Anchor Realty Inc.

I couldn’t decide between 3 – 4 stars, but they are closer to average (3 stars). I’ve been renting an apartment that AR manages and in the almost 2 years I’ve lived here, my experience with them has been good. I think it really depends on the property you’re renting. My building is lucky because we have such good onsite managers who are so nice and maintains the property really well. When you have an issue about something, they’re very responsive. AR is making some needed updates to our building as well which I appreciate. I’m not rating them more stars because their office staff are terrible. They have these 2 younger female workers there who always have this «bitch resting face» (youtube it). They seem like they don’t like people which makes me wonder why they even have jobs. Maybe they have serious personal issues so they take it out on customers by being rude to them, I don’t know. If you’re happy with your life, you’re most likely going to be nicer towards others in my opinion. Thank god the only interactions I ever had (and hopefully ever will) with them were in the beginning when I applied for the apartment and when I got the apartment.
Anyway, aside from the office staff, as long as they manage the property I’m renting well, I’ll be content.

I wish I could give negative stars for how poor Anchor Realty is in managing the needs of its tenants. Prospective renters may receive a positive first impression (as my roommate and I did), but rest assured that lack of intelligence, professionalism, and overall tact in this organization will be front and center as soon as you sign on that dotted line. I offer below just some of the instances where Anchor failed to perform at even a mildly satisfactory level. In my 2.5 years as a tenant in an Anchor-​managed property, I have only negative accounts of my interactions with them and ZERO positive points to offer.
In one instance, the sinks in my bathroom would sporadically spew out waste from the underlying drains. This occurred daily and left chunks of black residue and foul-​smelling substance in the sink basins. The first time I called Anchor, the agent (Brittany) took my information and assured me that she would call me back within the hour after speaking to a contractor. After A FULL DAY WENT BY WITH NO CONTACT, I called Brittany again. She finally moved her lazy rear and provided me with a day that the contractor would enter my apartment. The result: NO ONE EVER CAME. My roommate worked from home that day and did not receive any calls or visits. When I called the office again, Brittany simply said, «Well he took a look and found no problems with the sink.» WHAT A BLATANT LIE. After pointing out (as politely as I could) that what she was telling me was BS, I allowed her to provide an additional time. Still, same thing. Finally, I called the office and told them that a city inspector had looked at the sink and had determined that this condition was not livable. Miraculously, a contractor came by over the next few days and fixed the problem.
In another instance, I came home one day to see that my garage door was not responding to the clicker that had come with the apartment. I later spoke with the building manager, who informed me that the code had changed and that my leasing agency should have told me about it. I called Anchor only to receive a rudely toned response stating that I should have received a note in the mail regarding this change. NO NOTE WAS RECEIVED. I called the office back politely and mentioned that I had not received any contact regarding this and wanted to make sure my information was up to date in their files. The ditzy call center person on the line immediately snapped at me and said «We did send notes out!» Still, I insisted on making sure my info was up to date. She responded, «Well, I don’t have access to your file!» This is where I became a little agitated as well. HOW ON EARTH DID SHE NOT HAVE ACCESS TO HER TENNANT’S FILE?
Of course, the aforementioned instances involved front-​office underlings. Let’s turn our attention to some more senior members of Anchor. Our property manager was Marie Le Jew. She seemed nice when we were finalizing our application to rent the apartment. Afterwards however, she left me wondering as to why any remotely credible organization would hire her for anything involving half the intelligence of the average person. In a routine maintenance issue, my roommate sent Marie a very cordial email asking if we would handle this issue with Anchor or with another party. He also cc’ed another member of Anchor. Marie (meaning to email just the other employee), accidentally pressed reply-​all and wrote, «For some reason they think I’m the one to help them.» Really, Marie? Not only are you an inherently incapable manager but you also don’t know the difference between REPLY, REPLY-​ALL, and FORWARD?
Again, the above is a mere summary. In every interaction I have had with Anchor’s poorly educated office staff, I have found its employees to be rude, unprofessional, lacking of any satisfactory knowledge, and downright dishonest. Not only would I avoid renting from them, but if you are a rental property owner, I would find someone else to manage your tenants. Snooki would do a better job.
…and in case the owner of the property I rented is on this board, I rented a 2 bed-​1 bath in 2 Fallon Place (leaving off the unit number).

