North Steppe Realty

DO NOT RENT FROM NORTH STEPPE! I know it is hard to find places on campus to rent but it is NOT worth it!\r \r Just like the other reviews said, we were promised a number of things when signing the lease which included fixing holes in the wall, replacing carpets etc. None of that happened. The houses are in terrible condition with many broken amenities. Since it is campus they can charge whatever they want, so we paid a ridiculous amount to live in a hell hole.\r \r Since we had heard rumors about the houses not being prepared, we called prior to our move in date to confirm that our house would be ready. The person on the other line was very unhelpful and said ""whatever date your lease says, it will be ready by then"" clearly she did not check. On move in day we walked in the house to find a PILE of mud and debris on the floor and all of the carpet ripped up with exposed nails. They were not even close to having the house ready for us. We had to delay our move in day by two days. My roommate from California had all of her stuff here and had to pay for hotel rooms and truck storage. \r \r Any time we had any problems we had to call the emergency line because if we tried any other means of communication they would not respond.\r \r We made improvements to the shambly house, including building a pantry in the closet, and converting a bathtub into a shower. We called the manager of North Steppe to confirm that money would not be taken out of our deposit because we left the house in better condition than which we found it and he agreed. We got our deposit back today and $900 had been taken out of it for damages, all of which were pre-existing. \r \r They know that they can get away with this stuff because they have taken advantage of students in the past. \r \r Let me repeat: DO NOT RENT FROM NORTH STEPPE!! You will be ripped off in every way. Find any other company possible. I have not heard one positive thing from others who have rented from this company. more

North Steppe Realty is located at 1944 N. High St. in Columbus. The people working there are very young and lacking in customer service. They seem to never get the phone, they are very slow at returning calls, and they seem to know very little about the apartments they are showing. I sent an email and it took a week before I received a response. The reply basically stated, ""It is better to call the office"". I have called the office 3 times with no response. They could call stating they are working on it, they cannot help me, it is already rented, or something. The young people in the office have not been helpful in our apartment search, they simply suggest I do the work and look on the web site at what is available in lieu of making knowledgeable suggestions. Also, why can they not offer a 12 month lease when I plan to live in the apartment for the next few years while I complete medical school? The apartments are conveniently located but, as a professional realty service they should offer more than an appointment to view the requested apartment and use of their key. I saw broken locks to the building, missing outdoor safety lights, and I had questions that could not be answered. Their employees need training in customer service and they need to offer 12 month leases! more

No matter how good the apartment, do not rent from this company. What they don't provide in quality tenant service, they make-up for with lies, run-around, and unexplained fees for which they are unable to provide any details. more

Horrible maintenance service. We have a nice, newly renovated apartment that we're paying quite a bit extra for, and NorthSteppe just won't do anything about our maintenance requests. -We have bed bugs, but that doesn't seem to bother them. It's disgusting. -There are small cockroaches all over the apartment. We are very clean people and became even cleaner after the bugs started appearing, but nothing worked. Our neighbors (in the building) also have a bug problem. -We're paying extra for a washer and dryer, but it was hooked up a month late. When it was hooked up, they ripped holes in my bathroom ceiling and instead of coming back to fix them in a week, like I was told, it took them 3 months to cover the exposed wiring. -All of our appliances are hooked up to the same breaker, so if we want to do our laundry and use the microwave, the fuse will blow and the whole apartment loses power. -In the lease, for some reason, it says that NorthSteppe is required to have all window coverings (the blinds) up in a certain amount of time (it was around a week i believe). It took them a month to give us blinds for our living room, so that was a little concerning having everyone able to look into our apartment. For all of these I made many maintenance requests, I called their maintenance phone number, tried making emergency maintenance requests and we even wrote up a legal document and sent it to them (mostly because of the bugs). But it's been 4 months now, and nothing has been done. more

Horrible people to work with. Dumpy, old, and falling apart apartments and horrible customer service in the office. The ""Realtors"" are a bunch of college students who don't have any idea what they are doing and lost our move in damages sheet. Tried to give us one from 5 years ago and said they would find it and e-mail us ours, which never happened. While moving out, we took every precaution to get back as much of our security deposit as possible, and before we were done cleaning, we came back to find our door dislodged and all of our cleaning supplies missing. Upon calling the office, they said that if we didn't ask for our stuff back that we were ""guaranteed"" our whole security deposit. Getting the check in the mail was a different story. Charged $130 for carpets that needed to be cleaned, when we had them professionally cleaned and handed over the receipt. If I were a college student again looking for a place by OSU, never EVER rent from NorthSteppe. MOST unfriendly and unhelpful people on the planet. more

I have rented through NorthSteppe for the past 2 years and prior to that rented through Buckeye Real Estate and Hometeam Properties. Northsteppe is leaps and bounds better than the former. Their office is open during weekends which is a huge convenience. The staff has always been friendly and accommodating in all my experiences. I have had absolutely no issues with maintenance, and the office actually has called me to check if the work was actually done. When I rented through Buckeye last year our basement leaked and it took 4 weeks for them just to put a dehumidifier down there that did not do anything. The emergency maintenance line has been very helpful when I had a leak a couple months ago, it was on a weekend so I was very shocked when northsteppe maintenance actually came out and fixed the leak. For those whom are going to be renting in the future around realize that not many college students will be writing reviews on how good their landlord was. In my personal opinion( 4yrs living on campus) I would highly suggest northsteppe over the previous landlords I have had (Buckeye/Hometeam). more

