I have a friend living there and my review is as guest, all the nice and bad I experience every time I visit. I like how easy is to find parking, either at the visitor's parking as well as in the street. I like the greenery, the trees and plants in between the apartment buildings. As it is an old apartment complex, you get the plants already grown up and nice. The con is that being an old apartment complex, you can tell they haven't upgrade many things, like kitchen and carpet seems to be unchangeable (even though that seems to be a common thing at many complexes I have been). Another con from my point of view is that everywhere you go smells curry food. I like Indian food but those smells can be truly powerful and annoying if you want to smell lavender, for a change. Also the pool area seems dated as compared to new complexes. Overall is nice because of closeness to so many things and having a great park nearby too. read more

3 stars for the property itself, 5 stars for the maintenance crew, especially AJ. Net score: 4 stars. The property is mostly nice - the buildings feels spacious and comfortable, and most things work most of the time. The problems are things like occasional bugs, random fire-alarms going off, and a dated kitchen with an annoying oven. The maintenance has been amazing, however. AJ has come over several times and made a Herculean effort to diagnose and fix our oven. Very grateful to him and his team. read more

I've been staying here for a little over a year with my boyfriend. The 1 bedroom unit is quite spacious, and i really like the vaulted ceiling on the 2nd floor units. The management is nice & responsive, and the maintenance crew is great too! Some cons: 1. We had some ants in the first few months of our stay. Not a crazy amount, but a few here or there. They went away around winter though, and haven't come back this season. Every once in a while, i see a silverfish inside... i think ive seen about a dozen total over the past ~15 months. 2. The kitchen counter material is cheap, and i have to wipe it down very often. 3. The carpet was old and had dirty spots when we moved in. We use a lot of carpet cleaner and a rug to keep it looking cleaner. 4. Someone stole my package that was left in front of the door! :( it was just cat litter, but it made me paranoid for a few days... 5. The free cable is nice, but the free internet is SLOW. We use at&t for our internet instead. I wouldn't rely on the free internet, especially if you like to play online games. Overall, I'm pretty happy here, and honestly it's not a bad price for this area. The complex is pretty quiet, and the neighbors are nice. And theres always plenty of street parking for guests. read more

Don't go by people complaining on rent increases!! The rent is always affordable to someone who is willing to take your spot. I have lived there for 4 years and I really love that place. First, Location. The complex is close to 85, 237, central expressway and 101 and if you are taking 280 north then 280 is not that far away as well if you are take 85. The location is quite, I mean very quite. There are one or 2 loud bikers but other than that it is quite. The Encinal park is just 2 min walk from the complex, the park is one of beautiful parks around sunnyvale. If you have kids then the park is more than enough to entertain them in the kids play area. The park is usually never over crowded and you will always find a open spot to play with your kids. If you are Indian family then you will find plenty of Indian people of different ethnicity you can meet many of them in the evening, especially during the summer time. This place will never run out of parking spot, there will always be some street parking besides your assigned spot if you have guests visiting. The foot walk is nice and never too crowded, it is absolutely safe to even take a walk in the middle of the night. Apartment amenities, Free internet and cable, the internet is fast but not too fast. I did a speed test that gave around 10MBits/sec which is pretty decent for watching netflix or any other streaming service. The free cable is not HD but something is better than nothing. If you are Indian then you can pay additional $8 for premium channels which are mostly Indian flavored content. Maintenance, The maintenance crew do a good job, they are always around and ready to fix things for you or replace the item if it is broken. The tall grey haired guy is always walking around picking up trash/cig butt/etc and keeping the surrounding clean so it is not wrong to help keep the place clean as well. Laundry, The place is clean, again cleaned everyday by the tall grey haired guy. There will be a rush during the weekends so better to plan accordingly. The residents has the right to remove the cloths from the washer/dryer if they are still in the machine after it has stopped, yes it is your responsibility to vacate the machine when it is done. I hate those people who leave their cloths overnight in 3-4 dryers. Now lets talk about the rent, I started at 1100 (2009) and moved out when I was paying 1850 (2013) in 4 years. Being proximity to new incoming companies in the vicinity like Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. the price of the rental has being going up steadily since past 2 years.There are people who are still willing to pay higher rents for all the benefits of the location. The reason we moved out because we had outgrown the apartment and I was tired of carpetted apartments that takes lot of effort to clean and maintain. The high rent in this community keeps all the unwanted people away from this place, which is one side-advantage. The single bed apartment is decent size about 650sqft. For the rent you pay here, I am sure you can find bigger sized apartment somewhere else, but you will loose the location advantage. The ceiling is thin and creeks every-time some one walks, if there are kids on the top floor then you might have some problem living on the 1st floor. They have AC installed on the 2nd floor, so I would suggest to rent the top floor instead of the first floor. The move out was painless, they only charged $180 for the cleaning charge, which is quite reasonable after 4 years of living there. read more

