Outlook Garden Apartments

I lived here for 2 years (2011 – 2013) with one roommate in a one bedroom with a loft. The loft was used as a second bedroom. The apartment is a little dated, but it has great lighting, a small outdoor space, lovely gardens, tons of parking, and is right across from the bus stop. Phyllis and the management are very friendly and helpful as are the maintenance staff. My only complaints would be that there was always (loud) construction being done somewhere and my rent kept going up. When we signed our first lease, rent was $ 1,600 and our last lease it was $ 1,900 – and that was after talking to the management to try to bring it down. Overall, a great place to live and I highly recommend.

my wife and I have lived at these apartments for the last year and they are Great!
the views and the poperty are beautiful. The staff is great and very helpful, and they have the best prices in Santa Cruz! totally recommend them

Outlook Apartments is the designated Plan B of all UCSC students.
And what a great backup plan it is: if you don’t have the connections to find a moderately price flat, or you just don’t have enough people to rent out a house, Outlook always has a 1 bedroom available for you. At a hefty $ 1200/​month of course.
These units are nice – a 1 bedroom is more space than most couples know what to do with. They are clean, they are quiet. There’s ample parking. And aside form having to wait for the impractical line 20 every hour, this is a damn convenient spot in Santa Cruz. Get a bike or a skateboard.
Maintenance staff is extremely attentive. The main service man, Dario, is a sweetheart. Phyllis (the manager) is genuinely nice – and wants a chance to prove it – provided you’re not acting like a punk.
She is acting on behalf of the owner, however, and it’s that man who cuts two of the stars off of a great, albeit slightly pricey– apartment. Outlook is in a college town so 9 month leases ought to be the expected norm. Staying at Outlook for only 9 months means a charge on top of the normal monthly rent.
Additionally, the owner automatically takes $ 80 off for «dry cleaning the drapes». I’ve never seen anyone touch – let alone clean – those hanging burlap sacks. And additional money will be deducted to fix (what most would classify as) ordinary wear-​and-​tear.
If you can prove that you steam cleaned your own apartment, you’ll save another wad of cash as well.
I took very good care of my apartment and was able to recover my deposit plus interest and minus a hundred or so in charges. After two academic years at Outlook, I will say that I’ve met great friends at Outlook and had no truly awful experience while living there.
And if you have nowhere else to go – how could you ask for more?

Cute development. Definite stoner vibe from the guy who gave us a tour the other day. Sounds like it’s mostly UCSC students, so not the best fit for me (as a UCSC employee). Reasonably priced but I get the sense that it’s a bit of a dormitory feel to it.

I’ve lived at Outlook for eleven months now. My housemate is moving out to live with her boyfriend, so my boyfriend and I will be moving out of our current apartment. We’re seriously considering moving into an Outlook one-​bedroom.
So, let’s start with the bad, get it out of the way, shall we?
MOLD. There is a lot of mold. Mold grew on our curtains (due to the fact that our single-​paned sliding glass doors shear water every morning inside). Thankfully, my housemate convinced them to replace said curtains. When they did this, they moved the curtains about an inch and a half further from the wall, and we have not had mold THERE since.
Mold in the bathroom. We leave our fan on from 5 minutes before the shower starts through about twenty minutes after the shower ends. Molds still grows on the walls, especially above the shower. We bleach it out about every other month. About every other month we throw away and purchase a new shower curtain liner due to mold.
Sometimes, there are loud parties until all hours. Conversely, sometimes neighbors complain that your television set is turned up too loud at 8pm on Halloween night. This hasn’t been a serious issue.
The kitchens are small. The fridges are a bit undersized as well.
The owner likes to think he’s anonymous. I’m almost certain his name is Jim Shultz. They don’t always follow the lease exactly, but thusfar that’s mostly been in my favor.
Now for the good:
Beautiful grounds. Seriously. Nicest place ever. Though be warned, they say the pool is «heated». It is hooked up to a few small solar panels. It is never more than 3 degrees warmer than an «unheated» pool would be, and they don’t run said «heater» in the winter. That said, the pool and spa are well-​maintained.
Best maintenance staff EVER. Our oven once started throwing lightening around inside when it was off (no joke). One of us ran outside, found a man trimming a tree, and said «something is really wrong with our oven, help» (the office was closed for lunch). He came in, at which point my boyfriend had figured out how to turn off the oven via breaker. We turned the breaker on, the man saw the lightening inside, we turned it off.
Within twenty minutes, the oven was out of our house. Within four hours, we had a sparkly clean replacement oven which has served us well ever since. You can’t ask for better than that.
Decent pricing. We’re paying $ 1800ish for a 2 bedroom that’s a decent size, water, sewer and trash included. If we move to a 1 bedroom, it’ll be about $ 1300, but their one bedrooms are surprisingly large. Much better than other apartment complexes on the route 20.
Large patios, room to garden. Relatively private on the ground floor as well. The place has a lot more beauty and a lot more privacy than other complexes (I used to live at Pacific Shores, and oy the never-​used deck and lack of trees was heartbreaking). They allow full-​size BBQs on the porches, which is great in the summer.
The closets are HUGE, though I recommend removing one of the doors because at least in the 2 bed, there are three panels, which makes for not a lot of space to actually get in the closet. They come on and off pretty easy if you know what you’re doing. We currently have two people’s clothes, a bookshelf, and a dresser in our closet. I mean HUGE.
I mean, the place is kinda old (like, 60s or 70s old). The carpets shed, the walls are a little warped, there’s asbestos in the ceilings. They’re not top-​of-​the-​line, sparkly new apartments. But my experiences with the staff have all been positive, the rent is decent, and I’m generally happy with where I live. I’ll give an update when I move, whether I move out altogether or move into a new apartment, to see what my experiences with deposits and moving look like.

