I'll start off by saying DON'T MOVE HERE. If you want to here the rest of my story read along. I lived here for almost 3 years while my wife and I saved up to buy a house. I will say the units were nice, flawed...but nice. When we first moved in the vinyl flooring needed to be redone twice because it would have places that popped up. Fridge crapped out twice was fixed, but after the 3rd time I wasn't interested in having to keep throwing out groceries so I demanded a new fridge. Ants every spring. Poorly built, by the time I left I feel like every corner had cracks in the dry wall, also drywall nails barley covered so they were visible. Looks tacky. Since they were so poorly built I could see light around my front door, poor seal (I complained about this and just got crickets) which led to excessive power bills come winter time. $110-$150 from October til about March. Parking, or lack there of. When we were touring we were told Aster had an arrangement with the YMCA (which is across the street from the entrance to Aster) that we and our guest could park there. I thought it was total bullsh*t, why would a business allow another business to use their lot? Then towards the end of my time there they sent out a letter saying the YMCA would not like us to use their parking lot it's for members only. Duh... Also each unit has a driveway, however you're not allowed to park in it. So you're stuck with your garage which Aster asks you to not use for storage. Management sucks here as well, I constantly felt like I had to be the one on top of everything and constantly remind or check in and make sure things were getting taken care of. Anytime I went to the office for a question about something I couldn't get a straight answer or it was a bunch of "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" Last but not least, THE MOVE OUT. Well kiss your deposit good bye you won't see a dime. I thought I was the only one, but reading reviews I'm in the same boat as a lot of people. I left that place spotless, cleaner than I got it. Because I was cleaning up saw dust and dry wall pieces from behind the fridge, oven, washer and dryer that were left over from the construction. I didn't even live in my unit the last month I had it, I swing by after work and clean for a few hours a couple times a week until the end of my lease. They charge a cleaning fee of $225. Office manager said that's where the price starts and depending on how clean it is you can get most of that back. I was like cool, so I cleaned the crap out of that place, they still charged me $220. About 30hours of cleaning for $5. And I follow their move out checklist they give you. I'll attach photos. I don't have the time or the energy to take these guys to small claims court like other reviewers. And I hope they beat Aster and get their money back. But I will continue to spread the word about not moving in here. read more

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UPDATE 11/2/19: I had to take Aster to Small Claims Court to get my security deposit back after they illegally retained my deposit as "cleaning fees." I was also awarded credit for the double billing on my utilities which they kept saying I didn't understand. Apparently I do understand math...better than them anyway. It took filing a claim, serving them, going to mediation, and finally going to small claims court. Ten months later and I finally received a refund which included my court filing fees and the service fee. I did not receive an apology for their wrong doing. No indication that they would refund the many other tenants that they wronged. So unprofessional. Hopefully this will change their practices. https://www.co.pierce.wa.us/DocumentCenter/View/1914/Small-Claim-Packet?bidId= read more

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My boyfriend lives here and upon my first introduction to Aster I thought the Townhomes were quite nice. It was quiet and clean. Fast forward a couple months of visits and I can give a pretty honest review of the property. The grounds are decently maintained considering the high volume of foot, dog and car traffic. The unit itself has some issues my guy has been living with since he moved in, but he's far more easy going than I am. Lights still not fixed, broken/stained blinds, flooring peeling up, generally sloppy craftsmanship. One neighbor is super kind and courteous, but on the other side the opposite. I haven't dealt with management because I don't live here. I can tell you that last month I was woken up in my pajamas to strangers in the house. Management just handed contractors keys without any written notice to my boyfriend and they greeted me freshly woken up to their voices outside the bedroom. I'm a bit anxious of being at his place alone now, but we both have our CPL. I think more off putting than the lack of a written notice for entering his home was the fact that they couldn't even issue a formal apology with acknowledgement of how horrible the outcome could've been and the loss of security of one's home. Overall the location is convenient, but I won't be moving in and we're just waiting for his lease to end to find something together. Some people really like it here and have renewed their lease and some just finish out their lease and move on. Each their own, check it out yourself. read more

