California West - San Luis Obispo, California

Shawn D.

I'm a current tenant and have been for about 1 year. I have nothing but good things to say about the staff and the property. Being a single dad, I want to know that my son is safe where we live and that our privacy is maintained. California West goes above and beyond to let me know that they will be entering my unit with plenty of notice. The property is nice and a great price for the area. I would highly recommend them to friends.

Andrew L.

I have rented through many property management companies and California West was wonderful to work with from my experience. I would rent from California West again.
Cal West were as prompt as realistically possible when it came to issues needing to be addressed. The maintaince workers are awesome!
I think it's important to read and understand your rental contract to avoid misunderstandings.
I do want to stress that it's important to treat others how you would like to be treated as i know some folks are hostle with property management. It's okay disagree but it's good practice to still be respectful.

Catherine A. M.

I wish that I would be able to leave at least a good review, but unfortunately, my experience was not good one. The staff that I and my co-applicant dealt with were all friendly and appeared to be willing to work with our particular situation.

Although I met the income requirement, have excellent credit and provided references to qualify for the 2 bedroom unit that I wanted to rent, I believe that because my co-applicant held a Section 8 voucher and accordingly had no credit, that our application was not considered or presented appropriately (given the correct context) to the owner for consideration.

I think that they took us through a process that was not necessary and wasted our time. They scheduled the appointment to view 2 units KNOWING, took our money and did not work the application. I also believe that they could not see the overall picture of the application: solid long term tenants who would have taken care of the unit as if it was their own home.

Further research of reviews of this management company indicated that there is tendency to not respond to maintenance requests and that you should not expect to have any of your security deposit returned. It appears that this agency favors short term rentals such as college students, so that each time a lease expires, they had the ability to raise the rent.

It is an unfair process which discriminates against otherwise qualified solid tenants. I do not recommend using this property management company unless you are looking for short term rental and don't care about return of security deposit.

Sophia R.

Look. If you are a student or the parent of a student, please PLEASE beware of renting through this company. They are extremely rude over the phone, unhelpful, and love to see you struggle. You WILL 100% be robbed of money from your security deposit once you move out. We got professional carpet cleaning and spent a week cleaning up the ENTIRE HOUSE and they still took out $1800 from our security deposit without providing an itemized list of costs. I was even too afraid to write this review before I got that money back and moved out of the house because I am legit I scared of these people. They are scammers. I met the actual owner of the rental home I was in and she was so lovely, I don’t know how such a kind person could trust a shady rental company to manage her property. The only good thing about this company is that they have nice and helpful maintenance workers. I would never recommend renting through this company, they are unkind and will screw you over in any way they can. Please think twice before you rent from them. It’s not worth it.

Kyle S.

Does not matter if you have read and completely understood what the leasing policy says. They will not follow it, and if you refer back to their own writing they act like they never even read their own policy. First time talking to them they were nice, but when I call for an update they snap at me and act like I am bothering them... as a possible new tenant, you should be treating us with the same respect we treat you and act professionally. If your policy says it take 2 business days to process, you have no right to snap and make excuses when it has been two weeks. Then follow up by saying my type of leasing is at the bottom of their list of things to care about...

After another week of no word, they tell me they are waiting to hear back from my former property manager. I contact the PM and they say they did not receive any call from Cal West. I sent Cal West extra information to contact the former property manager at the beginning of the week. Confirming they got the info and will deal with it quickly. I call at the end of the week to get an update and they tell me, they just sent an email the day before, around 4pm... ya, no, I'm out. I have never been treated like this by a landlord or property manager. I'm not a college student nor is this my first time applying for an apartment.

Katie M.

I had a good experience with Cal West. I felt like they were communicative, helpful, and friendly. They quickly answered the phone whenever I called with a question and they were quick to fix maintenance issues. The only problem I had was when they were not clear about a utility bill but other than that I had a good experience and would rent from Cal West again.

Erik H. (.

Unprofessional is an understatement. The only property managers capable of being worse than McNamara.

Their rating speaks volumes & is accurate.

Mira Vista Apartments in Atascadero had excellent reviews until Cal West got their hands on it. Those reviews went from 4.7+ to 2.2 and dropping thanks to these people, in a very short period of time!

BΛSΞ

PLEASE CONSIDER IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON MOVING INTO A PROPERTY MANAGED BY CALIFORNIA WEST: In the contract I signed when moving into a building owned by California West, it does not explicitly mention some things that are extremely important to those who might not be the absolutely perfect tenant. Two of the biggest problems I've run into is:

•California West not explicitly stating how late rent can be paid after the due date.

and

•California West not explicitly stating what would happen if you were to try to terminate your lease early.

Luckily for you reading this, I have both answers to these questions. Under California West, rent can be no later than 15 days past the due date. If you fail to pay after the 15th day you will receive a 3-day eviction notice. The answer to the second question is also, if you try to terminate your lease early, you have to find someone to take over your lease yourself, or you can move out (while continuing to pay rent) until California West finds someone to move in themselves. That might not sound so bad but I've had extreme difficulty trying to find someone as I'm currently in this situation. What makes it even harder is that my lease states that I pay $1,450 a month which is fine but California West is marketing other identical rooms in the exact same building for $150 cheaper a month at $1,300. What that equates to is that others like myself are being stuck on a lease that only California West has the power to terminate. If I could give up my $1,500 security deposit to be able to terminate my lease early, I would do it without second thought! California West unfortunately knows that this way of doing business is less profitable for them. Thanks to my ignorance of California West's policies, I have put my mother, my sister, and I in an extremely tough spot financially that I unfortunately cannot get out of. I strongly urge you to consider moving elsewhere that might have more forgiving policies.