I am a tenant that recently moved out. My only regret besides not moving out sooner is having chosen to live there in the first place. My biggest headache with the Utopia group currently is that they took a good chunk of my security deposit in order to "make repairs" that were not damaged in the first place. For example, they told me the garbage disposal needed repairing even though I had literally had maintenance come and fix it months prior, and I had checked it the day before I moved out and it was working fine. They also took money to repair a window screen, even though all the window screens in the building were extremely old and corroded. They're also one of those properties that charges you to clean the carpet once you leave, despite me having made sure it was in great shape myself. In general, the building I lived in was poorly maintained. The stone stairs were literally breaking and they didn't come to repair it until I brought it up. The laundry machine was broken half the time and when I placed a repair order, they asked ME to make and place a sign saying that it was out of order. The laundry room itself looked very unsanitary, even in the middle of the covid pandemic. There is also always trash strewn about the property which is rarely cleaned up. If you call to bring up complaints, don't expect anyone to pick up the phone. They notoriously ignore your calls/don't call back and wait until you email them. read more

The place I was renting was vandalized and I was robbed losing most of my valuables. This company has the last couple of months left from the lease as past due and sent to collections even though i was told the contract was annulled . They lied and now I have to deal with collections. read more

If you are a property owner do not trust this management company. Especially do not trust Denny V in Lancaster Ca, the company has no customer service whatsoever. They do not return calls, they do not return Emails, this company is just a sham. Denny will try to take money from you with out doing anything, she is rude, unprofessional and racist against applicants as well as owners. We had to do all the supervising of the repairs needed to rent the property because she did not do anything other than give the lock-box code to the laborers. Still waiting for the Management to contact me after two weeks of trying to get a hold of them. If I could give 0 stars I would. read more

I have lived at a utopia property for a couple years now and can't wait to leave!! They have the worst support possible, rude employees who don't can't about any of your needs with your apartment. Good luck getting any repairs that you WILL need done, I have crazy water damage and constant leaks everywhere and flood when it rains from the windows. The price for these apartments and what you get is horrible. save your time and money do not move into any property ran by utopia. read more

Anytime I send a maintenance request in, they are so speedy contacting me to schedule an appointment to fix the issue! Eddie and Armando are always so nice and helpful when they come and address the problem. I had Eddie come fix my sink today...he noticed a possible issue with it during a previous visit when I had a leak and told me if the problem continues to contact management. He remembered the issue and was proactive by bringing the replacement part, so awesome! Thanks guys read more

So I never leave reviews, but I have to say that ARMANDO ZAPIEN is not just a stellar worker who gets the job done (quickly and right!) but is also an amazing human who makes you feel at ease that the work needed to be done is in good hands. Communication is key with me. And he made sure to keep me up to date with everything! If you need any plumbing/kitchen repairs done, ARMANDO is the guy! Thanks again :) read more

If I could give a zero I would. They sucked as a landlord (e.g., would not fix a clogged sink, a broken ceiling fan - during summer! - or a loose/not locking doorknob) and then LIED about my move-out and stole my security deposit. There is no level below which they will not go. They are selfish, lying cheats and don't give a crap about you. DO NOT rent from them! read more

My application for a rental was approved by Utopia. As a prior homeowner, I was hugely impressed with Utopia's allegiance to the homeowner of the rental. However, I was very disappointed Utopia did not seem to advocate for the renter in their leasing terms. My impression was that their leasing terms read like a jail sentence; and their staff was not readily available for my questions. I turned down the property based on the above. read more

As a property owner entrusting my property to a management company, I experienced the worst representation possible! Costing me over $20,000 in losses at the sale of the property, it was a horrible decision to entrust my home to this company. Primarily, my contact was with Sarah Guillen from the Utopia Management office. Scarcely available and full of reasons why they failed to manage and protect the integrity of my home, I quickly lost trust in her services. Then there was the condition of the home when it was finally surrendered. It smelled and looked horrible!! The management company stipulated property checks in the contracts but it was apparent they were never completed. When confronted with condition of the home, excuses were given but no accountability or remedies were offered. Definitely would not recommend this company for home owners entrusting their valuable assets to a management company. read more

They claim things that invalid as a renter. Avoid if you can. Document every rent payment to them and any conversation you have with them (magically employees that promise things don't work there when you show them the prove). read more

Utopia? They apparently picked the wrong name for their company - these people are a total, unprofessional joke. Utterly incompetent, unreliable and clueless. DO NOT RENT if this company is managing the property. read more

Reeanne was a doll. She was attentive , quickly responsive , professional and courteous in dealing with my maintenance service requests . Thank you so much Reeanne ! read more

My apartment flooded 2 months ago and they have not and won't come fix the base boards. When I call and ask what's going on their responds is "we put in the work order". Now the roof has a leak and it been two days with my ceiling looking like.... See photos. They are one of the worst and I will never rent from them or recommend them to anyone. They have master giving people the run a round. read more