Stayed at the Macara Gardens for almost 2 years and enjoyed my stay there. Very friendly staff (Ray and Julie). Always helpful. Location and pricing is unbeatable. I love the free internet and cable facility. The property is well maintained and clean and also has electric car charging stations!!! read more

Be careful about their policy. If you're someone who is added to the lease later, you'll be dependent of your roommate and you have to move out as soon as your roommate moves out. This is the only apartment I know that have this policy in the area. read more

DON'T COME. You can here these all from up stair apartment 1. Tremendously noisy footsteps 2.Disposal sound 3. Sink/ tub water running 4. Flushing 5. Music 6. Talking 7. Cooking The manager cannot say anything if you have uncivilized neighbors jumping at 1:30 in the morning...how he can tell anyone to tip toe!! Rent: You will feel the rent is really low comparing the nearby apartments. So you are in trap. This is how our rent increased: Started 1 year lease 1300 pm, after a year increased $130 pm. In two months increased $140 pm. In 6 months increased $130 pm. This is how the cycle is going. They offer you a lease initially for a year then depends on their market situation. Pet policy: ONLY CAT BUT YOU WILL FIND UNLEASH DOGS. IF YOU LIKE TO LIVE PEACEFULLY DON'T PUT YOUR STEPS HERE. read more

We lived at this place from June 2013 to July 2014. Pros: We had a corner apartment, which had two extra windows. Both of us love more light and hence loved the windows. The floorplan is also very cozy. The rent is slightly lower than the nearby Meadows. Parking is not a problem at all, there is plenty of parking. Maintenance is great too, they fixed everything on time. Management is very friendly. Encinal park is right around the corner, great place to hangout with family. Surrounding area is very quite. All the utilities except electricity are included which includes cable and internet Cons The internet they provide is not very fast and the cable is not HD. We used to use Comcast previously, we could easily stream movies in HD on that. They don't allow Comcast, so had to live their internet which mean no live streaming of HD movies. They do allow AT&T, but I prefer comcast over AT&T. Thanks to living in Macara Gardens, my wife is no longer afraid of the cockroaches, the place is full of them, try walking at night through the place and I am sure you will come across at least two or three of these little things running around. Since we had the ground unit cockroaches were always a problem. We had to apply the roach killer in our bathroom and kitchen and asked the management to call the exterminator, with this we could keep them away from our apartment (barring a few incidences here and there), but outside the apartment on the sidewalks, you could see them all year round. read more

WARNING!!!!! This community is good only for a year lease. Storm Properties( Macara and Windermere) plays a leasing trick after expiry of the very first lease. If your lease expires specially during the winter months ( say between Nov - Jan), they will never send you lease renewal notice instead they would rather want you to continue month to month basis. This way they can increase the rent whenever they wish with just 30 days notice. You may even end up paying 20-40% increase of rent in a year. Stay away from this trap. 90% resident moves out after 1st year because of this issue. Those who tries to act smart ( like me ) end up paying more :) read more

Apartment is good but manager mr Ray is not . He talk very low tenant. He always pretend that he care for you Actually he is not .they took almostmy whol deposit read more

Bad apartment complex. Has bed bugs, cockroaches and what not. The management used to be good when Maria was around. Ray Coralles the manager is very rude and seems like he is doing tenants a favor by letting them stay here. Just avoid this place! read more

