Downing Studios on 12th St

Pros:
- Some of the cheapest rent you'll find in Phoenix

Cons:
- Unprofessional management. When I first visited the place to tour the property Lucy, the landlord, had set a time for us to meet so she could give me a tour. When I show up, she says she isn't available to give me a tour and told me I would have to wait an hour for her husband to swing by a give me the tour. Aside from that, any communication to management is met with a several days late response. Seems like other reviewers have… had similar issues too.
- Pest infested. They bring a pest control guy in once a month to spray all the rooms. Not to get rid of them, just to keep them at bay. I saw them around my unit daily.
- All studio rooms and 1-beds run on a single PTAC air conditioning unit. If you don't know what that means, it's the giant fan A/C boxes that sit under the windows at hotels. Meaning only the living room gets air conditioning. I rented a 1-bed and found it impossible to sleep in the bedroom during the summer.
- All maintenance is handled by the husband of the landlord.. He only visits two days a week so you better hope you never have an issue with your unit at an inconvenient time. Never seen a certified contractor around the building. The gate to enter within the ring of the apartment should be key-locked (we are given keys to access it) but has been broken the entire time I lived here.
- I moved out two months before my lease ended for work related reasons (while continuing to pay rent) and they changed the locks on my unit before the lease ended, so I was unable to re-enter my unit to do a final clean or collect my mail.
- On one occasion they deactivated their main portal for rental payments on the DAY THAT IT WAS DUE, meaning if you didnt have auto-pay setup or some other notification then you would have likely ended up having to pay some sort of late fee.

TL;DR - you're without a doubt better off shelling out a bit more for a nicer place or finding roommates. Read More