I've had a terrible experience with Northsteppe. Whoever does maintenance for them now does shotty work at best. We've had a leak in our roof all year which they have ""fixed"" multiple times. When we had to add another tenant to our lease they told us it would be done in a week so after not hearing from them for two weeks I went to check on it. I looked at the file myself and it still wasn't finished. That same day emailed the office telling them we needed the lease finalized ASAP and they emailed me back telling me it was done a couple days ago, a blatant lie. The electric and gas bills to our house were set up on 4 separate meters which we were forced to pay a fee for each one every month. Northsteppe promised they would have a contractor consolidate the utilities to 1 meter within two months; it has now been 10 months and nothing has changed. Obviously my roommates and I weren't going to renew our lease with them so they had to show our house to potential leasees. They brought people to tour our house 6 times without any prior notice, many times early in the morning. When I confronted the person doing the walk through about it he was rude and lied, saying ""We called each of your phones to notify you."" There's nothing positive about Northsteppe. They prey on students and I'd rather live in a cardboard box than rent from them again. more

Don't ever rent from this company. Charged me multiple times for bogus fees, subtracted them from my rent payment, then claimed I was late on rent. Staff refused to help me and made me talk to the accountant (totally unprofessional by the way) who was rude and confrontational, refused to take off fees. I Pointed out that according to our LEASE (legally binding contract) these fees were bogus and ad hoc in nature. She herself admitted fees were not in the lease, still refused to take off fees. At this point I should have taken them to court since late rent payments were being reported on my credit score when I paid rent on time every month. Of course I thought the questionable and criminal activity would stop there, NOPE Moved out of apartment, did not to a walk through. North Steppe used this as an opportunity to charge thousands of dollars on my account for things as ridiculous as a brand new refrigerator. Don't ever rent; or for that matter, do business with this company. I've heard the company is under fire for some energy scheme, but students signed on for that in the lease and it's their fault for not reading the fine print. As I've explained, north steppe won't even honor a LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT, something even more criminal than some fine print scheme. They don't even honor the print they put on paper. Cons: everything more

I had the severe displeasure of renting from North Steppe for one hellish year. I never received heat. If you are a tenant living in one of their apartments who has radiator heating, heed my words! North Steppe has absolutely no interest in turning on your heat! They will cut costs in any way possible regardless of how morally reprehensible. I ended up figuring out where the water heaters were in the basement of my apartment complex and turned them on myself. Of coarse, North Steppe persistently turned them back off, but at least I was able to get heat periodically, which is more than I can say for friends of mine who also rented from North Steppe. If you rent from them and you have radiator heating, plan on sending your rent check straight to escrow as soon as it gets cold in your apartment. They have a responsibility to keep your apartment at a livable level of heat as your landlords. Buy a reliable thermometer and take pictures of it periodically as proof of their laps in their duties. I started doing these things, but only when it got really cold. I wish I would have been more active before then. North Steppe is a terrible company that deserves the reputation it has. Pros: Ha. Cons: Complete disregard for human life. more

I have been renting from this company for less than a year and already know I won't be renewing my lease. My girlfriend also rents a unit across the hall from me and has had to stay in my apartment during the cold weather so she does not freeze to death. The only reason her and I are warm in my apartment is because my mother purchased me a space heater for christmas. I, sometimes turn on my stove for some heat in my apartment. I haven't had a hot shower but maybe once or twice since I've lived here because hot water has not been available to me. Air conditioning in the summer, forget it! Neither mine or my girlfriends apartment has had working air conditioning since we've lived here. Complaints are never addressed, my best advice is not to consider renting from this company........one sorry student.... Cons: many....read my review more

EVERYTHING that people are complaining about I can assure you is true. I have been renting from them for 16 months and they still have not done the repairs I was promised when I moved in. I have been turning on my kitchen faucet with pliers for 3 months and I put in 4 maintenance requests for this problem and no one has even come to look it at. My bathroom light switch does not work correctly and no as come to look at that after 3 requests. (Which is really terrible since there is no power in the bathroom when the switch off.) To top it off they show my apartment all the time even though I still have plenty of time to renew and my lease is not up for six months. Pros: nice looking units Cons: no customer service, no maintenance, no responsiveness more

