Review for Mac Property Management Apartments

MAC Property Management is a misnomer, it should more accurately be described as MAC Rent Collection Agency. Management, in concept and practice, implies a relationship that is in some way mutually beneficial to both service provider and client. In MAC's case the benefits only flow toward MAC itself. Maximizing profits while ignoring tenets is MAC's stock in trade, and they are particularly adept at this.

We moved from out of state into a MAC apartment in the Hyde Park community in Chicago. My wife had viewed the property and found it to be a delightful older apartment in serious need of rehab and TLC. She developed a "punch list" with nearly 90 items on it and was assured that these things would be taken care of before we were to move in. [We were also assured that rents would increase by about 03% at the end of each lease cycle.] Rubes that we are, we signed the lease and went back home to pack and move. Lo and Behold when we arrived with our furniture it was apparent that almost nothing had been fixed or tended to in any way. We spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars fixing the items on our punch list ourselves. The apartment is now a large and beautifully restored residence instead of the well trashed dump it was when my wife first saw it.

Subsequent issues, needs, and eventual complaints were met by the MAC staff with practiced and professional, almost solicitous, courtesy and concern… then promptly ignored. Some things have required near daily conversations with various members of the MAC "team" over weeks and months. Only threats of withheld rent and eventual calls to the city produced much in the way of action from MAC, and then only temporarily.

The building turns out to be essentially a U of C dorm where, while MAC is very careful about how many people are on the lease (there are laws you know), they turn a blind eye to how many people actually occupy an apartment and ignore completely the regular party/riots that take place in the various apartments and occasion near neighbors to call the police at 2:00 AM.

A full list of all of the issues (security, heat, noise, trash removal, laundry, etc.) left unmitigated by MAC would put you to sleep.

Lastly, after all this and at the end of our lease cycle, MAC informed us that our rent would be raised by 20% because, as they said, "we can fill the apartment with students and get whatever rent we want."

Advice? DON'T RENT FROM MAC. But, if you have to rent from them understand that once you sign that lease you WILL be mistreated, you WILL be disappointed, you WILL be ignored, you WILL feel ripped off.

Oh, and sign nothing without allowing a lawyer to review it. You have been warned.