Altaire

I am extremely happy with my choice to move into Altaire. Every building has issues. To me what is most important is how quickly they are resolved. I had a problem with a dishwasher. They replaced it within like 2 days. ALL of staff take the time to know the residents. I feel safe here. I live in the north tower. It is a solid building. Very quiet. Beautiful finishes. Wonderful neighbors.

I submitted a complete application and holding fee to Altaire and was ready to move forward immediately. Unfortunately, the leasing office was unresponsive, out of office, and delayed the verification process for days.

After their delay prevented my application from being processed on time, they still refused to refund the holding fee. This is an unfair and unreasonable business practice, especially when the delays came directly from their management.

I have full written documentation of the... timeline, including their admissions of being unavailable.

Future applicants should be aware and proceed with caution. Read More

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. Read More

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. Read More