401 Oberlin

We are sad to leave the place (job transfer.) Our apartment is great. We never hear our neighbors and the maintenance team is awesome (should you ever need anything.) The office has been very helpful in making sure our time here has been great.

I love living here. The staff works hard to complete your requests. The management staff and the maintenance staff want to make things right and usually do if possible. Sometimes it’s is the renters that make noise and make messes that cause the most problems.

«I was surprised to see such a low rating for this complex. I have lived here since May and I absolutely love it! Yes, there have been a few bumps along the way, but the staff has been more than willing to accommodate me! I rent a one bedroom apartment and I love it! My apartment is quiet even though my windows/​balcony faces Oberlin (the busier street). Awesome location! Couldn’t be happier here.

Moved in one month ago and it has been great. The office staff has been incredibly responsive to my questions and needs. I had 2 small issues on two different dates which I mentioned to the person in the office — both times the issue had been resolved when I returned home in the evening. I had read some of the negative reviews and was a bit concerned, but my apartment is very quiet, well constructed, and the appliances are very nice. The location is awesome for shopping, eating, and getting anywhere from Durham to downtown Raleigh. The apartments are not inexpensive, but I looked at everything around Raleigh and they were very much in line with the comps. Location and room size (bigger bedrooms than others) put them on top for my needs.

DO NOT LIVE HERE!
The only good thing about this place is the location (which is the ONLY reason to justify one star). Other than that, it’s a nightmare you’ll have to endure for the duration of your lease. The office staff is rude, incompetent, and unprofessional. The building was VERY poorly constructed. And most of the residents act like they’re living in a frat house. The only good review was posted by the resident group fitness class instructor (who probably receives some form of compensation from 401). Hopefully this review will save others from the horrible experience of living here.

As you may be able to tell, I’m a bitter person. I always talk on and on about the negatives before the positives (if I mention the positives). I’m not saying this is a glowing review, but it’s not a ‘hell hath no fury’ review either.
So they hired a new Assistant Manager and honestly he needs to be promoted ASAP because he’s the first person doing anything, the first one that’s not only been approachable but actually SEEMING like he’ll get stuff done. Which he has, by the way. Amazing. I love him, he’s making life 300 times better already.
They made this community facebook which is great and all, but there really needs to be a better way to get everyone together. I haven’t really seen much activity on there yet, some yes but not a whole lot.
A few things that would do wonders for making it an easier community to interact with:
A board downstairs where we can hang fliers or ideas or communicate with each other. I want to set something up but I see little to no responses on the FB page for their ideas. It would probably work better if I could maybe my own sign in a place where people walked past constantly. Even if it just said ‘look at my post on our facebook’. They have like a single paper up about the new facebook (had? idk if its there anymore) but its still super inactive.
Weekly newsletter, or hell– a monthly one. People could email in ideas and then once the email went out with said ideas, there could be like a ‘come downstairs to RSVP to this event!’ type deal. Maybe a section for business cards too, I love when people and communities look to each other for tasks instead. Who knows what kind of person you may be living near!
I haven’t been able to make many connections with other people here, there have been maybe 2? events run by the staff but they’re all drinking with beer and such and I am NOT a drinker, and boy is it uncomfortable to be standing there not knowing anybody and also being the only person without alcohol. Yikes. And you go there and people already know each other too, so like there’s no way for me to meet anyone because they’re in their little gaggles already. Basically there’s nothing to ENGAGE us. It’s just free booze and then they buzz off to their corners. I only went to the first one, but it made me not want to go to the second one.
Did you know across the street they had a PAINTING PARTY? they set up for everyone to paint a still life, and THEN they gave alcohol and cookies. But that was SECONDARY.
((That’s not a rec for those apartments by the way. I checked them out as a possible place to move, management is super fishy and constantly lying about things. Like if you don’t want us to move there, just SAY so thanks. Creeps.))
If you want to live in cameron village you should still deal with this place, at least the staff is upfront about everything. And they are finally improving at a slow pace.
I’m laughing to myself because after all that shit-​talking I’m renewing. The location is just too good and no way in hell am i moving across the street.
But the location is also the main reason I’m staying, though they’ve added dog-​walk stations on both sides of the building and also added new mirrors in the parking garage. Like I said, noticed things happening after the new guy arrived. He’s adorable too, by the way.
God honestly? I’m upping the rating because I feel bad (and I’m still living here), I don’t regret it because I wasn’t lying about anything (why should I?) but who knows if I make it seem more attractive maybe people I can relate to more will move in.

