TL;DR
Pros
- Great location
- Easy access to transit
- Decent management/maintenance
- Surfacely pretty
- Decent roommate matching
- Move-in ready (no need to buy furniture or set up utilities)
Cons:
- Expensive and liable to increase
- Few amenities
- Cheap furniture
- Small rooms
University House, a.k.a., the apartment formally known as Asbury Green, is a great starter place. When I first signed my lease, rent was $799 for a room in a furnished 2 bed/2 bath with utilities included, not to
...mention a pretty view of the mountains. They provided roommate matching which worked out pretty okay, and generally the community is quiet. Management is competent, maintenance is prompt, and there are free waffles on Wednesday mornings. I've never had a problem with bugs or pests of any kind, and there have only ever been outages very rarely (though water presser is pretty sad regardless), and there was always advanced notice.
All that said, much of what you interact with is kind of cheap. The elevator that gets less use is frightfully rickety, and the washing machines break kind of often (though, once it was the change machine which resulted in us having free laundry for a couple of months). The one maintenance issue I ever had came back just a few weeks after they fixed it. The furniture is cheap, not nearly as pretty as what's in the lobby, and it was way too big for my tiny bedroom and its tinier closet (seriously, that thing is smaller than your average pantry). Beds don't even loft to give you more space.
You might not mind this if you're not really a homebody because the location is perfect for DU students, as it's literally one block from campus, 5 minutes from the nearest bus stop and 10 from the nearest light rail. It's the location that made me choose this apartment sight-unseen when I moved here for school. Of course, you do pay for that locale.
Ultimately, it's the price that is driving me away. It was the location that made me choose this apartment sight-unseen when I moved here from Georgia for school, but I now have a car and know the area better, so that premium for location is no longer necessary. Rent increased by $50 with an added $75 for parking. For that cost, I could get a 1 bedroom or a studio in a complex a little further out that has better amenities (at a price point like this, you'd expect a pool at least). Still, if I could afford a studio here ($1029), I'd stay. Anyone who can will love it.
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