Ocean Crest Apartments

Living there was fine but moving out is where they get you. Consider whatever deposit money you put down to be gone. Rather than charging you a reasonable carpet cleaning fee when you move out, they use it as an opportunity to replace the carpet by having your deposit pay for it. I would love to see their statistics on how many ex tenants get any of their deposits back. I personally scrubbed every floor, toilet, tub, wall, appliance, and door, as well as vacuuming the heck out of the carpet before leaving. Yet they still took my entire $ 950 deposit and had the nerve to ask me for $ 84 more. Renter BEWARE!!!

I’ve lived at Ocean Crest for going on 4 years now, and I have had a great experience overall. I originally moved here because I used to work for Equity and worked at this property, but I have stayed the last two years since leaving the company because I like it so much. The location is hard to beat, and for the area the pricing is actually pretty reasonable. I have compiled a list of pros and cons below. Hope it helps anyone who is thinking of renting here.
PROS:
— Staff: James (Property Manager) and Jim (Service Manager) have been here for years and are both great guys. They are helpful, polite, and really go out of their way for the residents. Mark (Maintenance Tech) and Veronica (Leasing Consultant) are also very friendly and helpful. The whole staff does a great job of keeping the place looking clean and running smoothly.
— Location: Less than a mile from the beach! Close to excellent restaurants like Tony’s, Pillbox, T’s Café, Brigantine and more. Also within walking distance of Del Mar racetrack, which comes in handy when enjoying multiple adult beverages there. :)
— Garages. Yes, I am one of the lucky folks with a garage. Not easy to find garages at properties in coastal areas.
— Rent can be paid online very easily. Leases are all electronic. No paper needed!
— Apartment interiors have been renovated recently.
— Pet friendly property
— Easy transfer policy
CONS:
— Property was built in 1986 and some of the exterior stucco walls could use a little TLC.
— Parking spaces on north and south side of property can be pretty tight depending on what type of car you have. That being said, I have two cars and never have any issues finding street parking a block or two away.
To summarize, Ocean Crest has been a very good home to me and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking in the north county coastal area. The staff takes care of you, the neighbors are friendly, and the location is amazing!

OK. I am going on year FIVE here at Ocean Crest Apartments in Solana Beach… as I sit here by their beautiful clean sparkling pool and hot tub. conversing with the fun, darling .well mannered kids and their watchful, hands on parents… I feel blessed to live in such a beautiful, safe community!
Everything is cozy, well landscaped, safe and pleasant and friendly. speaking of friendly. a great dog friendly home for sure!
James.the Property Manager is so proficient with everything he provides for us here. and very funny with his sense of humor… always goes above and beyond… as I mentioned in my last review. a few years ago… I may just have to stay here forever! Paradise at its best!

A recent review by «Paul G.» covers very well the pros and cons of living at Ocean Crest. In general, our (my wife and I) experience has mirrored his. It’s generally a nice place to live with attentive staff, phenomenal location, and decent residents. Parking is tight and frequently an issue because other residents aren’t necessarily that considerate of others’ parking spaces, but in general it works out. The area does smell like dog urine a lot because many residents have dogs and walk them to the peripheral areas to pee. Enough pee and viola, the air everywhere just smells like urine. Of course, there are some residents who don’t bother to walk their pets to the surrounding periphery and just let them use the grounds on the interior of the complex.
But that’s not a very major complaint for us because it’s not too bad and certainly not intolerable… it’s just something you notice sometimes.
Right now we’re pissed because we just had some of our laundry stolen from the shared laundry facility. Several hours ago we took it to the laundry room, put it in the washer and started it washing. Then an hour ago we went back to discover that someone had dried our laundry (sheets, etc.) and folded them nicely for us… but had taken our mattress protector ($ 50) as well as two nice towels we’d bought from Costco, and a nice shirt of mine. Seriously, people? It was our only mattress protector and our daughter is still potty training and occasionally wets the bed! Super lame and extremely irritating. Now I feel like we have to sit in the laundry room and watch our laundry for the entire cycle to ensure that no one steals it. Plus, now we have to spend $ 50 more dollars for another mattress protector, another $ 15 for another couple nice towels at Costco, and I have to buy another shirt (it was one of three that I own).
In any case, what’s sad is that we have no recourse for reclaiming our property because there are no security cameras in the laundry room… which really doesn’t make sense when it’s an area where everyone brings their private property, and which is so poorly monitored. It’s just asking for personal belongings to be stolen! That said the laundry facility is very nice with excellent machines which actually do an effective and speedy job of washing clothes. However, we will be very leery of using the facilities in the future since our laundry has been stolen.
And the truth is that this incident – even though no fault of Ocean Crest’s – reduces our satisfaction living here and will be remembered when we evaluate whether to stay or go sooner or later and whether to recommend living here to others. I only blame Ocean Crest for not providing a security camera. Just the presence of the camera would likely dramatically reduce the incidence of theft – and should theft occur, it would provide a much better chance of catching the culprits.
So in general, in every other way, we agree with Paul G’s review… but are very unhappy to have had our stuff stolen out of the laundry room.