Sharon from Anchor was so helpful and so on top of things assisting my roommate and I get our apartment. Such a breath of fresh air!

Why is there no star? This place is a THEFT, RUDE, UNPROFESSIONAL and they make McDonald’s service looks like 5 stars. How the hell are you going to give your tenant a proposal in a certain amount then changed without informing them? This is America & nothing is legal until you cross those T’s and dot the I’s. How can you tell you tenant if there’s any complaints to have it in writing and yet, when you decided to change the amount in a work order, there was nothing in writing? The original proposal didn’t even come from a professional contractor, the letterhead was under their own company name. So you hired your own people to do the work, double the amount and expect your tenant to pay for it. WTF!!! These people figure because our English is not good that we don’t understand each of the stupid words they are saying. You can use all the BIG WORDS you want but when it comes down… the word «big job» and «different amount» is completely two different meaning.
What kind of company is this? How can the main person doesn’t have a voicemail set up? Are you still living in a stone age? So, if I leave a message with the receptionist, it’ll never be seen or deliver? What’s the point of having your email address as part of the contact, yet, when you emailed them there’s no respond. This must be a joke right??? What century is this company running on? I even go as far as faxing my complaints and when I called to confirm, the receptionist asked «when did you fax the paper?» Seriously, shouldn’t all fax come into your desk or whoever the hell in charge of it? If I want to have any respond from these LAZY ASS people, I have to call in and do their job for them.
I was amazed to see people giving this place 4 or 5 stars. I guess they must have been dealing with someone that actually know what they are doing.
Note the rude ass bitch (B*****Y) at Anchor Realty, Inc.
If you can tell people to have it in writing, maybe you should take your own damn advice because you’re doing a terrible job. Word is cheap especially you yourself can’t even remember who you talked to. All that $$ to have a college degree and yet you can’t even take down the name or numbers of the person you contacted. I guess the company is making extra $$ from cheating their tenants to pay your ass to be rude to other people. Karma is a bitch and it’ll get you sooner or later.

I have been at 248 Taylor St Apt 201 for a year and cannot wait to leave. The building has no, I repeat, NO insulation between floors. You hear every single step your neighbors take. I assume Anchor Realty knows about this because in the lease you agree to get an area rug (which I have). I am someone who can get used to noise, and living in the tenderloin expected it, but I was harassed by my downstairs neighbors. They happen to be the parents of the building manager. So every time they thought I was loud, they would tell the building manager (Connie) who would send me condescending and passive aggressive text messages. They told me I walk too loud, I weigh 115 and don’t wear shoes in the apartment. Unless you plan on floating around the apartment, I would not recommend living here. The worst incident was when I had two friends visiting from out of town and we were talking at the kitchen table with no music and no TV on, yes it was 1 am on a saturday night, but this is still an acceptable amount of noise. I got a text message the next day from Connie (building manager) saying she should have called the police on me, but didn’t want to embarrass me in front of my friends. Just to give an example of how unrealistic these people are.
I went and got signatures from all my other neighbors who have walls that touch mine stating that they didn’t feel I had ever made an unrealistic amount of noise. I then called Anchor Realty to discuss the situation, I was told to write a letter and not to bother with the signatures of my co-​tenants. I wrote a letter describing the harassment and asking them to either allow me to break my lease, put in insulation, or find a way to get them to stop harassing me. All Anchor did was write them a letter. This ended with Connie (building manager) ambushing me at the bottom of the stairs without warning when I went down to let my friend in. She didn’t contact me to ask to talk, just ambushed me. I wish the city code had a decibel level for noise but they don’t, it reads «reasonable».
When I contacted Anchor to put in my 30 days notice when my year lease was finally up they gave me no additional info, such as amount of rent I would owe for the partial month or when to turn in my keys since my last day is a Sunday. When you call about half of the time they are friendly enough and half they sound like you are interrupting them. I will never do business with them again, because I am certain they have had complaints about the lack of insulation and the harassment of tenants of this particular apartment from the building manager because of her parents and have done nothing about it.