There were many problems with this apartment. I lived in a two bedroom in the Vic Village. The apartment was beautiful. It was huge and the walls were so thick we were never disturbed. Maintenance was a HUGE issue. We moved in August, we had no hot water in our bathroom sink. Our maintenance requests were ignored until January when we had our rent put into escrow. We didn't have screens on most of our windows for the entire year. In March, we came home in the evening to our apartment smelling like gas. We called the emergency maintenance line several times and left several messages. We called the gas company and they came and took care of it right away. The ""emergency"" maintenance guy came knocking on our door 4 DAYS later. In April, the upstairs neighbor's bathtub slipped partially through our ceiling and water had leaked into our entryway closet. I was across town when I got the call. They told me nothing was harmed, that they had finished cleaning up, and that they would return the next day to patch the hole in the ceiling. I returned home to find molded drywall all over the entryway, water still on the floor, and everything in the entryway closet was completely destroyed. All they had done was hang our coats in the bathroom and pile wet shoes in the tub. My dog had thrown up all over from being exposed to the mold (resulting in an emergency trip to the vet). They fixed the hole over 2 weeks later. They lost our monthly rent checks twice and charged late fees from our security deposit. The living room was painted yellow when we moved in and they charged us $200 to repaint when we moved out. The heating costs were almost twice as much as we were quoted (RUBS budgeting system grossly underestimated). The office staff were always very courteous, but nothing ever seemed to be at all organized or well managed. We ended up suing for damages and deposit because they never returned correspondence. Beautiful properties. Worst landlords ever. Pros: nice apartment, great location Cons: maintenance, poorly organized/informed staff, poorly managed. more

This system is jacked, everyone hates this company! I personally would love to see them go under. They are a huge rip-off and I think the staff pockets money for their over-done tans. Seriously, they do not do their jobs, horrible customer satisfaction, big boo! Pros: they will burn in hell Cons: not soon enough more

Most big rental companies at OSU have their problems because they know the demand for housing is way bigger than the supply...but NORTH STEPPE s*cks in every way. First, their staff is rude, not knowledgeable at all, and they could care a less about your business. Our units were said to all have a/c, we move in and we were the only one without a/c. Not a big deal if they had screens! We called several times, every month, for them to put screens in our windows so we can open up the house without having b ugs everywhere, they always had an excuse to post pone doing it...they NEVER got in the whole year. Our basement had a large pile of broken tiles, dust, dirt, plaster, etc. just swept under the stairs. The 3 by 4 foot hole in the ceiling that they were going to ""fix"" before we moved in was fixed by DUCT TAPING dry wall to the ceiling and painting it white. Sinks didn't work right, windows didn't open/close right, pipe leaks cause holes in ceilings , i could go on and on. None of it was EVER fixed. They half a*s their maintenance , their service, returning your calls. Watch how they draw up your lease, they do all kinds of unprofessional and shady sh*t. We paid first and last months rent, yet the last month you have to move out 2 weeks into the month(not pro-rated!!!!) - they rented out our place without calling us and giving us 24 hours to renew, they told us we should of got the call but there is nothing they can do about it...we got our water shut off for a day because north steppe hadn't paid the water bill in a year EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE CHARGED 45 A MONTH FOR IT!!! are friends warned us not to rent from them, we did anyway, gave them a chance, and they f*cked us...don't ever rent from these low life piece of sh*ts Cons: everything you want in a renting company they dont have, besides the house more

I moved in in January to find the the apartment wasn't cleaned (walls not washed, carpets not cleaned etc.) And I found that the apartment came with critters at no extra charge. Apparently the person who had the apartment before me was quite the dirtball. I was told when I was signing my lease with Northsteppe that I would receive free parking with my lease, because it was january and I decided on a year lease. Upon move in, I found that they didn't have a spot for me. They then referenced my to the Gateway parking deck where I paid $60/month until March. When I called in March I said I would start charging them my parking if I didn't get the spot I was guaranteed when I signed the lease. That very day they had a pass for me.\r \r I called once a week from January until August about the roa**es in the apartment. It took them 8 MONTHS to finally bring someone to terminate the critters. By the way, the fans didn't work, the a/c needed a new filter, lights were burnt out, walls never painted. And probably the best part ... my peephole in the door -- WAS JUST A HOLE IN THE FREAKING DOOR! It took 3 months to plug the whole in my door.\r \r I decided to sublease and leave in September. I'm now moving into the Gateway apartments. \r \r Do NOT at all costs rent from Northsteppe Realty ... Just take me advice\r \r Pros: None\r Cons: RUDE, Maintenance is SLOW, They don't enforce pet rules, Staff is unprofessional. Cons: Horrible: Staff, Service, Maintenance, Property more

My apartment was bought by North Steppe halfway through the lease so my old landlord's terms of lease still stood. But when I found out North Steppe was charging 2 times what my old landlord did I was shocked! For a miniature 2 bedroom apartment with a bathroom that seriously wouldn't fit anyone over 150 lbs at a time, they wanted over $600 per month. There was structural damage, no air conditioning, and plaster falling from the leaky ceiling. They charge you for any maintenance to the apartment when it's obviously something wrong with the building itself and not your fault. To make things worse, they force you to have your carpets professionally cleaned at the end of the lease (which is their responsibility, not the tenants) and if you fail to provide an invoice they charge you $100 automatically to have them cleaned. All of these charges to poor college students. Even by campus standards, they are a total rip-off, probably thw worst on the OSU campus. Cons: the staff is rude, the costs are sky high, not worth what you pay more