Villas At Katy Trail

I LOVE my new apartment. It’s a split loft style layout with just enough interior drama to be cool without losing practical space. TONS of storage, cabinets, and counter space. unexpectedly high ceilings gives it an extra feel of spaciousness. I have a great view and the location in uptown is perfect. The rent is by far the best in the area for what you get.
The office staff is great, the corridors are clean and maintained, the gym and pool are nice and the courtyards are beautiful.
It’s definitely the best value in uptown

DO NOT LIVE IN THIS SHIT HOLE. They have terrible management and are terrible communicators. They tow cars every night and several of my friends have been towed for parking in legal spaces. The parking is awful and very hard for visitors to find a spot. MAKE SURE YOU READ EVERY LINE OF YOUR LEASE if you sign here because they trick you and take your money for random things that were «in the lease» but never explicitly pointed out. Don’t trust these people.

After reading all of the reviews on the Villas, honestly I was a little scared to move in at first, but after living here a month, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. The office staff is wonderful, extremely nice and so helpful, maintenance is a God-​send and the apartments are great! No alarms have gone off, the water is just fine and I never have an issue finding a parking space (if people are complaining about parking it’s because they are lazy and don’t want to park anywhere except their floor. There are always parking spaces available on the top floor of the garage. ALWAYS). There is a call box so you can let people in, I have seen no mold issues or water pipes busted. The stairwells may be a little smelly, but good heavens, people… have you never lived in an apartment before?! Everyone that I have talked to here is really nice (when you have a dog, you meet all the dog people in the courtyards for potty breaks). I never hear other people when I am in my apartment. Like ever. Not on Friday or Saturday nights. Not on Halloween, not ever. It’s quiet and is perfect for what my husband and I need. Also, the staff left notes on our doors when they were doing room checks so we would have a heads up. I’m pretty sure that all of the complaints on here are for the same incidences (boiler going out), so take the bad reviews with a grain of salt. I’ll update the review as I live here longer, but so far I love it!

I’ve been a resident here for 3.5 years and they have come a LONG way since 2012!!!
For starters; yes, the water used to be shut off all the time but the only reason for that was because they were replacing pipes and renovating the building. (The Leasing Office and Resident/​Coffee area is brand new). They have re-​painted the hallways and constantly keep the landscaping beautiful.
If your complaint is about the noise (it’s ONLY on Fridays and Saturday nights — if that) try to remember… You live in Uptown. You have bars and clubs just footsteps from the front door. You will begin to have a Love/​Hate relationship with Katy Trail Ice House being in the backyard.
This is a very affordable building for the sq ft that you get.
I’ve ALWAYS felt safe here.
Parking garage is small, but there is always parking on the roof. Guest parking is rather difficult, but I like to look at it from a security standpoint.
Maintenance team is outstanding!

This place is AWFUL. I lived here 2013 – 2015:
–Water would be off without notice but water bill would always be the same amount ?
— parking garage was horrible. thank goodness I drove a tiny car. I feel bad for the people with any car bigger than a mini or a fiat. But I still ended up with dents and scratches on my car
— fire alarms would go off numerous times and always at 3 or 4 in the morning. If there were ever to be a real fire nobody would take it seriously and that would be a terrible outcome.
— if water wasn’t off then the hot water would be
— the office staff changes very frequently. It’s sad.
— whoever the girl is or was working the leasing office around may/​June 2015 is very rude. It wouldn’t hurt you to smile or be friendly to people.
— I had to turn in my keys on a Sunday and we went down to turn them in and found the leasing office was closed at 4pm when the sign and website say they are open until 6pm. I went back Monday morning to drop off keys and explained to them that they were closed when we came downstairs and she said it was fine and she put my move out date for the day before. They still charged me for Sunday and some of Monday and took it out of my deposit.
— a month before I was to move out one of the staff members put a sign in my mailbox stating I already moved out. I didn’t know this and I was expecting a package (a wedding gift for a friend) and when it was the day for it to be delivered I received an email that it was being sent back to the shipper bc I didn’t live there anymore. When I went downstairs to ask why that note was in my mailbox she replied with «I don’t know.» In a tone like «not my problem so leave me alone» and when I asked her who put it in my box she replied again with «I don’t know.» This entire time she didn’t even LOOK at me as if I were wasting her time.
DO NOT LIVE HERE! DO NOT LIVE HERE! DO NOT LIVE HERE!!! DO NOT LIVE HERE!!!