3rd, and likely final update: I am about to move away for difficult personal reasons, and I visited the leasing office today to give my 30 days notice and see if I needed to do anything special between now and my move out date at the end of March. Rey was, as always, wonderful. He explained things to me clearly - being my first apartment in this country I didn't know how everything worked, my obligations, his, etc. (I should note that although most reviews mention Rey, Janae was also great, I've just had more to do with Rey. She was fantastic in helping me when I was moving in, needed info, etc.) I think this is quite possibly the only I will ever trust a management company 100% with the security deposit, and without my being present for the walk through. They're good people. I've loved living here and hope to move back one day if I can. The apartments are lovely, lots of shops nearby (see my earlier reviews) and no issues with any kinds of pests, minus the occasional tiny, harmless spider, which is rare and my fault for leaving the apartment open constantly for air flow. (There are screens, I just open the sliding door one quite a lot.) It's a safe, great place to live - you shouldn't pass it up. If I had the money I'd actually pay rent while not living here just to keep this apartment. (Seriously. I considered it. If you could buy an apartment here, I absolutely would.) I will likely edit this review later to confirm everything worked out with the security deposit, no shady business, etc. (I know there wont be but I figure people like confirmation and follow up.) Good luck to those looking here as an option, check it out, you wont regret your decision. The entire 18+ months I've now lived here, I haven't had a single issue with management, my apartment, the laundry, mail, etc. -- To publicly answer the question re moving out; absolutely. I cleaned reasonably but it wasn't like a professional clean up, and living there, working from home, I smoked enough inside that of course the carpets and paint had to be redone and likely a professional cleaner as well. I left hoping that I wouldn't owe more than my security deposit had been, but fully expecting that to be the case, that I'd be lucky if I just got nothing back; however they actually followed up with me, I never asked even, to send me a check to give me a good amount of it back. If it hasn't changed since I was there, which wasn't too long ago, 2015, then yeah, the moving out process was nothing- completely easy and no stress. They're good people; if I could have stayed there I would still be there now, and if I ever move back to the area it would be my first choice. Oh and if I didn't mention it in my original review which I am too tired to reread this second, the maintenance guy is great as well as the management/office staff, really very understanding and cool :-) a small piece of my heart will always live at Macara Gardens. read more

I love the apartment complex, locality and the service. So, every time when the rent was increased we decided to move out but could not find a better option with a similar living condition. But be aware of the room rent increase. We started here at 2011 February for one year lease, paying $1300.00/month for a one bed room apartment. Rent includes water, sewage, garbage and internet-cable. After a year, rent increased 10% without lease offer. Then, in a month we got a year of lease offer with 10% increase of recently increased rent. Till, 2015 this is how they are increasing the rent. So from 2012 March, eventually our rent increased almost $750.00/month. Now we are paying $2150.00 for that same 650 Sq.ft apartment. So, in last 3 years we paid variety of rents, like: $1430, $1570, $1720, $1850,$2035 and finally $2150/ month. Needless to say, in average, the room rent is change two times in every year after expiring the very first lease. What we felt extremely unethical from the managemnt when we started to receive a water bill. We are not liable to pay for water, sewage when we renewed our lease in middle of last year. Then we suddenly received a bill in October from a third party company asking around $50.00 for water etc. When we asked Janae, the new staff of the management, she showed such a surprising gesture as if they were not aware of the fact! We then talked to the company they said the management is aware of the fact! Whom should I beleive? For the free net and cable; it is advertised but the thing not mentioned is the management is not liable to any issues regarding these services. So, do not expect a smart signal for browsing. So, choice is yours. read more

Pros: 1. Good location- easy to go around places, close from highway 2. Lots of sunshine and not hot in the summer. 3. Designated parking spot (outdoor with roof) 4. New paneled windows Cons: 1. Bugs including cockroaches, ants, silver fish. My cat's bowl were filled with ants when I came back home from work. Asked the leasing office for pest control, they only left three sticky traps and left. I had to Raid from target myself and take care of the issue. 2. Unfair water billing- we're rarely home on weekdays due to work and don't cook much. August utility bill got doubled despite the fact that we've been away for vacation (no one was home for 10 days) ($80). When I called and asked, management answered "we divide total usage/square feet and charge per square feet." This means that the residents have to pay for unused water fee since they don't have individual meters. 3. Security/noise issues- although they say we can call on-site security agent for noise complaint, the security contact number is actually not on-site but an office building far from sunnyvale (I don't even think it was located in San Jose). Also, the ceiling is so thin that you can hear everything. Upstairs kids run and thud day and night, management says they can't do anything, and the upstairs neighbor knows this issue but is unwilling to instruct the child. Upstairs neighbor left us a letter on the door, stating "it's impossible and not necessary to limit our child's activity." read more

I've been living here for six months. It's close to a nice park, which is the part I like the most because the children playground fits different age groups and I observe kids clearly are having lots of fun there. The community is also very children friendly. read more

This apartment is full of bed bug and cockroaches.Maintenance guys are waste.If you go to leasing office and ask them to get cockroaches and bed bugs treated they will tell you guys brought bed bugs and cockroaches with you.They will send unskilled people for treatment of these and you will find no difference.The worst and uninhabitable apartment and worst leasing service. read more

