RE Savvy

Lol, they thought if we change our location and business page, people wouldn’t still think they are bad at their jobs.

Here’s the (long but kind of funny) story:
Last year I went out with a leasing agent on a Tuesday, found nothing (because nothing was shown to me in the areas I requested.) He told me he would search more in areas I wanted and take me back out on Thursday. I had an appointment with another apartment company Wednesday where I found a unit. Immediately following the application approval early Wednesday afternoon, I texted the Savvy rep to thank him for his time and let him know I wouldn’t need to meet up that Thursday. I got a rude, whiny message back saying it took him all day to find apartments and it was rude of me to back out.
Shoot forward to this year when I decided to give them a second chance. New Savvy rep was newly 22, fresh out of college and completely clueless on how Chicago property management works. Ended up showing me 4 places and only found out afterwards that none of them allowed pets. Said he would look for me while I was out of town on vacation, and I haven’t heard from him since.
While on vacation, I received a text and email from a rep at RCN (cable & internet) that Savvy gave out my information and he would cut me a deal for my Aug 1 move in. This felt like a HUGE invasion of privacy. Who knows what else this company, or any other companies they gave my info out to, know about me.
Also, plan on getting multiple emails, phone calls, texts from different agents, because apparently they have no IT system to filter who responds to which emails. It gets utterly confusing and annoying (this happened both last year and this year.)
Now that I am off my soapbox, please use craigslist or another company all together. This company is bullshit.

Short version: I wish I had read the reviews here first. They canceled on me multiple times and never followed through on anything they said they would do.
Long version: I called RE Savvy on June 13 to schedule an appointment to see some specific apartments they had listed on Pad Mapper. They didn’t have any availability for that weekend so I set up an appointment for the following Sunday, June 21. The woman I spoke to asked the usual questions (location, price, pets, etc.) and then let me know I would get a confirmation email from them. When I hadn’t received an email 4 days later I gave them another call, they apologized, and resent the email. The following Saturday, June 20 RE Savvy called me at 4pm to cancel my appointment for the next day, stating that a number of people had called off work because it was Fathers Day and would I be willing to reschedule? They stated that there wasn’t anyone who could take me out the next day even though I had scheduled the appointment over a week in advance. I found this super frustrating and thought it was very unprofessional, but figured I’d give them another shot since I hadn’t been having a lot of luck looking on my own. We rescheduled for the following Sunday, June 28.
A couple days later I realized that June 28 was the Pride Parade and I called to see if this would be a problem. The woman I spoke to seemed to have no idea that the parade was happening, but stated that it would probably be a good idea to reschedule, so we shifted the appointment to Saturday, June 27. On Friday, June 26 I got a text message from one of their leasing agents confirming my appointment and letting me know he was working on looking for things for us. He texted me a few times throughout the day with questions and emailed me a couple of studios, which I explained wouldn’t work, we needed at least a one bedroom. At 4pm I got another call from RE Savvy letting me know they were canceling my appointment again. This time it was because they couldn’t find anything that met my requirements, even though they had apartments listed on their website that clearly did. They then stated it was because it was Pride weekend and no one wanted to show anything.
By this time I was super frustrated and so I asked the woman I was speaking to if they were going to be able to help me or if they were just going to keep wasting my time. She apologized (ish) and kept saying that I could go with another company if I would prefer. I explained that they were actively wasting my time because I wasn’t scheduling appointments with other people because I was trying to be respectful of the fact that I had an appointment scheduled with them. She assured me that their «top guy» would call me on Monday to talk to me about what had been going on and help me find a great place. She stated that he «had access» to more apartments. This seemed stupid to me since you would think all of their leasing agents would have access to all of the available apartments. At any rate I agreed that I would speak to this guy on Monday.
Well now it’s almost a week and a half later and I still haven’t gotten a call back from them. I thought about calling again to see what the heck was going on, but decided it wasn’t worth the time or effort. I’m not really sure how they’re staying in business given their complete lack of interest in providing the services they advertise. I would also give them 0 stars if I could. Trust me, you’ll have more luck looking on your own.