Just following up here. The office attended to any issues I had at the time time I wrote the review.
We moved out a couple months ago. For those concerned about shady landlords who steal their deposit, this place was great. For ONLY $ 80 we used their cleaning service and the carpet cleaning was very cheap. Essentially we received our entire deposit back.
Thanks again to the staff at Ocean Crest

I’ve lived in Ocean Crest for 6 months and I LOVE it!!!
This is a VERY quiet complex and people are VERY nice. The pool and hot tub were recently redone and they look great.
The older reviews on this complex are OLD… I’m a single woman, living alone and have NEVER EVER felt unsafe here and I walk my dog at all hours of the day and night. I made a major life transition when moving into Ocean Crest and I have no regrets about living here. There IS mobile security and while there are no gates, etc… they’re not needed, people are honest and hardworking. For instance, one day, I accidentally left my garage door open for probably 12 hours and nothing was missing… People respect others’ property.
The ONLY negative thing is the amount of the water bill. But take into account, you live less than a mile to the PACIFIC Ocean… and it’s a VERY minor issue :)
In the office, James and Ryan are GREAT guys and SUPER friendly and helpful! Jim, Jerry and Mark, our awesome maintenance guys, are all friendly and skilled handymen! I also feel that all these guys are trustworthy, which provides peace of mind, for sure. I allow them to be in my apartment anytime they need to be, even when I’m not home.
For instance, Jerry, in maintenance, recently helped my boyfriend corner my runaway mutt on the property!
The combination of the caring and responsiveness of both our guys in the office and our maintenance guys, makes living at Ocean Crest a DREAM, for this Ohio /​SoCal girl :) Thank you to all of them!!!
I would recommend living here to ANYONE! Not to mention that Solana Beach is a WONDERFUL little coastal community!!!

I moved in here with my bf in October, so far so good.
It’s quiet theirs friendly neighbors. I like that everyone is so dogriendly here! There was a little pest problem from the previous renters having pets but management had Orkin in here asap and they took care of it.
The location is awesome so close to the beach and yummy restaurants!
Get a loft on the third flooor and you’ll be sleeping like a baby. :)

THIS IS A HORRIBLE PLACE TO LIVE!!! They will try and rip you off for every cent you have and the costs are NOT WORTH WHAT YOU GET!!! Sandra likes to spin things and it is hilarious she only gave the place 3 stars. All of the property employees are LIARS and just want your comission. There er TONS of places that are so much better and so much cheaper. I am so glad I only signed a 6 month lease there!!! That place is a total P.O.S.
They are now trying to take my full deposit — charging $ 300 for carpet — when i lived there for 6 months. DO NOT SIGN A LEASE HERE!!!

AVOID THIS PLACE LIKE THE PLAGUE!
Don’t be fooled by Sandra’s review here… she is the manager at Ocean Crest. My only question is why you gave your own apartment complex 3 stars.
The first review by Ali is spot-​on! This place is a dump, filled with criminals and drug dealers. I witnessed multiple fist fights and even a drug deal in the parking lot making walking anywhere outside of my apartment a nightmare. Oh and who can forget the night my neighbor went crazy and shot his gun ten times in his apartment. Waking up to the sound of gun shots next door and then being rushed out of my apartment by cops in the middle of the night… not a night I want to ever repeat. So let’s recap… an armed break-​in, girl being held by knife-​point in the elevator, and a shooting!!! Why on Earth would anyone ever risk their lives to live here. The people who work at the complex don’t live onsite… that should be a clear sign! Oh and they do totally double charging their tenants for water! We pay for laundry on-​site and then you get hit up for a $ 90 water bill when you are living in a one bathroom apartment!!! I’m sorry I have been living in apartments for 8 years now and the water bill a Ocean Crest is triple what it should be. There is NO WAY I used triple the water at that place! I can easily see them billing their residents for the water they use at their laundry facility and probably the water in the pool for that matter. Ugh, oh how I hated living here!
Seriously I can’t stress this enough… stay away from this place if you care about your safety!!!

