Urban & Bye Realtor

do not under any circumstances live in one of their buildings. worst people i’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Liz L’s review was spot on. Urban and Bye has demonstrated itself to be highly incompetent and generally combative and rude. They constantly make errors about the terms of our lease, an example of which (and the examples are numerous) is that they «didn’t receive payment of our rent» when we did indeed pay. When calling about the error, the staff member was rude and wouldn’t check to verify that the payment had been received. It took two calls, the second call requiring an increased incisiveness and audible anger, to get them to actually verify payment received. We are lucky our landlord is such a stand up guy. Avoid Urban and Bye at all costs.

I’m not even sure where to begin. I’ll just make a laundry list.
The building I live in is ill maintained (built in 1915, yet paint on all windowsills is chipping, bathroom floor is cracked, kitchen is at least from the 1970s if not from earlier); when I moved in, the apartment was filthy (hair and dirt everywhere, stained walls — despite their having promised that they cleaned in advance of my arrival); the mailboxes were broken and our mail was just thrown on the floor in a pile.
When things break it takes 10+ phone calls, emails, and weeks of waiting until they come to do repairs. For instance, because the apartment is mis-​wired, the lights in the kitchen once burned out and I had to cook in the dark for 3 weeks; I was once without heat or hot water for several days while they denied there was a problem. The apartment is infested with roaches and the exterminators do not come «once a month» as promised — not even close.
The «emergency line» (which I had to call, for instance, because on the night I moved in all the electricity randomly went out and I had no idea where to go look for the fusebox) is just the building manager’s cell phone, and if he doesn’t feel like answering or is not feeling friendly at that moment, good luck with your emergency.
Their office is also awful. Be prepared to deal with a surly, uncommunicative receptionist whom you will have to beg to give you a receipt for your rent. Where I used to live, I didn’t bother with that because the landlady maintained the building well, cultivated a friendly relationship with tenants, was prompt with repairs, and generally created an atmosphere of trust. Believe me, Surly Receptionist, I don’t like asking you to fill out one of those little receipt sheets any more than you like doing it. It would be better if I could just trust you, but the conduct of your office has been unprofessional to the extreme and I just don’t.
They are currently in violation of my lease, which states I am supposed to have a dishwasher in my apartment. When I moved in it wasn’t there, and when I questioned them about it they sneered that it was a «clerical error.» They later delivered a dishwasher which has been standing in my kitchen, uninstalled, taking up room, since October.
If you are in the UPenn community, check out the GAPSA Landlord Survey online, which should inform you as to the decent landlords are around here. You can also consult the Office of Off-​Campus Housing, where they will be extremely helpful and forthcoming.
Even if you don’t have access to GAPSA or the Office of Off-​Campus Housing at Penn, try to educate yourself before you rent from these people. ( Unilocal, Google search, and asking prospective neighbors are all good tools for this.) And, if you are a current tenant, note that they require written notification 120 days in advance (most normal landlords ask for 30 – 60 days) of your lease end date if you don’t plan to renew, otherwise your lease rolls over into the next year automatically with a $ 50/​month rent increase.
In conclusion: don’t rent form Urban and Bye. Save yourself some headaches.