Altaire Apartamentos

I applied for an apartment in this building. The leasing agent and building staff were great at the start. The issues happened right after I began my application and paid the fees. The unit all of the sudden was no longer available, even though I had an active application and deposit down. The reasoning they provided was suspisious and I received different answers, one that the tenant had a right to stay and another being they had to evict the tenant. Either way watch out when applying,... especially if there is more than 2 weeks to the start date of the lease. They made it very hard for me to get my money back even though this was an issue the landlord admitted was on them. Be prepared for bad costumer service. Lee mas

Beautiful building and loads of cool amenities. Great experience, our tour was given by LaSaun. She was super helpful throughout the whole process and continues to help after moving in. The front desk and maintenance team are super responsive and friendly. Thriving neighborhood, and super close to DC. Would definitely recommend.

Going down hill. Regular issues over the past two years and continuing to watch more and more of the community move out of Altaire. Regular elevator outages for weeks at a time, combined with HVAC outages due to generator failure. Constant changes from management. One week they randomly tell everyone they need to throw out their door mats then the next week a few people buy some and they don't enforce the rule. Regularly taking away amenities, first the bike repair station (for them to expand... their offices), then the golf room is always broken, next was taking away free electric car charging and starting to charge. The EV charging went from free to above standard rate with a $15/hr charge after finishing. Don't fall asleep with your car charging or you could wake up to a $120 bill for the evening.

Don't be fooled with what they initially offer during the tour because it may not be available after you move in. Even the new renters have went from a few months free rent to now offering "free rental of the community space". This is a space that would normally be free to use for general use.

What was initially a good building is going down hill & turning into a money grab for management. I won't go into the other random things they charge for like community electricity, just keep in mind you are paying the building electric bill on top of your own units electric bill. They list these in the lease but won't tell you what the fees will be until after you have moved in, they will just keep in generic.

Additionally, like any complex they will raise the rates each year but make sure you expect for the max the law will allow for. I think last year the increase was ~18% increase YoY. There are plenty of new buildings going up around the area, just make sure you find one that is not owned by the LCOR management system or at least one that has better non-money grabbing practices as Altaire.

Their non-smoking policy is a joke. Regularly see people smoking in their units & event them sitting in front of the front doors of the building smoking. Even if you smoke & worried about seeing that policy, don't worry, like everything else they rarely enforce the rules unless they can make some money off of it.

Additionally, as many others point out, they have turned the empty units they struggle to rent out, into daily rentals through corporate housing & AirBnB. Random people coming & going & expect to deal with being in a building that feels closer to a hotel than a home. Lee mas

Been living here for a couple of months. Management lacks good customer service skills, fails to follow up on issues you report in person. Today I got a service discontinue notice from dominion energy regarding my electric bill which is part of the monthly payment along with rent, but apparently they’re not paying it. The front desk / concierge lacks professionalism; overall moving here was a mistake.

While living here, the entire 5th Floor heat went out at the beginning of January 2022. The heat issue was not resolved until February 2022. I was originally told that the issue would be fixed soon and was provided a space heater. That message changed and management said it would be 2-4 weeks(waiting on parts). Heat is a necessity during the winter and snowstorms occurred. Early requests for a hotel were denied. I reported them to Arlington County’s code enforcement. The parts miraculously came... the next day, but even more issues were found. Then my request for a hotel was approved, but the on-site hotel room had not been cleaned. My apartment was deemed inhabitable by code enforcement because the heat still wasn’t fixed. I agreed to be moved to another unit. The mandatory Single Digits internet is horrible. I had issues and multiple tickets for 4.5 months. The internet connection would constantly drop from my devices. It got to the point where I did not watch TV or work from home. A Single Digits Inc. employee told me that the landlord owns the private network Single Digits and that their company is just monitoring and tech support. The landlord charges residents for the internet and not Single Digits Inc. I asked the landlord to remove the internet or give a credit for the months of service interruption. The response was the lease states that the landlord is not responsible for any internet issue, so I will have to pay regardless if it worked or not. If I would have known the landlord owned the private internet network, I would have never signed a lease waiving there liability. You are able to get another internet provider, but still will have to pay for their internet service. Just horrible business practices. Management response to any issue is delayed, even after multiple emails. Maintenance is ok, depends on who you get. The front desk concierge were the best part. Leasing staff job is to get new residents, but their practices are misleading people into leases. There is a monthly community utility fee for the common areas. The cost is different every month, adding to the already overpriced monthly costs. I recommend avoiding this place at all cost. Lee mas