***UPDATE*** 4/26/18 I've added a few more pictures of the exchange between the woman we met on Tuesday. Attached will be our email exchange and a screenshot of our Google travel times. Not only does it baffle my fiance and I that this woman blatantly lied to us, but she also tried to twist it to say that we were only upset because we didn't get our way. We were pissed because she had our information and didn't alert us and she purposefully wasted our time, and probably didn't alert the tour the third party vendor scheduled for 2pm. Yet she emailed us with the information she had about checking out their company further. NO THANKS! We are not pleased with the service this "company" sloppily provided. No bueno. Came in for a tour of the townhomes that was scheduled for 10am. The woman in the leasing office said she had nothing to show and that the people we spoke to yesterday to schedule the tour was a third party that had no real connections to the company. Ridiculous amount of misinformation and a huge waste of our time and gas. They have a giant sign on one of their buildings that says now leasing and a number to call. We took that picture on Sunday. Clearly they're too lazy to take the sign down. Speaking of lazy, the woman in the leasing office had emails sent to her about the scheduled tours with our contact information on it, but couldn't manage to give us a call or email and let us know that it was a waste of time to go down there. We are livid, to say the least, with the amount of unprofessional twats we've dealt with in the past 24 hours. Too bad you can't give negative stars, they would be at a -10 out of 5 in our books. Still livid that the woman in the leasing office didn't have the common courtesy to even warn us so we didn't waste our time coming down. read more

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I am beyond grateful to have worked with Lisa upon moving in. She was extremely helpful and kind which makes me even more excited to move into our new homes. I cannot express enough how much I appreciate the level of customer service from them. read more

This housing is an absolute joke. The parking situation is absolutely ridiculous. I was told I couldn't park my vehicle in my "driveway" because it was too large. Now residents can't park at the YMCA. But it's ok if there are only 2 vehicles that need to be parked your "2 car garage" has ample room. In addition to this when asking the manager about the parking situation all I was met with was anger and disrespect. I wish I could drop the one star. If you are looking to move in I would just walk away. read more

I am in the military and I have rented for the past 15 years and this is the worst place I have ever lived. The units are nice but the management is horrible. The deposit for these places is only $400 but don't be fooled. They took all of my deposit and I still owed $170 after moving out. I am an extremely clean person and there is no reason for this. The manager is absolutely horrible. She is a complete moron and incompetent. Every time I would call needing repairs or questions she would tell me about her own problems and issues. On top of all of this I had a horrible ant problem for the entire 2 years I lived there. I needed service on my home for ants and since it wasn't on their scheduled day the townhome conpany was going to charge me $60. I ended up getting my own pest control company and paying out of my own pocket. DO NOT MOVE INTO THESE UNITS. read more

My boyfriend and I were on the hunt for a 3 bedroom unit and came across one of asters many many ads on Craigslist. The photos looked nice, so we decided to pay them a visit. We arrived to find hardly any parking.. and an office run by a single lady, which seemed fairly odd, but we went along with it anyways. She let us know ahead of time that she was a one man show, that the application process was tedious, and timely. She showed us the available unit. It was fairly updated, but the carpeted areas in the units are kind of ugly and outdated looking. Regardless, we decided to apply anyways. We left and applied online- per Allyson this is the only way you can apply. She told us that it would take up to a week and apologized. She also told us that she wouldn't be back into the office until Tuesday. Since she's a one man show, that meant we would be waiting 4 days for any kind of update. Tuesday finally rolled around and she told us she needed more documentation. She also said that since the process is taking so long, our price would go up. This is bullshit. When you apply, you pay 45 a person, and have to put down $400 to remove the unit from the site. You chose your move in date, and they list prices based off the date you chose. We applied on a Saturday, with a move in date of March 27th. This price is supposed to be good as long as you move in within 7 days. It had only been 4. And their crappy slow process of getting people approved shouldn't be the potential tenants fault. My boyfriend works for a small privately owned company who doesn't do direct deposit yet. They give him checks weekly. We showed proof of that, but Allyson wanted a letter from his company stating his hire date, employment status and wage. My boyfriend got them to do that, and Allyson told us that the letter wasn't acceptable because it wasn't dated. I had a separate company that they work with calling me to get additional pay stubs from me so I sent them to the only email address provided and Allyson called back confused and upset because she didn't need any additional income from me. We were told we were denied and then given a list of reasons why. One of which being "unable to verify proof of employment" "unable to verify income" I had a recent late payment at my current apartment, late by one day in the balance of around $100 dollars. Allyson called back and told us we would be approved if we paid an additional deposit equal to a month of rent. Which wouldn't be a huge issue, but she knew we also had to continue paying rent where we currently live thru April 14 but told us we had to chose a soon Move in date or they'd repost it for other people to apply. My boyfriend called her back to let her know we would try and come up with the 5000 dollars they wanted, and asked if we could have a co-signer and if that would help. She said ONLY if the co-signer made 5x the rent. Not very many people make over 10k a month. We have been looking it up lately, and it's showing a guarantor is supposed to make a COMBINED income of 5x the rent. Everyone I have talked to says that means with all income, 5x the rent should be there, not the co-signer alone. He also asked her if we could pay 3500 of it, and then pay an additional 500 a month until the deposit was fulfilled. She said no. The amount they expected us to put down is the same price we'd pay to get into a house This place is a joke. There is literally zero parking. Allyson told us that they no longer allow you to park in front of your unit. Which literally means you have no where to park other than inside the garage. If you have a Jeep or a truck, good luck fitting it. And you also won't be able to have visitors because they won't have Parking either Since being denied, we have found several other townhomes that offer amenities, pools, more than one staff member that you can actually get ahold of; and much better customer service. read more

