Chatel Real Estate

The one star is entirely based on the fact that Chatel offers online rent payment. Otherwise, stay away — this is a scam of a leasing company.
Seems that some of the property owners don’t realize how bad their service is… Well, let me enlighten you. At one point, our place (which was a newly remodeled, pretty apartment in Georgetown) had a hole in the foundation that the company «fixed» multiple times (aka bandaged — we could feel our floor/​see my bedroom door both being pulled down towards the bottom unit… scary), the ceiling was leaking (you could see the water damage creeping through and they just painted over it), AND once when they were «painting» the outside of our building, they somehow blasted a hole in the brick of my roommate’s bedroom! (When we notified them, she was told to «go find the missing bricks and replace them to keep weather/​animals out… What!?) Also, had rodents too — I would normally blame this on Georgetown being close to the water, as we were clean and diligent about taking trash out… but I have to assume it had more to do with the shoddy foundation than anything else.
The leasing agents are fine, but the property management is the worst — especially Maria. I can’t even explain how awful and incompetent she was to work with — and SO rude, to boot! I’m currently working on reporting them to the BBB, but figured I should help some others out in the meantime and write a Unilocal review first. Renters AND owners, beware… Seriously!

THE. WORST. EVER.
The people rented my parents apartment first out to a woman who was basically thrown out of the building for noise, illegally owning pets and whose children throw things at passerby off the balcony. Oh, and she paid late ALL THE TIME. Then they rented it to a crazy man who refused to show the apartment when I tried to sell it and threatened to sue me at every turn. This has been one of the worst experiences of my life. All the while, they shrugged and did nothing– it’s the law, they said. Who they find as renters are not to be recommended. Don’t work with these people. It’s a guaranteed nightmare.

The problems continue. I gave Chatel a key so that they could let Pepco in to do some metering work. They then moved the key to the basement of my building, in some sort of unsecured keybox and now the key has gone missing. Obviously this is very concerning because now someone has a key to my apartment. Chatel seems very blasé about this whole thing and has not offered to replace my locks.

The poor rating is entirely because of my Chatel Property Manager Kasim. He acts friendly at first, but the minute you try and raise a concern he disagrees with, he becomes condescending, talks over you, argues by repeating himself and is just outright rude.
I had no major issues with my 8-​month stay at a Chatel apartment. Most of my requests were handled moderately fast and when I called the office I usually got a hold of Kasim. But then when I asked Kasim to replace the touch up paint that Chatel threw out (I asked them to store somewhere off the property) he argued that I was responsible for replacing it. He didn’t even have the color on file. His response, in a raised voice, was that he’s been doing this for 3 years and manages 150 properties, and doesn’t have time to deal with me. There was no supervisor or alternative property manager I could speak to, so basically, what he says goes. His manner of speaking to me and likely other tenants is unacceptable.
Also, beware of the wording in their lease. It is very one-​sided.

So far our experience with Chatel has not been good. They don’t return phone calls and don’t seem to have any sense of urgency to get things done. Communication with owners has been poor. I’m hoping our building changes companies. Kasim in the office is rude.

Chatel has managed my condo in Georgetown since I moved away a couple of months ago, and has been great. Andrew and the team over there have done an awesome job both finding a tenant and getting my place ready for move-​in. They have really taken care of all the legwork, while detailed monthly owner’s statements keep me informed about what’s going on. Overall a great experience, highly recommended.

I’ve lived in a lovely apartment complex managed by Chatel in Glover Park for just over a year now, and I’ve been happy. Whenever we’ve had service requests they’ve responded very quickly, and Eric and Ahmad with Chatel are super nice to work with. I just moved across the hall to one of their other apartments, and they had it re-​painted before we came and totally ready to go.
I’d recommend them!