The Live Oaks At The Branch

I leased an apartment at the Teak and I love the interior of the apartments and so far I feel safe, but the staffs level of customer service is that of a high schooler… maybe. Pros around: nice apartment, generally clean common areas, so far not too crowded, convenient location. Janitor staff is always nice!!! Cons– lots of students, construction and rude staff that doesn’t communicate effectively and promptly. They have the type of attitude where they clearly don’t give a you know what. Which is disheartening to say the least, especially when you pay $ 1500 of hard earned money per month for your small one bedroom home. My leasing agent was good but told me when I was applying that my income «barely» met the qualification– which is 3 times the rent. I’m not rich and only 1.5 years into my career post grad, but I’m most definitely not poor and find it highly offensive and unprofessional to talk to a client in that manner. The interiors of the units sell themselves so their persuasion and communication skills clearly don’t have to be sharp. I let the first impression roll off my back. I’ve had issues with the packages — they let the UPS regular post service mail guy deliver packages directly to the door. Then I had a package stolen because I was gone for one night. Apparently thieves live here– watch out! The front office never returned my emails so I had to go all the way home to talk to the office on my lunch hour, the woman was short, rude and basically told me she couldn’t do anything about it. Cool I drove all the way here for nothing. She swore up and down that the delivery guys are told they can’t deliver to the door, but I’ve ordered from Target and Amazon 3 times and the packages were delivered directly to my door step. She didn’t know, she was just saying what she was told. Dishonest in my opinion. UPS verified they delivered the package and didn’t have to sign off. Luckily the company I ordered the package from sent me another package and I had them ship to my work. Then I noticed my trash can was stolen. The management staff also decided one day they’d start taking up trash cans if they weren’t taken in by 9PM, so they stole mine and held it in the office, the same girl that was rude about my package told me they would charge me $ 25 next time… what a joke! I forgot I was living in a college dorm. No public announcement about this new policy or courtesy notice to residents. To make it worse, I used a realtor friend to help me find this place and she still hasn’t received her commission check. I signed my lease in the middle of November and I’ll be surprised if she gets it by March. The finance guy Chris and corporate play games with you and it seems they have no real handle on what their process is when paying commission to locators. They promised a 125% commission and of course we had to go back and forth about this. I am so tired of the apartment management industry being so unreliable and rude. This will be my last year ever renting from anyone. It’s sad such a nice looking complex is run by a poor management company. I’ll never rent again and I’ll never work in the apartment rental business. No thank you. Part of me thinks maybe the staff is rude because they have horrible upper management, have to hear people complain all day, so I start to feel bad for them. But it still ends up being a lose lose for both me and them.

So I live at THE TEAK, not live oaks but its a part of the branch complex, right across the street from live oaks. Its VERY similar, just slightly cheaper than Live Oaks. I wanted to put a review out there since there is no Unilocal page for the teak.
The teak is beautiful, brand new and nice finishes and the apartments are very nice. Its originally what drew me to live here. They are very dog friendly as well. However, the management is another story! No one in the leasing office is on the same page, ever. Only received one key and fab even though there was two of us, so we had to share for a few days before I was able to get a fab… very inconvenient to say the least. I have given them my pets vet records THREE times and they continue to ask, I finally emailed a manager and asked that she leave me alone about it. No emails are ever responded to, I never know if I have packages at the leasing office, it takes forever for them to check them in and sign for them… just kind of annoying after paying 1500 per month for this place.
They are a little tricky with the concessions on the leases as well. My fiancée and I had to figure it out and hes in real estate. Its not very straight forward which I didn’t like. Additionally, despite the fact that the apartments are beautiful and brand new, I will say that they rushed in completing them. There is paint on our vanity in the bathroom, paint on the walls and lots of dust they painted over the floors and hardware. They clearly didn’t take their time installing cabinets etc. There are also not enough trash cans (ONLY 2) at this building for your pet waste so lots of lazy pet owners leave it… gross.
As for the «community» here… there is none. No one says hello or acknowledges you basically, people always have their dogs off the leash on the property and it freaks my dog out routinely. Everyone in the parking garage drives like an idiot and parks that way too. There is no sense of community here so if that’s what your looking for, don’t live here.
So yes its beautiful and you cant beat the location. Everything is so close but for the high rent im not sure its worth it.