This place borderlines on criminal. I flew into town to help a friend move and vacate her apartment along with my 21 year old son. We spent 2 weeks to move, as she had the two properties for two weeks (old and new). I can verify this place was cleaner than when my friend moved in 2 1/2 years earlier. (I also few up to move her into this unit which was new but dusty and dirty from new construction.) It was absolute spotless when she left her unit. I was in the car with my friend when Rachel, the manager, called her and she put placed on speaker. Rachel told her that the site manger did in deed state that the home was left looking "professionally cleaned" however, they needed a receipt to show incoming tenants that the home was sanitized. No where in the contract is this policy stipulated that all move-outs need to have professional sanitization performed and receipts provided. State law RCW states that all fees need to be clearly stated and refundable deposits can not be kept for normal wear and tear. Not only did they keep her cleaning deposit but they double billed her on the utilities for the last three months and threatened "collection" if she did not pay it. To add insult to injury they ONLY contacted her after she filed a small claim suit against them. Do not allow a corporation disregard the law and your rights. Do you research and follow up with your recourses. This is the only way to put a stop to this corporate bullying. read more

I lived in the townhouse for two years. My home sold faster that I thought it would and I needed a place immediately and the townhomes would be ready just one week after closing and they were brand new and really looked nice. There can be a lot of issues with new construction. Having said that, the amount of issues and how long it took to get them resolved is mind blowing. My garage door fell off of the track twice, second time almost took out my car. They installed a damaged dishwasher in my unit. I put in the work order and waited for three weeks, at that point a workman that I had been talking to from the job site took a dishwasher from a unit that was still under construction and installed it himself. I had to run an extension cord from the kitchen into the laundry room in order to have the washing machine work. If I didn't, I would blow a fuse. That took four weeks to get fixed. The kitchen flooring had to be redone three times and when I moved out, it still wasn't right. The electrical is a real problem and I was constantly blowing fuses. I was told that you could only have two outlets being used in the family/dinning room. So I could have one lamp in each room turned on or vacuum, but not both at the same time. My biggest issue is the lack of trained property managers. In the two years I was there they went through 5 managers. They were in my home constantly. I have kept all of the Intent to Enter notices and I had 13 in two years. I had not rented in 40 years and I thought that maybe this is the new "normal" for renters. I am now living in a drop dead gorgeous apartment in Tacoma. Property managers have NEVER come into my unit. These property managers are so professional and pleasant. They would bend over backward to make sure that you are happy. There are places out there that would be a pleasure to live in, but Aster is not one of them. read more

I am a current tenant at Aster Townhomes and cannot tell you how grateful I am to the last review (Angela M.). This is exactly what is happening here at Aster Townhomes. If you bring an issue to their attention, you are either given "self help" tips, have to pay for the service, or, are being told how the leasing agent takes care of issues at her trailer home and in her yard. We have ants since the day we moved in. The first time we brought this to their attention, we were told not the let food lay around. Really, you have not once been in our home and you tell me the remedy is to not let food lay around? It was not until I brought to their attention that I have a disability and severe Asthma that they told us to come to the office and get ant traps. I have requested numerous time to please be contacted by someone other than Rachel or Allyson (I would prefer Corporate), but I am being told, that they don't have Corporates information, or, Corporate cannot be of assistance. Besides endless maintenance issues in the unit (Carpet seems / carpet buckles, hot/cold water reversed in bathrooms, bedroom door not closing, and more, we also have been having issues with the online payment portal since December 2017. Not sure if other tenants experience the same. Managements remedy is to "put a note on your door" and to mail you the tenant a ledger print out. It should not be the tenants responsibility to review the ledger and to find a solution to the issue. If you are telling me that your portal displays incorrect or only partial information, please provide me with a copy of the invoice for which you are trying to collect. It is my right as a consumer to receive one! Before living at Aster we leased an apartment at Renwood, which is also a Tarragon property and management there was the opposite. We had not one issue there! I hope management has a no retaliation policy, if not, god knows what's to come after they read this review. And no, I am not a disgruntled tenant, this is how it is in our "tenant word." Thinking $1,934 per month would get you the "high end townhome" they promised, NOT! read more