We lived here for a whole 6 months before we left. Granted, we loved how big the apartments were. The layouts were huge. The staff (Sandra) were amazing as well. but there are always cons with a place
1) within the six months that we moved in, there were two crime incidents. Having worked at nights and coming home the same time and using the same elevator that the girl was assaulted in just honestly scared me. I just didnt feel safe so we left.
2) there’s a bit of a bug problem, but maintenance came over within the week to spray the place.
3) Laundry is horrible. Dont even try going on a Tuesday afternoon, because they are overtaken by 2 ladies that take over not 1, not 2, but ALL of the 12 washers and dryers, and they pretend that you’re either not there, they dont understand English… or both… it was infuriating.
4) The whole «switch to a different equity apartment without breaking your lease» is a joke. We were more inclined to leave after the crime incident because were initially told that we could relocate to any Equity Apartment complex without having to break our lease. We assumed there would be a minimal cost to going to another place. WRONG.
Turns out if you switch to an apartment with a cheaper rate, they penalize you with an additional $ 500 charge; if it is more expensive, you’ll only have to pay $ 175 something. just lovely…
and here’s the kicker. we did have to break our lease, because we had to sign a new 12 month lease with the new equity apartment, put down a deposit AND pay for another application and credit check fee.

Yes, it is true; there was some crime in 2010 at this community. However, I would like to make a correction to the «stabbed» and «raped» portion which is exaggerated. Back in September/​October, a young woman entered an elevator and to join a Hispanic teenage boy. When the elevator door closed, he grabbed her from behind and held a knife to her neck. The young woman was brave and was able to open the elevator door by hitting the buttons with her feet and escaped the boy. Thankfully, she suffered minor injuries. The management cooperated with law enforcement, held a community meeting to make residents aware, switched courtesy patrol service, and increased guard service in response to this event. As a result, the culprit was caught, arrested, and evicted from the community. There is now a uniformed guard on property over night, all night long. For the record, (to my knowledge) no one has ever been stabbed, raped, or killed at this community. The apartment that was entered and held at gunpoint, the intruders were looking for someone who did not and had never lived in the apartment. Unfortunately, crime can happen anywhere and it is everyone’s responsibility to take proper precautions to remain «safe». No one was harmed. The reason why this resident knows about these incidents was because management felt that it was important for the residents to know and sent out communication to the community.
The new courtesy patrol gives daily reports to the management team and has successfully removed any loiterers or partiers from the community making it a much quieter place at night.
The management also pays a fair percentage of the water bill to cover any common area usage and residents are not charged for this.

OCEAN CREST APARTMENTS SUCK!!! I lived there for 2 years, just moved out last April. When I lived there someone broke into my house and molested me and my roomate. I know exactly what Jack M. is saying, the girl that was knifed in the elevator lived in my old apartment, one of her roomates works with my boyfriend. Besides that, late at night I would have people hanging out outside my door, charging their cell phones, drinking, smoking weed out of cans, you name it, I saw it all. Then after all I had been through, when I moved out, they (they being that IDIOT that works in the office, SANDRA, I think her name is) took my deposit and charged me for paint after living there for two years that was normal wear and tear, claiming «it was the amount of nail holes.» The only word I can think to describe her as would be dumbass… well I can think of a few more but I will keep it PG. Anyways SAVE YOURSELF!!! DO NOT MOVE INTO OCEANCREST!!! It is dirty, roach infested, ill-​managed and a complete rip off.

DO NOT RENT HERE! The location is good, and that’s it. The security is non-​existant. No cameras, no gates, no guards. I’ve lived here for under a year and one apartment has been robbed at gun-​point. Just last week, a resident was assaulted at knife-​point in the elevators! Parking is a joke. There is no guest parking, and people are always parking in my assigned spot. The residents are loud, rude, and ignorant. I’m talking about 3am fist-​fights in the parking lot, playing music at full volume at all hours, yelling and screaming, slamming doors, and generally behaving like uncivilized children. The management is totally indifferent. Also, there are laundry facilities on-​site that the residents pay to use. We also get charged a huge water bill ($ 85 for a one bedroom), which makes me think they double charge residents to use the washers. RENT ELSEWHERE. There are lots of nice, comparably priced complexes in the area.