Have you ever lived in a place that when you saw people touring, you wanted to tell them they need to run! I lived in this building from March 2014– May 2015. Where can I start on the worst living experience in my life, and I lived in some disgusting places in NYC.
–Apartments have flooding issues constantly, this is the cause of the musty smell in your apartment
–The fire alarms work quite well, as they went off 30 – 40 times a YEAR!
–boiler went down for 2 weeks of cold showers after the ice storm.
–Painted my ceiling, getting paint on my furniture. They told me to buy new stuff, and that I would be reimbursed. When I submitted, they told me they had no record of this and would not reimburse me.
–they have extremely high turnover, expect them to change out leasing employees every quarter.
For $ 150 more, you can just move into one of the luxury apartments in Uptown and save yourself this headache. (Literally got headaches from mold in the walls, that have gone away since moving)

Possibly the worst apartment complex. Awesome location but not worth dealing with the worst management staff. Fire alarms constantly going off, constant floor flooding and construction. Staff will enter your apartment without notice. They will fine for absurd things. Do not fall into their trap.

worst apartment complex ever. the location is the only nice thing about it. i lived here 2 years and my water was off for probably ¹⁄₃ of the time due to their plumbing issues. the current management is awful (jenny and amy). they nickle and dime you when you move out for every littlr thing they can. i would never live here again. my car was broken in to as well as my boyfriends. stay far far way and choose somewhere else to live. the price is not worth the hassle.

I am a current resident of The Villas at Katy Trail, and highly recommend to not live here! I have only a few months left in my lease and I can not wait until my move out date.
I’ll make it quick, simple, and to the point:
–The place is very outdated
–Water pipe bursts ALL the time
–No leisure of using the call box to let guests in
–Management is careless and unhelpful, nor value their residents
–Water shut offs ALL the time
–Lack of hot water after the water has been shut off all day
–Parking garage is horrific
The only element I have enjoyed while living here is the location.
This place is not worth living at, and do not recommend it to anyone moving to Uptown/​Dallas area.

I just want to reiterate what everyone said about this place. I was waiting till I moved out to write this review. I have lived in multiple apartments in Chicago, Nashville, and Houston, and this one was by far the worst apartment I have ever lived in. I chose it for the location, but it was not worth it. They shut off the water ALL the time. It is extremely frustrating coming home from work and not having water. The management staff is extremely unhelpful. They hit with you multiple charges upon moving out and are extremely unreasonable. Stay away from this place

DO NOT LIVE HERE! Worst complex ever! They turn off the water constantly and do not offer any form of compensation to the residents. They also have the worst office staff of all time! I am a very easy going renter and have never complained to management, but Villas does not value their renters at all. I would not recommend this apt to any one. The only thing they have going for this the location. Honestly not worth it! They also try to slam you with fees upon moving out. STAY AWAY!!!

I have lived here since September 2013 and have some words of advise for those looking to live here. If you like living in the unknown of when your water might be shut off, the garage gate broken, or the suspenseful midnight fire alarm going off every couple of weeks when it’s cold out — this is your place.
The building needs serious repairs, and instead of fixing major problems, they do quick fixes. Both of my neighbors apartments suffered serious flooding damage from pipes bursting — I pray every day my apartment does not suffer the same destiny. It’s been almost 3 weeks of having our water shut off during the day for more «repairs» which is really inconvenient when you have a dog that needs water. One weekend they decided to wait and fix the pool when it was hot out, instead of fixing during the week. Whenever I call the office to raise any concerns, I feel like they never care.
It’s a great location and cheap pricing for the area, but not worth your time to live here. Spend a little more so you don’t have these types of hassles. So many problems with the front leasing office too — it seems like they can barely keep anyone there to work long term. Overall, I recommend not living here if you can.

There are two main problems with this place. The first problem is that this place is aging so things will break all of the time. This place is simply falling apart. Rodney and David are the best that I have ever dealt with.
The main issue is that the management are not capable of working together as a team. The leadership is in the form of a title. They will send out separate emails and letters stating different things in regards to your account. It is rather annoying that they cant get it together! I’m m

Here comes another horrible review. Cons first:
Like everyone else says, the water is turned off on a weekly basis. In the past 3 months the water has been off 26 times, yes I said 26! Usually they turn is off 9am-​4pm so that it’s «more convenient» — ha, yes the water being turned off during lunch time, workout time, non-​traditional worker time, college student time — that sure is convenient. There have been a few times where the water is off for more than 12 hours because an apartment has flooded. Everyone I talked to that lived here has said the water issue has been going on for years. Just get used to it because all management will say is «sorry.»
The stairwells do stink. Management hires a cleaning company to come clean the hallway carpets every other week but they can’t manage to clean the stairwells? Oh yeah, that excessive amount of water that the cleaning company is using on the carpets (which aren’t in need of cleaning that often) are using YOUR community water. So expect your «community water bill» to be higher than normal.
We moved in late August and have still not received our door access key fobs. Management tells us «they will be programmed tomorrow afternoon so come back then.» Guess what? 6 Months later and they are still not ready so in the meantime, we use these excessively large and ancient fobs. How convenient!
Parking garage is a nightmare. Good luck trying to park your average size car in any of the spots. Also, the ends of each level are now parking spots so good luck turning the corner and not getting hit by oncoming traffic. Expect a lot of dings on your car because of the tight spaces and driving areas. If you get home late, expect to park on the roof. If it’s the weekend, expect to park 3 blocks away since «guests» are taking up the parking on the roof and the street. They say guests aren’t allowed to use the parking garage and that rule is «strictly enforced» — no way. You won’t catch anyone out there checking parking stickers.
Pros:
The maintenance guys are great. They fix any problems you have in a timely manner and are the coolest guys in the building.
Cheapest place in the area with great access to Katy Trail. You would think that the most affordable place in the area would still be pretty nice. No, it’s the SLUMS of Uptown.
If you don’t like taking showers on a regular basis, appreciate dings on the side of your car, and attentive management then this is your dream place.