I paid the $ 30 processing fee (cash), so the least you could do is return my call and let me know my application status. Instead, you re-​list the property on Craigslist again today. I guess you were a little bit busy between that and your «lunch break.»

I lived at the 15^th ave apartments for about a year and a half. The apartment itself was a good size and great price. But ever since my boyfriend and I went in to fill out the applications, we noticed things about them that we didn’t like.
First of all, we had to pay $ 30 per application — we had our parents cosign and had to pay for each of them too, so our total was $ 120! It was a lot, but we paid because we thought the place was so good.
The people working there were always rude and we didn’t know why. When we were getting everything ready to move in, they would barely look up at us when we came in, they wouldn’t say hi or smile… they just acted like they didn’t want to have anything to do with us. It was off-​putting.
Also, Anchor is COMPLETELY unresponsive to emails if you are a tenant.
There was a period of a few months where the tunnel to the front door of the apt complex smelled like urine. We called them to clean it up and they did, but the smell came back a few days later. We called again, and it wasn’t cleaned for about a week. I had to hold my breath going in and out because the smell was so strong. THEN, someone threw up down there! It was gross… I called to have it cleaned, and it didn’t get cleaned for about a MONTH. I don’t even know if it was cleaned thoroughly, I haven’t wanted to look closely, but I stay away from that area (next to the recycle/​compost bins).
There is also barely any insulation between floors. So, you will here people walking around above you, and some rooms have hardwood floors…
One other thing that was quite annoying was that there is no access to the garbage cans. The recycling and compost bins are right by the mailboxes, but the garbage is connected to a chute with a tiny hole to put your trash in… so you either have to keep your garbage bags to a very small size, or you’ll probably end up putting it in the recycle bin like we did.
Other than that, the place is in a great area and is a great size. It would be even better if there was some insulation between floors… too bad the management is rude and unresponsive.

Horrible. They never get back to you with answers. They seem very disorganized, unprofessional, and I feel like I am a hassle. Every time I have called, they seem so annoyed and not willing to help me with my questions, which they don’t bother with anyways! The realty office sucks, but we love our property manager!

Terrible
Called regarding a property I saw for lease, the woman sighed into the phone, paused for a minute and said that it didn’t exist.
Thanks for nothing

I have been renting an apartment in one of Anchor Realty’s buildings for at least 30 years now. I have found them responsive to repair needs, helpful when I call and generally have good onsite managers as well. I have been very happy with their management since I moved in and would not hesitate to recommend their listings or their management.

I called on behalf of a client to find out if his budget and criteria were feasible within his preferred neighborhoods. The woman I spoke to was unhelpful and curt. She kept referring me to craigslist to see current listings despite me explaining that I just needed a little information at this time. Based on that conversation I would have serious reservations about recommending them to any client of mine.

I have to say after renting in this city for the last four years, anchor has been the best management company i have had. They always fixed things within a few days and were honest when giving my deposit back. The office can feel a bit cold, but comparatively to the other property management companies and private owners i have rented from, anchor runs a dependable business.

Beware, Anchor Realty does not care about their tenants after cashing in the rent checks. So I moved into a Jr 1 bdrm place in Pac Heights. A couple of months after moving in they happened to install a new radiator. Because I lived on basement level, I woke up to the most annoying noise every morning, which did not exist upon move-​in. Of course, Anchor Realty could not do anything about it reporting they have not received any other complaints. But in talking to a neighbor in passing, he knew of the noise.
Secondly, my apt was right next to the garbage/​recycling area. About a year into my lease, they enforced the compost bin. I was all for it, until no one was assigned to cleaning it. Soon after weeks of compost building up, flies began camping out. Eventually my apt was infested with flies! I again complained to the Anchor Realty, same person Britney told me there was nothing she could do, but she would inform the manager. A couple weeks passed, no response. I ended up writing a formal letter addressing the problem and asking for an immediate fix. This resulted in them finally relocating the compost bin.
Lastly into my second year, I encountered a mouse problem. And this was the last straw for me because I was paying competitive rent for my apt. At this point, I got to know Britney pretty well. I requested an exterminator to be sent out immediately. Traps were set, and I’m thinking 1 – 2 mice at most. I come home the next day to find 3. So disgusted at this point, I put in my 30 day notice. In total, 7 mice were found in my apt. YUCK!
So overall, my experience was not great. Only reason for the 2 stars, because they rented to me. Good memories at this apt, but I’m so much happier to be living noise, flies and mice free at my current place!