I've been living at the Macara Gardens Apts. since June 2015. Beautiful, peaceful surroundings, great apt. floor plans. Located at the intersection of Central Expwy. and Mary Ave., very close to several major freeways. The property mgmt/lease office personnel is extremely attentive to the residents' needs! Julie, Rey and Robert - you are the best! This place is a true secret gem in the Silicon Valley and I am grateful for discovering it! read more

We lived in one-bedroom apartment from Nov 2013 till Nov 2014. I really liked our stay. We ended up moving because we were expecting a baby and wanted a 2-bedroom apartment with washer/dryer in unit. It had a reasonable price at a time we moved in, lower than other complexes around the same area. The apartment was clean and in a very good condition. The management was great, thanks to Rey, Janae and their team. Whenever something went wrong - it was fixed as soon as possible. Rey and Janae were always polite and willing to help. Pool is nice and maintained well. The outside area is also well-maintained. The neighborhood is quiet, there is a good park one block away. At the same time it has quick access to major highways. There is a free cable TV / Internet included, with TV being grate (HBO!) and Internet being - eeh, OK for a free one :) The apartment itself has plenty of storage, which we didn't realise until we needed to move. Our apartment was at ground floor, we got lucky with the guy at top floor apartment - he was not noisy at all, but as with most of other apartment complexes in this area - the sound isolation between top / bottom floor is not very good. Apartments at top floors have AC and higher ceiling. Ground floor stays cool all year, so we never missed AC. You get one assigned covered car spot for free. If you have a second car you'll most likely be able to find a parking place for it with no issues. The things we didn't like as much: 1) the floor plan - the access to the bathroom is through the bedroom 2) the dining area has carpet - we were super careful and didn't spoil it, but I would rather prefer a hard floor which I can just wipe if I spill a glass of milk. read more

It was one of the best place to live, but now there greed is driving this place carzy. For such small apartment they are asking way too much rent (1730 for 1 bed and 2100 for 2 bed) and on top of it they are cheating old tenants with higher rents and only 6 month lease renewals. So they can increase it again. Very sad to see this place going down hill and talking to to the new assistance feels as if you are talking to a recorded message. I remember the days in 2007 when these were nicest people to deal with, when Maria was around. read more

Lived here till Aug 2014 and leaving now. pros - 1. Rent includes cable and internet. 2. Very close to central expressway, 101 and 237. 3. AC in bed room and good maintenance staff. 4. Ample parking. 5. Proximity with few big firms. cons- 1. Lots of spider, silverfish and cockroaches. 2. Very old apartments so constant disruption due to maintanence activity. 3. Very rude management staff. This guy called Rey is very rude and always in denial mode. He denies every problem with apartment. 4. While internet and cable is free, Its really bad and face frequent disconnection. You cant rely on this connection when working from home and over that they dont allow comcast. 5. swimming pool and jacuzzi are not maintained. Washer and dryer are really old. 6. Area has become unsafe with recent shootout and theft. You cant roam around in area after sunset. 7. No close by market area. read more

We stayed here for 5+ years and absolutely loved it. Nice community with very responsive management.. never had any issue. Nice big kitchen area. Encinal park nearby is great for kids and visiting parents Only cons I can think of is in 1-bed apartment the bathroom is inside the bedroom. And atleast we could not put the patio to much use. Also they have been increasing rent steadily, but that I guess is true pretty much everywhere in Sunnyvale read more

We've been living here for almost a year and a half now. The apartment complex isn't much to look at but our apartment is okay on the inside. We have an upstairs unit which has nice high ceilings that make the place feel more spacious, which is a bonus over the 1st floor units. Decent on the inside, no frills. The stove could use definite updating for sure. Cabinets and fridge are just fine. Kitchen counter tops are awful. They look like they are a white plastic material, perfect for getting stained! No other major complaints though. When we moved in, the rent was a really great price! It has since went up 400 dollars in the past year!! They said they were under-priced before. I will agree, it was an excellent price, but now nothing makes this place special. We may be moving out soon as we are looking for a better price. Nice location. Next to a park (bonus). Free cable and internet! However the free internet is horrible! We've been tolerating it, only because it is free. The residents are really good though. Quit place :) read more

The rent is too high as compared to other communities nearby. The one bedroom size is just 656 sq ft so you will leave lot of stuff behind before moving to this. These people are increasing rent like crazy. $1695 for one bedroom so i found 2 bedroom within 3-4 miles of this community for same rent including utilities. read more

