Campus and Central Properties

Wow, it is truly sad that these people are still in business. My ex and I rented a condo from them back in ²⁰⁰¹⁄₂₀₀₂. That was a long time ago, but it looks like they have been consistent in their near-​criminal treatment of their tenants.
We signed a lease in the Fall, so we were offered a fair price through mid-​August. Most things went well. Besides the occasional trouble with getting maintenance requests attended to, there wasn’t a whole lot that went wrong. Until…
August rent came due and money was tight. I decided to wait a day or two for my paycheck to clear before dropping the check off after work on a Saturday afternoon. By this point it was the 3^rd of the month. Not too bad. We had told them we were moving out-​of-​state, so what transpired may have been justified in their minds, but c’mon. We’re talking about the minds of some pretty narcissistic sociopaths.
I left for work that morning with the rent check. Halfway through my 4 hour shift my ex calls me up all bothered because someone had come to show the apartment and when the door chain stopped them, they got upset. She, still in pajamas, had told them to go away and call first before showing our unit. After that they left. I told her it’d be okay. She decided to get in the shower.
I received another call from her not 5 minutes later all panicked because now there was someone INSIDE the apartment and she had grabbed the phone and ran back into the bathroom. I told her to call the police and that I’d be there in 5 minutes. Unfortunately she never called the police.
Upon my arrival, I saw the door chain had been CUT. Oh, and our 27″ TV (big, by 2002 standards) was missing. I immediately called C&CP to see what had happened and they asked me to come into the office with the rent in CASH and I could have my TV back!
I might not tell that part of the story, because this is already long enough. It involved LIE after LIE about «not hearing» my ex’s voice through the door. They claimed that they worried we had skipped out on our rent and left the state! I told that horrible woman «All our stuff is still in the apt! BOTH parking spots were occupied! (my ex & her sister) AND if that isn’t enough, door chains don’t magically lock themselves once the apt is vacated!!!» There were four letter words said, she yelled at me and told me not to use that kind of language, I told her I was gonna say whatever the f*$# I wanted because they had just broken into our apartment WHILE occupied! Ugh.
I don’t even know if that lady is still there. She’s probably in prison somewhere serving as an inspiration for one of Jenji Kohan’s current characters on Orange is the New Black. I would never hurt a woman or lay a hand on one, but I probably would have resorted to calling that one names and attacking her appearance and character, to her face if there hadn’t been two thuggish-​seeming guys flanking her while I reamed her out. Probably the worst I’ve ever behaved in front of any woman and I really hate that those non-​contributing zeroes brought me down to that level that day.
I never really interacted with the infamous Nick. Like I said, things went well for the most part (by West Campus standards, that is). I just remember not being very impressed with his demeanor or anyone else in that office who looked older than 22.
Hopefully someday they’ll lose ALL their licenses to operate as a business and West Campus will be rid of their toxic and scandalous practices.
I’m gonna go now and see if I can post this story on the BBB site. Ciao!

Hold onto your money and go somewhere else, anywhere else is better than Campus & Central. I have way too many horror stories to tell.
Nick Cochrane will take all your money and run.

This is in response to Nick’s comment on my original review.
I’m not going to deny our faults, one of my roommates always paid her rent late. However, my complaints have nothing to do with that. Here are my complaints.
They practice POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE: About a month before we moved out, I emailed maintenance for something. A couple hours later I emailed them back because we didn’t need them anymore however someone ended up coming. They charged us $ 30 for a «trip fee» that they claimed was in the lease. It wasn’t so I fought it. Stacy admitted to her mistake and proceeded to claim that, «It is all a part of the grown up world we live in.» I would put in a screen shot of the email just for proof, but I don’t think I can. Anyway, I realized the establishment, if it can even be called so, ran an acquisitive business so I gave up on the fight.
They are DISHONEST: After our second year with them, we were figuring out living situations and were expecting an email from them saying someone wanted to sign on. They claimed they emailed us, but we never got one. So we had to look for new places.
They are DEVIOUS due to their greed: Getting our deposit back after the lease ended was a trip. I talked to Nick right before our lease ended about the deposit and he said that they usually get out their deposits before a month passes. Three months went by and they hadn’t said a word. So I emailed Nick and the receptionist emailed me back offering to mail it to us, so I gave her an address. Two weeks pass and nothing. So I go to the office and it’s just laying behind the front desk. And of course they’re both (Stacy and Nick) acting as if nothing was the matter. Anyway, I get it and there’s a bunch of bogus charges and he cleared most of them up (we got $ 250 rightfully back). The one charge I let them off on was the charge for balance fees from the ledger. I didn’t try with that one because that summer there was some confusion with bills and such and we let some of those fees go on the deposit and I knew it would be difficult figuring that out.
As a cherry on top, at the end of our lease we found out that Nick has lost his license to practice real estate here so many times that if he loses it one more time he can’t get it back. *giggles*

I have leased with campus and central properties for 2 years. One year ago, the staff was absolutely terrible and I had countless problems with them. But they have a completely new staff that I love. They are so professional and helpful and it’s a major turn around. I’m so happy with all of the improvements and professionalism there due to the new staff. There are some pretty bad reviews on here, but I’m pretty sure they are about the old staff from 2012.