I lived at Villas at Katy Trail for a year and it was miserable from the day I moved in. They had to push my move in day back &didnt tell me until the day I showed up to move into the building. They said it was because they were fixing up my apartment but when I showed up nothing looked like it had been touched prior to the previous resident moving out.
A couple weeks in the apartment turned our water off an entire week due to pipes busting because the building was so old. Luckily for me my parents live nearby and I could shower there but other residents had to get passes to use a nearby gyms shower. After this every month the hot water would be turned off for“water issues”&residents would have to endure ice cold showers for a few days.
In June I was out of town and my apartment flooded. I showed up 2 days later shocked to find industrial size fans in my room when none of the management had bothered to call & let me know that a pipe on the 4^th floor of the building had busted &ruined quite a bit of my apartment. As if thats not the worst when I did finally get a hold of the management they told me that I needed to deal with my renters insurance company in order to seek any monetary justifications. My apartment carpet was soaked, wood floors were warped, cabinets were dripping water &the whole place smelt horrible – all due to the building being old &not maintained properly. But it was up to my renters insurance to help – not Gaines Investment Trust or Villas at Katy Trail. At this point I was angry/​upset with the horrible level of customer service that I wanted to move out. Unfortunately for me the apartment wouldnt let me break my lease. I only had two more months of my lease so I decided to suck it up and stay. In the meantime I signed a lease at a nice place across the street &prayed time would pass quickly enough for me to move out.
Right after they replaced my wood floors (they didnt bother with the carpets &then charged me at move out for a «heavy soil carpet treatment»)my apartment flooded AGAIN. This time I had to go &let the management know about the flood because they had no idea another pipe had broken just above my room on the first floor. They brought back a fan &some rags to dry it up &called it a day. Didnt bother to replace my now warped again floors for the rest of my stay – talk about embarrassing having friends come over and see unfinished/​uneven wood floors. I never got a cut on my rent for either floods or inconveniences. When I asked they said it would be up to my renter’s insurance to reimburse me.
I finally moved out and thought I was done with the place. Boy was I wrong. I had submitted my 60 day notice only 50 days prior to moving out. I asked the apartment to try &lease my apartment early so I wouldn’t have to pay for the additional 10 days that I wouldn’t need the place. They told me that was fine &when it came time to pay my last rent they acted as if I would only be paying for the days I would be there and not the additional 10 days as a“courtesy“for the bad experience I had at their property. When I paid my last rent I even called the front desk to make sure I was only paying the days I would be there and not the days I wouldnt be there. The nice young lady assured me my correct move out date was the 10^th &not the 20^th and I wouldnt be sent any more charges from the company.
Two months after I have been gone from the apartment I am sent a letter in the mail letting me know that if I don’t pay the apartment $ 367 for the last 10 days of my lease and that should they not have the payment in 10 days they will be reporting me to a collection agency &will make sure that it affects my credit report which will then make it difficult to obtain financing a home later on if I try to – sounds like a threat. They told me it was my decision to move out early & they didn’t have my lease ending until the 20^th.
I’m shocked at this letter &think that there must be some sort of mistake so I call Gaines Investment Trust in California who owns Villas at Katy Trail and speak with a Collections Manager. Originally I never hear back from him so I try him again and get ahold of him. He tells me that he will look into it and let me know. I get an email a few days later letting me know that I dont have to pay the bill because he audited my account and found an error. They would actually be refunding me a small amount. I could finally leave with a good taste in my mouth.NOPE.The next day I get another email letting me know that he made a mistake and I do in fact owe the $ 367.Ive been on the phone all morning with the leasing office and the manager has acted like she had done SO much for me during my stay when in reality she did nothing. When I asked why my rent amount posted online at the time was only for 10 days and not 20 they said their acct dept must have made a mistake on my move out date but I was still responsible for the payment despite the mistake on their end. I WOULD RECOMMEND LIVING UNDER A BRIDGE BEFORE HERE.