We lived in Macara Gardens in a 2 bed/2bath for 2 years. Here are the PROs: * Apartment was pretty clean with a good floor plan and plenty of light. Storage space was also pretty good. * Maintenance staff was always prompt and any problem would get quickly fixed. * They gave us full deposit back upon moving out, which was very nice of them, after we spent 2 weekends cleaning and touching up by ourselves! Here are the CONs that mainly made us move out: * Terrible insulation. Single-paned windows let all the heat out, so during cold months between October and February, the apartment would get quite cold, and we would have to run the heater all the time (except when we are at work of course). Our electric bill in winter would jump up to $350-400, which is insane for California. I never paid such a bill during winter even living in a 3 bedroom house in the East Coast! So after 2 consecutive winters in a cold apartment and high electric bill, we said enough! Management would not want to dual-pane the windows, even though we asked many times. I understand it's a huge cost, but you would retain more tenants in the long run. * After the first year the rent increase was not very bad, barely +$100/mo. The next year however they increased it by $450!!! Why would we want to pay SO MUCH for the same cold apartment? So we moved out. PS. We luckily could find another place for a cheaper rent with an excellent insulation, gas heating and dual-paned windows, and that was the warmest winter in California for us so far! When I compare it to winters in Macara Gardens, I would never want to live in a single-paned window apartment again. About the neighborhood: Very safe. There is a nice park, Encinal park nearby. However the area is car-dependent. You can't reach Sunnyvale Caltrain Station in the mornings unless you drive or bike. read more

Pros: 1) Very safe area. People walk around Encinal park even at 10.30 at night. I have lived here for 3 years now and never heard of break-ins or thefts in the area. 2) Close to 101, 237 and El Camino, VTA (32 bus), Light rail and Caltrain 3) Close to all Grocery Stores and both Mountain View and Sunnyvale downtown and farmer's markets. Also Encinal park is an excellent place to play tennis, basketball or hang out with kids. 4) Excellent reliable maintainence staff, they respond the same day whenever you file a complaint and fix the problem. 5) We never had problems at the laundry room. It is mostly free on weekdays and even during Saturdays. 6) Though the apartments are old, we never faced major maintainence problems which took days to fix...no leakage etc. 7) They offer free cable and no hidden charges for water or garbage. Cons: 1) Greedy, unsympathetic management. We had problems due an old-aged single neighbor staying in the apartment below ours. He would "knock" the walls below our feet (with probably a golf club) even when we walked around our apartment in the night after 8. He would do that even during the day-time on weekends. He looked fierce and like a "physco" and was not approachable. When the problem became unbearable we complained to the management and they said they can't do anything about it and offered to let us move to another apartment. When we actually moved to another apartment, they increased our rent by 100$. But, we haven't had any such problems with the new apartment and the neighbors were decent, so we took the offer. So, in the past 3 years our rent has increased by 400$. 2) Every house has mold problem in the bathroom/bathtub, and the mold crops up from the plastering around the bathtub. So every few months we have to call them get the plastering redone. 3) Currently, we observe that due to recession and high rent all the people are moving to other apartment complexes. The management is not reducing the rent as fast as they raised it in the past 3 years. Just around our apartment, we have seen at least 8-10 apartments vacant for 3-4 months. 4) The bath room is located inside the bedroom, so it is extremely inconvenient if someone visits and stays overnight. 5) No gym or fitness center present in the apartment complex. 6) The swimming pool "looks" clean, but we have heard people mentioning that they suffered from "ring worms" and skin infections after using the pool. read more

I lived here for 1 and a half years. Moved out in 2013. The negative points are that the apartments have become very expensive. I found another apt with 200 sq ft more area, for $300 less price per month just 4 miles away from here. The floor plans are nice with good storage space but living area is very less, you'll have to leave furniture behind if u move in. For 1 Bedrooms the bathrooms are inside the bedroom which is a huge problem, specially if you have guests. The plus points are that its a very safe and lively community, close to Encinal park. Nice service. Free cable and internet. read more

We have lived here for 3 years now. The apartments are not very new, but in a better condition than many other older apartments in Sunnyvale. The only drawback is the apartment layout. The access to the bathroom is through the bedroom. There is a lot of storage areas in the apartment. The grounds are clean, safe and have access to major freeways. Encinal park is just a two minute walk and is great for kids. Access to public transport is great--VTA 32, light rail and caltrain. We have found these apartments quite peaceful as compared too many of our friend's apartments. We never had any structural or pest/ mold/ants/white ants problem in our apartment so far. Rent is comparatively less than many other apartments around our complex. Maintainence staff and the managers are extremely helpful and friendly--no doubt about that. Usually any maintenance complaints are taken care of within 3-4 hours of calling the management. read more