath-​taking. I feel so blessed every morning I wake up and look outside my windows. The building hallways and lobby areas are always clean, and during the day it’s extremely quiet and peaceful. Neighbors are relatively nice, often saying hello in the hall or holding the elevator door when they see you approaching. There’s a key locked bicycle area in the garage, which has been heavily used and adored by my husband. Property management is extremely approachable and reasonable, to the point they offer rental discounts due to the unnecessary hassles we’ve encountered. And you can’t quite beat living above The Bread Workshop, across the street from Fellini, and just three blocks from N. Berkeley BART.
If you love Berkeley, but don’t mind frequent noise — you may fall in love with Acton a little more than we have. I recommend that if you are considering this building to try your best to avoid leasing a top-​floor apartment. I can guarantee you’ll have all the annoyance of the rooftop, yet no luxury of our west-​side view if you end up on the 5^th floor.

My husband and I have lived in this building for two and a half years, and overall it has been a great experience. The amenities — free cable, free DSL, reasonably priced indoor parking, good laundry rooms, beautiful roof and courtyard — are excellent. Management is very reasonable and responsive. The building is quiet, the residents pretty much keep to themselves. Rent is lower than you would expect for this nice and modern a building because the neighborhood (west berkeley) is mildly sketchy.

This is a great apartment complex in the Berkeley area. Most apartment buildings in the Berkeley area are far from modern and a lot of Berkeley students are forced to live in shady co-​ops and well-​aged, broken-​down apartment complexes. Acton Courtyard is one of the buildings owned by panoramic management located on hearst st in downtown berkeley. Everything here is like new and the views are excellent. From the roof-​top patio you have a perfect view of the city, the Berkeley Hills, El Cerrito, and even the Golden Gate Bridge! If you are looking for housing in the East Bay, you should definitely check out Acton Courtyard.