This review is specifically for Tony Baker, who manages one of Anchor Realty’s properties at 701 Pine St (as well as several other buildings). Tony is a class act — he is exactly the type of honest, friendly, hardworking type of manager you would hope to have in an apartment complex.
Living at 701 Pine St has been a joy for the past two years and I will definitely miss it. The building is meticulously clean and well managed. Our friends all love staying at our place on weekends, even though it is small, because it just has such a warm inviting energy, even though you are right in the heart of the city. Having Tony around has only enhanced the experience of living here.
Anchor Realty has been a good management company, have been quick to respond, and fix things, and have policies that are very fair to their renters. I really have nothing bad to say about them and that is saying a lot in the property management field. Thanks for all the good times Tony (and Anchor) and thanks for not flipping your lid that one night we were talking so loud we didn’t even hear you knocking.

Looked at a place in the Mission and had to put in a non-​refundable $ 30 cash (no check) screening fee. Guy at the showing said only my girlfriend needed to apply and that the apartment would be first-​come, first-​served if she passed a credit check. She makes good money and has impeccable credit and great rental history, so we dropped off the application and cash that day.
The following Monday, they re-​posted the ad for another open house. When my girlfriend inquired as to why, they said she didn’t qualify because she included sublettors in her rental history. They said they might consider her if she gave them a more complete history. Funny, that’s what I thought the $ 30 was for – to pay somebody else to discover the whole rental history.
Fast forward a week or two, they finally get back to her and say she can have the apartment. She says, «great, when can we move in?» They ask, «Wait a minute, who is we?»
Basically they make us start all over again and I have to go through the application process. Fine, I say. I’ll fax you the app because I work in Marin and live in Oakland. I give them all my info, pay stubs, credit report, yada yada yada.
Now they say, «We’ll start your screening as soon as you deliver $ 30 more in cash.» I says, «Wait. My girlfriend already qualified. How does my extra income and good credit make her less desirable? If the $ 30 just gets refunded when I sign the lease, why do I have to take off work drive to the city during business hours just to get something that was already offered to my girlfriend?»
Back and forth, back and forth, the bureaucrats won’t budge an inch. They had jerked us around for a couple weeks and either were just looking to squeeze another $ 30, despite all the other poor, dumb applicants from the showing who had already paid $ 30 and would never get the place, or they were so locked into their procedure that they were no longer able to compromise with anyone no matter what.
We definitely would have stopped looking had they just decided to run my history on good faith, but we decided to see two more places on the way to dropping off the cash and found a much bigger place for less money with an owner who could use his brain in lieu of his employee handbook and was willing to work with us and not just looking to screw as many people as possible out of application fees.

Yes, they do charge for a credit report that can be had for free. And they do require a lot of documentation for approval. Some of their office staff seems to be abrupt for no real reason, but with patience have proved to be pleasant and helpful. Mostly, though, I give them four stars for being extremely responsive to requests and building improvements. I look forward to completing my lease term with Anchor and would recommend them to anyone looking for a well-​maintained building with a responsive office staff. As far as their no pet policy, I think it’s great. There are actually some people who prefer to not live amongst animals. It’s imperative that San Francisco offer both options for renters, and it’s great that there are properties that accommodate both pet owners and non-​pet owners.

From the time I started the process, these people in the office were downright rude, unfriendly and unhelpful. Through my tenancy they remain this way. Why any owner would want their tenants to be treated so rudely is mindblowing.
Avoid this management company as much as you can. Their policies suck.