Be warned that you will not get your full entitled deposit back and need to be prepared to sue! You should pay great attention to this detail up front before signing your contract, the contract holds you to the same exact level of assumed cleanliness as you moved in and redefines normal wear and tear to exclude what is typically normal wear and tear!
After having spent the shortest lease time available, I was facing hundreds of dollars in compulsive security deposit deductions for carpets, painting, shampooing drapes (cheapest oldest drapes ever), cleaning. Although I had to be incredibly aggressive with the agent, I managed to settle with self shampooing the carpets, and got all my security deposit back. Friends of mine have not been so aggressive and lucky and had up to $ 1200 deductions for whats typically normal wear and tear according to the law.
Since the setting is incredibly nice, and there is pool, hot tub, laundry, and washing machine– it’s nice living there just bad moving out.

2.5 stars
The grounds at the Outlook are lovely and they take amazing care of the place; they have maintenance guys on duty 5 days a week, and I swear, they replace the flowers/​foliage weekly. Apartments are decent; 1 br are about 600 sq ft, and the loft apts about 800. Prices are fairly reasonable, especially since they’ve come down with the recession — see for yourself — you may be able to get a deal.
I feel for the person who had major issues with the management and the plumbing… we had some of the same issues (plus some), yet we demanded that they be taken care of and we be reimbursed. Fortunately, most of our issues were resolved, however, a great deal of the time, living here was less than satisfactory.
Yes, although the management is there (and very accessible), they’ve got some real issues. I dont think the problems are with the manager, but with the owner, who’s a lawyer, is completely uninvolved, and has a huuuge stick up his ass, making him a cheap bastard. Don’t blame Phyllis, blame the asshole that owns the place.
My biggest gripe is that they didn’t honor everything in the contracts; ie: we had EXTREMELY disruptive neighbors who we complained about endlessly, however, they were never evicted. This was awful.
Another issue: MOLD. really bad mold. so bad that we had to move apartments (during finals no less). This was a huge pain in the ass, but fortunately the maintenance guys were awesome and helped us out with the big stuff.
To sum it up:
The good:
nice grounds, pool, hot tub, lots of parking, freaking awesome maintenance guys (nicest guys you’ll ever meet)
The bad:
Terrible owner makes for shoddy management, leases/​contracts aren’t completely honored, the most you’ll get back on your $ 1000 security deposit is $ 700. no exceptions.
Living here wasn’t awful, but now that I’m in my new place I can really see the difference… I sure do miss the stellar maintenance staff though!

been living here for 2 yrs now, its a really good deal for this part of sc for the price! nice and quiet, however parking can sometimes be an issue if you have multiple vehicles per apt! its clean and the management is friendly!