Mr. Armando was prompt and courteous. He was able to complete the task of changing out the faucets for the washer. I would recommend him without reservation. read more

Submitted a maintenance request and in less than 24 hours they had our problem solved.So Thankful for Eddie who helped us with our water heater. read more

I found a property for rent on Zillow, and was told that my application was pre-approved, and I could move forward with the credit check portion to speed the process. I agreed, because it's hard to find an apartment in San Diego! The property wasn't available to view for a few weeks, and they were holding an open house for approved applicants. My boss was contacted to verify my employment. I was emailed a few days after the application approval and credit check to be told that they still hadn't heard from my employer. My boss DID in fact verify just the day prior, but somehow the email was "lost" when I spoke with the agent, Olivia. When she cleared up the little snag I had, I was told that there were several other applicants, but that they were still holding the open house. When I inquired about other rentals in my price range I was directed to fend for myself and look on the website (which itself is confusing). Today was the day of the open house, and I was there at 4pm only to be greeted by another tenant that said the apt. was occupied. There was NO ONE around to show me the unit. I called Utopia Management to see what was going on-Olivia wasn't available. I spoke with the receptionists who said the open house had been cancelled. I asked why I wasn't notified, after I had RSVP'd and she said that I was not on record of being approved for the property, and therefore not notified. WOW, I left work early for this? I requested my application fee back, and now I'll have to keep a close eye on my bank account for my reimbursement. Utopia Management is a J.O.K.E. Unorganized, unprofessional, and misleading. *Disclosure: I am in the hospitality business and haven't submitted a review in YEARS. This is simply to forewarn any apartment seeker that might fall victim to this company.* read more

Utopia Management - Pre-approval and invitation for an open house that never happened. - Real Estate Services Near Me - San Diego, California

Utopia has a great employee, her name is Natalie H. We had a showing with her recently. She was able to answer all of our questions . Very pleasant soft spoken, she had a good "Ora", about her. We connected well. read more

Natalie Hernandez is a great res present Ive of the company. She is knowledgeable and always seeks the best for her clients

I received particularly good service from their maintenance technician Armando. He was very respectful and went above and beyond to make sure the work was completed well. Definitely recommend their maintenance! Response to the leak in my roof was prompt and Armando completely fixed all the damage. Thank you Armando! read more

Utopia Property lacks communication with consumers. It's almost like they don't even try. I have applied for a condo and didn't receive a message from them until 4 days later. Other places got back to me the same day. I communicated with them that I had RSVP for an open house still no response from them if I could see the place. I decided to drive to the open house which was at 4:30 Pm arrived at 4:40 and no one was there. I was informed that they had left. Called multiple times for an update on my reports because I was interested in a condo. The receptionist did not know when my report would come back or if I got the place I wanted to lease. I had my girlfriend message them and they responded to way faster. Interestingly she happens to be white and I happen to be brown, not sure if they take ethnicity/race as a factor. read more

Shout out to Shkumbin for coming to our place and promptly getting our water heater replaced. Him and his partner were respectful, knowledgeable, and cleaned up well on the way out. Thank you for the professionalism! read more

Joaquin was great to work with he was able to help me figure out a plan to my liking and overall an amazing employee. He was able to offer recommendations and provide amazing service. read more

I am property owner that has had multiple problems with poor service for me and my tenants over a multi year period. Read the other property owner reviews and I can confirm most all aspects of poor service. 1. Yes, Utopia is slow to act on owners behalf and doesn't act in their best interest. 2. Yes, it does take way to long to get a response back to email or phone calls (so inconsiderate.) 3. Yes, property management agents do not know the business or the laws and put my standing with tenant litigation in jeopardy. 4. Yes, repair spending limits will be ignored/abused and then come as a surprise at the end of the month without owner approval. 5. Yes, their maintenance/repair people are incompetent and do extra damage that you will have to pay for too. 6. Yes, Utopia will ignore you when you have a problem with their accounting. 7. Yes, they will leave your property vacant loosing you money. 8. etc., etc. etc. We do not recommend this management company to any landlords that hope to keep their properties and tenants in good condition. read more

Update: If you want to get a hold of them faster just write a negative review and they'll get back to you within 24 hours

Utopia management refunded previously disputed application fees which increased my initial review from 1 star to three. I am happy the issue was resolved, I just wish it didn't have to happen based on a negative review read more

Bad service, never returned calls. Was not transparent with the transaction thus taking all my money plus money from my tenants deposit. Would not recommend AT all read more

Just rented with Utopia. My girlfriend and I had a few concerns regarding the state of certain applicances and whatnot initially however they sent their handyman Eddie who took care of everything. He truly did a great job. We are now stoked on our new place! read more

A Big shout out to EDDY who came by today and fixed my disposal! Thank you!! Sue read more