So I have been waiting for a year now to write this review! I wanted to wait to write it until after I had moved out of this rat hole and received my security deposit. But seeing as it will probably take them 2 years to send me my security deposit, I cant wait any longer! This property is literally worse than the section 8 housing down the street. This is a long review so if you just want a summary, do not let the somewhat low prices fool you, The Villas at Katy Trail is the most disgusting & horrible property in uptown! Literally, they violate tenant laws all the time, such as not providing running water, and I am pretty sure if the health department came out they would probably have major issues!
Where to start?
The water is shut off ALL the time. Why? No one can ever provide any kind of answer. It was shut off for 13 days in Feb alone! The consistent answer seems to be because of a maintenance issue, the water for the entire building had to be shut off. The water would be off for hours, sometimes a whole day at a time. As for how the management handled this: one of two ways — either turning their phone off so they wouldn’t have to deal with angry residents or telling every single person, regardless of when they called, that that water would be turned back on in 15 minutes. Literally one time the water was off all day and by midnight that night, I had to melt ice in the microwave to wash my face and brush my teeth (a tip courtesy of another desperate resident).
Parking — oh the best part! So the garage is designed really poorly. My car was hit in the garage once and towed twice, regardless of the fact that I had my parking sticker in my window both times. The property only refunded me the towing fee one of the times. They claim to have security cameras but when my car got hit, they conveniently couldn’t find it on the security camera. The property has contracted a towing company to tow people without stickers in their windows. If you look up this towing company on the BBB website, they have countless complaints that this company is fraudulent and tows cars from private property regardless of whether the person is lawfully parked or not. The gate to the garage is broken ALL of the time and they just keep it open. This is a problem as they wheel the dumpsters to the bottom of the garage and leave them there for hours. Homeless people then dig through the dumpsters and sometimes wander into the garage, which is obviously not very safe. I called the office about this on a Sunday and they said it would be fixed the next morning. Of course it wasnt. I called on Monday and they said that it would be fixed the next morning. It was 3 days before it was fixed. The office just tells people whatever they find convenient at the time. As far as guest parking, there are about 8 spots for the entire building on the bottom floor of the parking garage & maybe room for 5 cars on Kittrell street. Due to the construction of ANOTHER apartment complex, they have taken away all parking on Fairmount and there is no parking on Maple. If you have guests, they are forced to park all of the way on Turtle Creek, which was somewhat dangerous at night esp when people were being robbed on the Katy Trail.
The property is absolutely disgusting! I would compare it to a frat house but I am not going to insult a frat house like that. This place is like the most dirtiest, filthiest, most disgusting dorm on campus. There is consistently puke, trash, and unknown liquids ALL over the apartment — in the hallways, in the stairwells, in the garage. And every single time my parents came to visit they would always comment on how bad the place smelled. After a Saturday or Sunday, go out and look at the pool. You cannot even see the grass because it is completely covered with cans & trash.
The «game room» was recently redecorated. It is horrifyingly ugly. I dont really know who decorated it but literally it’s like the worst of the 80s décor. The gym is laughable. There are like 2 working machines and not one pair of weights that are matching. I would estimate the tv is from the late 90s.
The inside of the apartments appear nice but wait until you live there for a little bit. You will find bugs and random things will break. Good luck getting maintenance to fix it. It will probably be about a month until it is fixed after you put in your request.
As far as the management company, we recently switched over to a new management company, probably because the last management company was SO terrible. I can’t really say too much about the new management company since I didnt have that many interactions with them but if they are anything like the last management company, they will be rude & completely incompetent! Really all i can say about the new management company is they tell people what is most convenient when people have a problem and it has been a week since I have moved out and they still havent done a walk through of my apt.
DONT LIVE HERE!

Yes, the Villas at Katy Trail does have the water shut down more than it should, sometimes the stairwells do smell, and parking can be a b*tch, etc. However, you cannot deny that it is completely affordable to live here, it’s an amazing location (private Katy Trail path, walking distance from Katy Trail Ice House, Sfuzzi, Primebar, Nick & Sams/​Grill, Common Table, etc.), and the apartments are relatively nice inside. I can’t complain. I pay half the price of anyone else who lives in Uptown and I get to enjoy all the same benefits. I can deal with a couple missed showers and smelly stairwells for that.

The Villas at Katy Trail… Or projects of uptown, or even sometimes comparable to towers at UT. The water shuts off at least twice a month, with regular flooding of peoples apts. The fire alarms go off for no reason. Stuff is always broken, the carpets smell, as do the stairwells.
I would not live here!!! — My move out day has been creeping up, I cant wait to leave.