I edited this review because I really feel like I made them seem worse than they are. This is a more than decent company. Reading anything about Frank Lembi/​Skyline/​Citiapartments certainly puts things into perspective, anyway.
I was a first-​time renter here. So was my partner at the time, who was also unfortunately unemployed. They let us on with a co-​signer.
Our apartment wasn’t updated with anything new or fancy yet but it was nice and clean The agency was always pleasant to deal with and things usually got fixed very fast. Our resident managers were the sweetest we could ask for. Overall from all the nightmare renting stories I’ve heard, this was a good find. Our rent was also reasonable and they did not raise it a penny for the three years we were there. We got our security deposit back fast.
However, there were a few things that make me rate it lower. First, no pets allowed. That’s an automatic one star knocked off. It’s one of the reasons I moved out, and out of the city as a whole also. Two, we did have a few visits from a mouse and a cockroach during some construction in the building, when the banging and moving things around flushed out the basement wildlife. However, this went away fast in the first eight months of living there (I think they came from the trash cans in the basement and adjoining buildings.) So keep your apartment clean… well I guess that goes without saying, since we were so close to the Tenderloin.

I’m not a tenant. So this isn’t a reflection on how they at fixing things and whatnot. However, I’ve looked at a couple places they’ve shown, and I’m not very keen on their application process. You pay $ 30 (cash or money order), non-​refundable, for the luxury of handing them your application, most of which I’m sure they never even look at. Now, this works fine in most cities where only one or two people actually apply for a place. But San Francisco’s housing market is flooded… those 1 or 2 people are 10 or 20 people here. Therefore, their policy is very inconsiderate and irresponsible. So 10 people give them $ 30, that’s $ 300. They *might* actually check out 2 or 3 of them.
Now, this may be crazy, but in my mind it’s wrong to take money from people just for the sake of doing so. Most «professional» management companies in the city will a) accept a credit report (which only costs a few dollars to run, by the way… I guess that extra $ 20 – 25 is their convenience fee? And the ones they run are from the exact same companies as the once you can get offline yourself) or b) only take money/​deposit a check if they’re seriously considering you. Needless to say, the entire credit system is convoluted anyway (if you’re in debt and always have been and always will be you have good credit even if you’re 1 paycheck from bankruptcy… if you’re not in any debt, never have been, and have tons of money saved, you have bad or no credit… wtf??? And how this affects paying your rent on time is beyond me, as most landlords don’t even report such things!).
The places were nice. But in San Francisco, if 10 people are applying for each place (and it’s often way more than that), than you, on average, have a ¹⁄₁₀ shot of getting a place (thus, if every place did this, you could expect to pay $ 300… not a fortune by any means, but more than you should need to pay)… and I don’t really care to get into the habit of *donating* to real estate companies (because, when all is said and done, that’s basically what it is).
Also, they don’t allow pets. That alone should give them only 1 star, but I don’t wanna screw up their record too much. Of course, that’s common for San Francisco, where fewer landlords allow pets than in ANY other US city (yes… San Francisco is the most pet unfriendly city in the United States… at least as far as housing goes). But especially them… you’d think with that $ 30 application fee they could actually, you know, CHECK REFERENCES to make sure pets are well-​behaved and clean rather than having an all-​out ban… which is very lazy and irresponsible… but I guess that’s what you get in a faux-​liberal city which prides itself on being so conscientious, you know, as long as it doesn’t actually involve doing anything or putting any thought/​effort/​reasoning into the same tired slogans. However, the good side is that, in San Francisco, there are ways around «no pets» policies.
Can you tell I’m bitter?

This management company is RACIST, or at least the lady at the desk that day was. I found a really great place right next to where I needed to move from. I was so excited about finding the place. I went to their location on Castro with everything filled out, including co-​signer papers.
The bitch greeted me with a fake smile. I told her about my situation, how I ‘m an American student and my parents support me from El Salvador and she went to go speak to the manager. And then with a scrunched up face she asked me «Do you even have a Social Security Number»? OH MY GOD I wanted to kill her!!! She treated me like I was some illegal alien that just rolled off the truck! And then she said she couldn’t accept my applications but she had to keep them anyway! And so they now have my information on file! AND FOR WHAT???
I wish I had reported this to Equal Housing when it happened. I was so in shock I wasn’t even sure what was happening. I am NEVER getting a place with these people, I won’t even consider it.