DO NOT LIVE HERE.
It looks fabulous, but it is absolutely all a sham. The worksmanship is poor at best, the windows are terrible: you can hear everything from units on all sides including the street (even from 4 floors up!!!).
Make absolute sure that you can deal with noise, college students, sub par appliances, and horrible property management before you sign a lease. It is an attractive location, but absolutely not worth the rent. DO NOT GET STUCK HERE.

We’ve been living in this place since August and besides the fact that our neighbors are nice and some of the staff is friendly, this place is a dump. It’s been open for a few months at this point, we have a crack in our wall, mold on our windowsills, windows that won’t close/​clasp, a trash chute that malfunctions regularly, a dent in our refrigerator (that was there when we moved in), doors that won’t close easily (they get stuck in the frame), a hole in our closet that went unrepaired for months, granite that was mislaid and had grout sticking out of it, a tub that builds up a ring because it wasn’t installed to have the water drain off of the edge, a shower where the handle fell off the first time we touched it, etc.
As if all of this small crap wasn’t bad enough, we’ve been able to hear each and every footstep of our upstairs neighbors. We can hear their voices in our bathroom, their laughter in our living room and kitchen, their toilets flushing, their showers running, what songs they decide to listen to while they’re waking up, etc. EVERY SINGLE NOISE. We were very kind and understanding bringing this up within the first week we moved in, but were treated as if we were being overly sensitive about noise, were told «it’s what happens in an apartment building with upstairs neighbors» and all but told to go away. My husband and I have a collective twenty-​five years living in apartments with upstairs neighbors, including in college dorms, pre-​war buildings, etc, in Georgia, New York, DC, and California and we have NEVER heard this level of noise. Ever. This is not a simple noise issue; it’s shoddy construction, hands down.
It took over three months of complaining to every single staff member and finally breaking down to send an email to the main office of Grubb Ventures (the property management company) to get them to even begin to take it seriously. Their solutions included adding extra insulation to the HVAC closet (which only minimally addressed some of the noise in the living room) and after WEEKS, finally hiring an acoustical engineer who ran tests, confirmed that there were problems, and made a series of recommendations for potential solutions, none of which were implemented. None. This testing took place in late October and in the first week of December this building has done NOTHING to address the issue, besides cut two holes in my ceiling (neither time laying down any kind of tarping or otherwise protecting my belongings or making sure my cat was safe), but then not actually doing anything after they cut the holes. We’ve been promised things repeatedly, none of which have been followed through with.
They have offered to let us move to another unit in this building, but based on the shoddy craftsmanship, why would we? Not to mention, the apartments they offered were all still below other people and were mostly lower to street noise (oh, forgot to mention — you can hear every car pass by outside — thank goodness we live on the quiet side of the building). The less senior staff have been kind and understanding, but the management, both in the building and at Grubb, have been defensive the entire time, despite the fact that we have remained calm, tried to explain the problems, and ask for reasonable solutions (what are you going to attempt? when? can you give us a heads up so we can protect our cat or move our furniture?).
Don’t let the appearance of this building fool you — a tour will make you think it looks nice, but for this price point in Raleigh, it’s ridiculously poor. The construction team did a terrible job building this and Grubb is in denial about it. Pay a little more and live somewhere else. This place is not worth it. We’ll be moving out the day our lease runs out, if not sooner. (Oh, also forgot to mention — after moving here from across the country, they sprung a 13 month lease on us, even though EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION AND EMAIL we had with them indicated a 12 month lease term.)