I didn’t experience a bait and switch scheme, but endured something much worse. I actually stumbled upon the company through an online search and didn’t reach out to them for a specific unit, but I was under a time crunch and needed some additional feet on the ground to do some leg work. So the agent showed me an apartment in a building owned by a local management company. It was a great fit — had everything I was looking for, and the price was right, so I applied that night. While applying, I noticed that the latest move-​in date for the unit was 6/​23, which I flagged as a concern to the agent because I could not accommodate that date. I was told not to worry about it — he’d call the manager in the morning and fix it. My fault for taking that at face value, but I was under a time crunch and was leaving town the following morning for a vacation where I’d be completely unreachable. So I trusted him, applied, and paid the move-​in + application fees.
Once I got back, I discovered my application had been approved — but the lease that was sent indicated the start date was 6/​23, and was asking for several hundred dollars in pro-​rated rent. After a number of back and forth emails throughout the day with both the agent and the property manager, once I’d decided to cancel the application, I was not-​so-​graciously informed that Group Fox would not be refunding my move-​in fee because it was 72 hours after application approval and they were unwilling to budge on the move-​in date. (Again, as I said, I was completely unreachable once I had submitted my application, so I will take part of the blame on this — stress makes you do crazy things.)
Had I known that this was a hard and fast date from the start, and not received assurances from the agent that it could be negotiated, I would never have applied for this unit to begin with, and now I am out $ 300 without so much as an apology from the agent. A very expensive lesson I learned. I’m still not sure why it was never communicated to the management group that I couldn’t do ⁶⁄₂₃ and the application cancelled from the get-​go, saving me my $ 300. For their part, Group Fox’s property manager Sandra was also hugely unhelpful and rude during this entire process. Had it not been for that, I’d have likely decided to bite the bullet and pay for the week in June. Instead, I lost any faith in how this company treats their tenants and decided that I was better off eating the cost of the move-​in fee than signing a lease with the group.
Avoid both RE Savvy (/​Coldwell Banker) and Group Fox if at all possible. If you need someone to assist in your search, there are better resources. They’re just not worth it.

First and last experience with the Savvy Group. During our first meeting, our agent Ashley, was 30 minutes late. Showed us a single apartment, not in the neighborhood we requested, even though she had a week and a half to find places. So we set up another appointment, and Ashley cancels and HOUR before due to «car troubles», and never gets back to us about rescheduling. Save your time, and find your own apartment or find another Realitor.

I would give 0 stars if I could.
They pulled the same bait and switch scheme as Chris D. described, but it was for a unit in my neighborhood that looked nice and met my criteria so I was still interested. After Savvy e-​mailed me, I called them and told them I was interested and also gave them information as to what I was looking for in apartment. I specifically asked them when I could see the apartment, gave them the time I was available to see the unit, and they said they would call me back with when an agent could get out there (this is Logan Square, mind you, so not the other end of the world). They never responded, but sent me two follow-​up e-​mails asking for details on what I was looking for in an apartment. I responded and said «Please let me know when I can see the apartment you sent me.» They never responded to that e-​mail. Finally, DAYS later, I get a call from someone who is able to show me the property the following day. So I agree to see it.
When I get to the property at the scheduled showing time, which is a multi-​unit building, the agent has no idea what property he is to show me. There were 2 units available in the building. The agent forgot to give 48 hours notice for one unit (despite me e-​mailing the company 6 days prior with the time I would like to see the unit) and brought keys for a different building so we couldn’t get into the second vacant rental unit. After all of their disorganization in getting this scheduled, they couldn’t even give proper notice and bring the right set of keys! Then, the agent asked me to reschedule Monday morning for 9:00 a.m. (I, like most people looking for apartments, have a job buddy!), then asked me to reschedule for a week later — to which I told him, no thanks.
Complete and utter waste of my time. Totally disorganized. DO NOT WORK WITH THIS AWFUL, AWFUL COMPANY.

beware, they post ads for insanely cheap apartments in very nice areas, then when you respond that place conveniently doesn’t exist… and the bait & switch scam effort begins.