Apartment Review for Mirador Apartments - Phoenix, AZ

The following is my opinion; your mileage will vary, The exterior of the grounds is well kept and pleasant to the eye. Every time you turn into the complex you are greeted with a wonderful view of the surrounding hills, the golf course, and tasteful landscaping. The buildings are organized into three clusters, all of which rest on rolling hills. This results in an almost resort-like atmosphere. Dumpsters are ample and recessed into the ground. You will encounter pet messes that owners leave behind and the grounds keeping company they contract won't pick up, but such is to be expected. Access to the buildings is controlled by security gate, which turns out to be more a nuisance than a deterrent. It breaks often enough to be annoying, sometimes for days at a time, and woe unto you if you're the first person to discovers it is broken at 5am. The gate can be opened by a $25 magnetic card you have to put up to the gate controller, or by a $50 garage door opener-style remote. It should be noted that these are one-time use costs, not deposits; even when you return the items, allowing them to reuse for the next lessee, you receive none of this money back. One bright spot is that is that the gate buzzer, which allows a guest to browse the last names of residents to let them in to the complex, can be linked to a cell phone. Cell phones are another matter though. You are in a bowl surrounded by tall hills and small mountains. As such, depending on where your unit is located and whom your wireless carrier is, your reception will vary from none at all to just enough to get by. I was fortunate enough to be in the latter category, but you you should prepare yourself for the possible added cost of a land-line phone or a signal booster hooked up to your internet if your carrier provides that option. The parking lots are fairly standard and well maintained; I never encountered any potholes and never had space issues. You receive one assigned spot and must locate uncovered, unassigned parking for any additional vehicles. This was rarely an issue in my part of the complex. You will encounter the exact same noises you would at any other complex: motorcycles and persons with loud stereos that feel the need to announce their presence, drivers who feel they need to accelerate excessively, and horn honking to summon individuals. If you have young children, the parking lot is not a safe place for bike riding and the like; the hills that make the environment so nice also make it tough for drivers to see in some areas. The dumpsters are emptied three times a week. This was sufficient to keep them from overflowing the vast majority of the time, at least by my building. The complex is surrounded by a nature preserve and a golf course. As I said earlier, this contributes to the resort-like atmosphere, and offers a feeling of seclusion one wouldn't think they could find in the middle of the Phoenix metro area. You rarely hear traffic noise from Thunderbird Road, and you could almost forget you're surrounded by a city. Pleasant wildlife such as quail and rabbits abound. However, the nature preserve means large amounts of undeveloped land, and the golf course means there is a ton of water nearby, so your trade off for this pleasant atmosphere is pests. I'm not talking about rats and roaches, but rather the denizens of the desert that you're not used to seeing in the middle of the city: snakes, lizards, scorpions, sun spiders, and the like. You will see them outside. You will see them in your unit. This isn't the lease office's fault; it's just the result of the surrounding environment. If you request, they will send the bug guy to spray your unit at no additional charge. You have access to three swimming pools, which are well maintained, and a fitness room, which had a reasonable amount of equipment and was kept clean. The units themselves are livable: not fancy, but definitely not squalid. The floor plan is nice, with the master bedroom separated from the other bedroom(s) by the length of the apartment. The kitchen, living room, dining area, master bedroom, and master bath all have at least one angled wall, giving the space a nontraditional look that feels a bit nicer than other apartments where you're surrounded by a box design. The interior amenities are basic. The carpet, counter tops, and cupboards are some of the lowest quality I have seen. The appliances are old, entry-level, loud, and energy inefficient. Expect high electricity bills. There is no insulation to speak of, which will contribute to your high energy bills, and cause you to hear loud neighbors. The noise is, once again, to be expected in apartment living; I just point it out so you know you won't be escaping it. The windows are single-pane, contributing even more to your high energy bill. Water and trash are socialized expenses. They use a formula that factors in the use for a large number of people (your building or your section, I don't remember which), and then charge you based on the number of people living in your unit. This provides you with no incentive to be mindful of your consumption, nor does it allow you to monitor monthly use. Maintenance responded to any service requests fast enough, but I was rarely pleased with their professionalism or quality of work. For example, a malfunctioning dishwasher took three different requests for service before it was adequately fixed. In another instance, their response to water leaking through windowsills due to heavy rain was to put a silica packet on the floor. Granted, we don't get a lot of heavy rain in Phoenix, but the fact remains that they are only interested in doing the bare minimum. A useful website is provided to do things such as submit maintenance requests and pay your rent directly from your checking account. You may also sign up for automatic debits, which are convenient. They even provide an option to pay your rent by credit card. A $20 service fee is tacked on if you pay by card, which is understandable given that they probably have to pay somewhere between 1% and 3% of the transaction to your card company for fees; however, this cost should make the option a last resort for anyone who thinks it through. Other perks they offer, but I did not use, included reduced fees at the nearby golf course and a percentage of your rent going toward new home credits if you use certain builders. A one-year lease requires 60 days notice to vacate. Depending on your circumstances, this can be a non-factor or a huge inconvenience. I can tell you from personal experience that trying to schedule close of escrow 60 days in advance is not pleasant at all. When your lease expires, in addition to another year you are given the option of going month-to-month. This only requires 30 days notice to vacate, but you will pay a 10-20% premium on your rent for doing so. The lease office is there to rent out units to new residents first and foremost. They are able to provide excellent customer service while you are working on signing your papers. While you are a resident, they are adequate at signing for packages and recording maintenance requests, but you will wait in line while they are dealing with potential new residents. There are times (albeit few) where no one will even be in the office because they are showing units to potential new residents. Upon giving notice to vacate, you are relegated to second-class status, mired in bureaucracy and phrases such as, 'well, we're doing this as a favor. We're not required to.' Customer service, which was great before signing papers and adequate while you were a resident, is tossed to the sidelines. If you leave your unit in good condition, they are reasonable about repair charges. One of the benefits of using extremely cheap material is that it is extremely cheap to fix and/or replace. They are quick to perform their final inspection of your unit and issue a check to refund your deposit. Mine took 10 calendar days from handing over my keys to having a check in my mailbox. The Good: * Great looking exterior * Wonderful seclusion in the middle of the city * adequate parking * nice floor plans * Well maintained pools and fitness center * Fast maintenance response * Useful website with multiple options to pay your rent * Quick turnaround on final move out process The Bad: * Too many non-refundable fees * poor to non-existent cell phone reception * desert bugs * low quality interior materials * energy inefficient * poor customer service * lack of professionalism