Don’t let the beauty fool you! I got sucked into the promise of having a beautiful apartment in a fun and convenient area of town and now, a year later, I’m literally counting down the days until my escape.
Sure, The Live Oaks At The Branch does have fabulous amenities like air conditioned/​indoor bike storage, a small dog park and indoor dog wash, garages for an additional price and GORGEOUS finish outs but unfortunately that is all a façade.
Living here is actually terrible. There is no covered, the key fobs rarely work, the completely incompetent office staff never notifies residents of packages that come in and they have this weird scanning system so unless they scan a package into their system they are insistent that the package hasnt arrived even if you show them the delivery confirmation… with their signature. The office staff never replies to any emails or returns calls. I have had my housekeeper on my permanent key release since moving in and even though I call AND email before each visit too there hasn’t been a single time that they have let her in.
The grounds seem to just be clean enough — they aren’t dirty per se but there is always random pieces of trash or bags of dog crap all over the place. There are no trash receptacles on the property so the other residents leave their dog poop either right where the animal left it or they are kind enough to put it in a bag and hoard them in piles next to doors, staircases, electric boxes, etc. Is it a secret rule here that everyone else wants to stare at your dogs poop? Apparently so but the worst thing about it is that the grounds maintenance will leave it there for weeks if not months. I seriously don’t understand what the maintenance team does all day because it is definitely not maintaining the grounds like they should be kept for the price you pay to live here.
The final straw was when I was 60 days out from the day my lease terminated and thank goodness I had put that in my personal calendar because I never received any information on renewing, rental rates, or move out procedures. I emailed and called for weeks prior and it wasn’t until the actual day (60 days) that my notice had to be turned into either renew or leave that the office contacted me saying they were raising my rent $ 250! So I immediately asked what they needed to terminate my lease and they said oh just a letter. I brought it over immediately and then they tried to claim it was never received, that they wouldn’t be prorating my rent for the month I move out (even though I would only be there 2 weeks) and that I didn’t fill out the «move out paperwork» in time. Um. I asked what you needed and nobody said anything about any paperwork. The turnover at the office has been wild — in the last year I’ve seen over 25 «leasing agents» come and go so it is no surprise that none of them know what is going on.
As terrible as the office is it really comes down to the construction of the buildings that has me begging to leave. The walls are SO thin. For example, I can hear my next door neighbors TV in my living room even though both of our bedrooms are in between us. My upstairs neighbor surely isn’t an elephant but it sure sounds like it. When he moved in and I can literally hear him… um, use the restroom, I knew it was time to go.
Do yourself a favor and don’t be fooled by the perception of beauty here. You are better off flushing $ 1300+ a month down the toilet at where you are and HEY… maybe your neighbor won’t hear you do it!

I love my apartment and the location. However, there is a dog problem here. I have a dog and love dogs, but many owners don’t pick up after their dogs, both in the common areas and in the yards, so the smell is overwhelming. Just today I stepped in poop on the way to my car and I didn’t leave the sidewalk. The management pays little attention to complaints or making changes to offset problems. Until they do, I can’t say for sure I’ll stay. I know that many of us have complained about unattended dogs barking constantly with no changes being made. I’m not sure if management doesn’t care or if they don’t have the guts to actually do something.

Great amenities, beautiful interiors and great community and I love how dog friendly they are. My only word of caution is the leasing staff. I do not believe they are trying to be malicious in any way and they are very friendly but it’s been a hassle dealing with them and our experience has been mediocre at best. They are anything but transparent. When we went to go look at the unit we were sold from day one because of the awesome location and the gorgeous design but the leasing process and the unit we were put in vs what we were made to believe we were getting was preposterous. The model we were shown was a two bedroom (we were looking for a one bedroom) but they said the unit we would be placed would be the EXACT same but the spare bedroom, of course, would not be there. We were told all bedrooms could fit a California king sized bed, with some room to spare. Our average bedroom suit is a queen size and it is more than tight to say the least. First day we moved in the make ready that had been done was laughable. Urine stains on the toilet and a layer of soot from construction on the counters and paint drippings scattered throughout the apartment. Also quickly learned that we were not getting the built in cabinet space near the living room with the wine rack, and the extra storage in the utility room. There are two adults and we were given one key and had to ask for another. We were also told we would be the first to live in the unit. Most certainly not. We could tell someone had lived in the unit before not to mention we are still getting their mail. Before moving into the unit we were planning on rescuing a dog so we asked in advance about pet deposits ect. Again what was told vs reality was quite different. Told $ 250 up front plus $ 25 a month until it reached another $ 250 for a total of $ 500. Wrong. $ 500 up front plus $ 20 per month for the rest of our lease. The money isn’t the issue, it’s the lack of transparency. We were told that they have been having some staff turnover which is understandable and have apologized for some of the confusion. I would just make sure you ask lots of specific questions. And get it in writing.

Our leasing consultant is Laura & she is awesome! She goes above & beyond & knows what good customer service is! She’s friendly, sincere, cares about your needs, & continuously follows up to ensure everything has been resolved. After our initial visit we loved the place but was leaning more towards The Landmark on Lovers since they have a garage & more amenities but 2 days later Laura calls us about 1 of the apartments we liked that was on the hot sheet (the monthly rate went down) & they also were meeting Landmark’s current specials. Meanwhile, we hadn’t heard anything from Landmark (they were supposed to follow up on something with us).
We love our new apartment & the maintenance requests are completed same day or next day, depending on when you request it. They have a social site for residents only – genius idea. You can submit maintenance requests through there. They have valet trash & recycle pick up Sun-​Thurs & the community is gated & very secure with cameras everywhere. One night I didn’t have my keyfob & I couldn’t get in, I had to wait for my bf – this place is like a fortress.
Even the maintenance guys were really nice & fixed our issues quickly!
The apartments have fire sprinklers & child proof outlets & everything is so new & modern. I highly recommend this place. Ask for Laura in the leasing office, she will take care of you.
They also have bike storage, dog park, & indoor dog showers.