I’m a licensed Realtor in Austin, and helped 4 people in C&CP places. We never received the referral fees promised to us. They put us off for 7 months saying they would pay us, and then just completely stopped returning our calls and emails.
I own property in West Campus, and I would NEVER consider having it be managed by Campus and Central. I can’t imagine that any Realtor would ever work with them again, so it would be very difficult to find tenants for your property.
This is such an unethical company.

Ick. Ok so I dealt with campus and central properties my senior year of college. It’s one thing to charge me a RIDICULOUS amount of money for sub par living situations (it’s West Campus I expect it) but it’s a whole other to be a complete jerk about it.
I don’t know who I dealt with, but he took my parents and me around looking at apartments and kept bragging about the cleanliness of his car, and the value and status of his car. We brushed it off as him being a cheesy pushy realtor. However, when we had questions for him it was like pulling teeth getting this dude off his phone.
Once I made the mistake of signing a lease with them, my apartments sink flooded our entire apartment when my roommate and I were in studying. We returned home at 12 am to a FLOODED apartment. We called emergency maintenance. We were told they would come out, but if it was OUR fault the kitchen sink flooded we would be hit with the cost of the emergency maintenance man. PLEASE!
Don’t deal with them they are the the epitome of the sad excuse for property management in West Campus

Just checked ol’ Nick’s website. They have a little blurb on there that says «Voted Best Customer Service of 2008». Check it out. I does NOT say who did this voting. Fer real. It has no indication of in what Bizarro World poll this took place. Typical Campus and Central. «Let’s make something up and see how many people believe it.»
And if you don’t believe me, check out the Better Business Bureau which indicates that Campus and Central has been told to remove this statement because it violates the BBB’s Truthful Advertising code.
Classy, NIck, really classy.

I’d actually heard terrible things about Campus & Central Properties from a friend (a former customer of C&C) before I rented from this agency. But I went ahead anyway, thinking that the convenience and reasonable rent price for the apartment would outweigh any possible annoyances that I would face in dealing with them. Bad move.
My roommate and I received a grand total of $ 270.00 back on our $ 1100.00 room damage deposit. I was absolutely dumbstruck when I saw the meager refund amount. So I went to UT legal services to ask if there was anything I could do. Turns out that legal services actually habitually warns students about Campus & Central. Apparently the agency has developed quite a reputation for itself (Nick Cochrane is known for his predatory practices on students, the lawyer said). Nice. Now my roommate and I are stuck in the long, drawn-​out process of getting legal counsel on how to take them to small claims court. Great use of our time. Blegh.

I’m going to skip over their complete incompetence when it came to signing the lease back in August 2009 (closing shop early, not returning phone calls, etc.). Here we are in September 2010, I’ve moved out, and I received the deposit closing statement.
They charged us $ 385 for prorated rent for the first week of August when my roommates and I had moved out (along with all of our property) and turned in our keys at the end of July. They also charged us $ 10 for replaced smoke detector battery, $ 25 for wasp nest removal (outside the house), $ 762 for three broken windows, and $ 115 for ‘yard work’.
AVOID THESE RUDE, UNPROFESSIONAL CLOWNS. ALL THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ARE TRUE (they even threatened to sue upon reading this review!)
Also a side note: any positive reviews you see around the internet are likely written by the company themselves, within a few days of each other in October 09, under the following user names: wpt, bbtexas2010, george F, LACYREYN, Shellytop, Jill42678, Johnathan4u, StephanieAnne, and shelly555. DO NOT LEASE WITH THEM!

I am never working with CC&P ever again. Unhappy with the management and workers there, they are rude and don’t feel like they care about their customers at all. The place they got me sucked and the owner turned out to be horrible, unfair, and unwillingly to help my friends and I in any way. Never using this realty company again.
WARN PEOPLE TO STAY AWAY!

Okay, I know management companies (especially around the UT/​West Campus area) are not known for their generosity and kindness, but C&C is notoriously terrible.
I lived at the Waterford apartments (24^th &Leon) for two years. I will begin with their actual management of the property. Our unit was not completely cleaned from the previous tenants upon our move-​in. The elevator was not functional about 90% of the time during our two years. When I brought this to the attention of the leasing office, the property manager claimed that she was «new to this» and had recently gotten a permit for a freight elevator, and it would be functional soon. Two weeks later, the elevator worked… only to break down again in less than a week. While the courtyard area was kept fairly clean, the parking garage was not. Worst of all, returning to the garage after one weekend at home, my roommate found a pair of soiled boxers in the back of her corner parking spot. It began to reek and took 3 separate visits to the leasing office and a timespan of one month before someone finally came to dispose it!!! UGH.
Also, be forewarned that C&C are parking permit Nazis. One of my roommates accidentally stuck her permit in the correct location but OUTSIDE the window, instead of inside… and her car was towed for «having an illegal permit» Apparently they did not recognize their own permit and called it fraudulent, stating that whoever she got the permit from had scammed her. They did not reimburse her towing fee, and when asked for evidence of why her car was towed, they told her they threw away the «fake» permit, had no pictures for evidence, and proceeded to ignore any further questions. Finally, even though we vacuumed & dusted the unit upon moving out, leaving it in the same condition we had inherited, we received ZERO of our $ 2400 deposit back.
Campus and Central Properties is a TERRIBLE management company. All they want is your money, and they will find any way to get the most of it from you. Their staff are rude and irresponsible, and their upkeep of properties is pitiful. If you’re looking at places to live in the West Campus area, my advice is to avoid any that are under this management company!!!