I wouldnt write this review if i had gotten ANY respect. They WILL steal your security deposit, read ALL the other reviews saying the same thing. They initially returned 380/3500!! Made up two separate charges of cigarette smell. NO ONE in the house was ever a smoker, period. In order to get them to do anything you almost have to annoy them, i sent so many emails. Called multiple times, NEVER received a call back. Pete the supervisor, never responded to any email. I even wrote one to the president...nothing. I did a diligent walk through and was expecting a cleaning charge, but they tacked on anything and everything they could. Additionally our AC broke in August and again it seemed like i had to harass them with emails to get them to do anything. Took over a month to get any action. If possible i recommend staying away unless you're ok with throwing away a significant security deposit. read more

Shkumbim and Visar Shala did a great job on exterior light that went out. They came prepared with big ladder super nice and professional and I will definitely recommend utopia Managment to friends and family. read more

Update 2: I just want to add that, had I known I would get such a quick response by posting on Yelp, I would have communicated here exclusively instead of leaving multiple voice messages that rarely gets a response. Your reviews speak for itself, it's obvious I'm not the only one who had a bad experience. Update 1: You are accusing me of being a competitor? You are pathetic Pete. My manager was Robby Schlesier, and he was completely incompetent when it came to the water leak issue with my property in UTC. I was the one calling non-stop to get answers along with HOA and my Tenant. He eventually apologized and said he would understand if I fired Utopia after 4+ years, which I did. The dirty fees were never mentioned to me, and these were things that other management told me upfront, I interviewed 6 of them for my new property and the SD property and they all listed their fees, but not you guys. And you guys aren't competitive at all, I was offered 4-6% across the board in monthly and some include ad/listing fee some don't, but you guys do and you charge 8% on top of the dirty fees which no one else charges, and I had to do your job dealing with the tenant myself on top of that, I should be reimbursed for that if we are being honest. The tenant literally had to get the HOA to get my info to get help because they couldn't find you guys and you guys don't respond to voice messages. Robby himself said your office was having issues and you guys couldn't find Amanda Stellas the manager at the time, and there was a bunch of other issues. Next time Pete, take some responsibility and accountability, can't believe you thought I was a competitor when I was a customer for such a long time. Also, it's time to share this to all the local rental groups, thanks for the reminder. Faux Pas read more

This is a very bad management company. From the rude employees at the front desk to the hard to find managers sit behind their desks... I have a very bad experience with this company. They have the worst customer service. They are very rude to my tenants and also very condescending to me when I want to know more about the problems of my properties. The maintenance department is the worst. The manager at the maintenance department doesn't like her job and you can definitely tell. I am planning to leave this company and move on to better property management company. Lesson learned for me...do your research before you sign anything. Respond to management : All the experience I had happened before COVID-19. The girls were sitting in the front desk at that time. I am not going to let you know who I am because unfortunately I am still your client. I still need to work with you guys and you guys have a lot of my personal information. I am writing this review hoping for improvement in your customer service to both owners and tenants. I will have this review removed when I see the positive changes been made. read more

They have done it again. I am never surprised at that terrible service provided by "Utopia Management." We have leased a unit for almost 11 years and in the past were never charged for maintenance needs for the unit. This month a plumbing fee was tacked on to our statement without any prior written notice - AND without the plumber providing ANY estimate - AND without requesting approval of the fees to be charged. I may not currently be a contracts lawyer, but I know that a contract requires an agreement between two entities. That did not happen in this case and we are VERY ANGRY with our property manager's complete disregard for our response and request to discuss WHY they feel it is ok to simply bill us for charges that WE NEVER AGREED TO. Do not use UTOPIA MANAGEMENT. THEY ARE TERRIBLE, TAKE FOREVER TO RESPOND, AND THEY JUST PLAIN SUCK. read more

I would like to thank and shout out the woman on the phone, Kaylee C. for her customer service and professionality. She answered my questions with ease and gave me the information I needed. read more

I unexpectedly had to move and Kaylee was extremely helpful in telling me what units I could apply to that meet my income. She made the process very stress free for me and I'm extremely grateful for her help. read more

Worst and most dishonest management company out there. Applied for rental, and paid $90 on 1/24 and two days later I called they said the property was rented. Nonetheless, when I spoke to Tatiana she said no one has applied yet. They will lie to you and make money from applications. Every time I call, I say my name and they hang up in my face. I've been super polite to them every time on the phone and they treat me less than human. I understand if it got rented, but give me my money back for the application; don't lie to me and put me on hold and hang up in my face. I have over 750 credit score and make enough and I'm not in need for your disrespectful attitude and low life treatment of people. It is about the principle of the whole situation, and all I am asking for is my money back. They said last weeK we will refund it, and then this week they said we ran your credit and we can't refund it. Get your story together if you want to lie. Most unprofessional company and will never rent any property listed by them. read more

Do not rent under this company. Their employees are not helpful and the apartment I was in literally had black mold growing in the windows. Victoria's customer service was the worst I've ever had to deal with. Not following up with me when I needed to terminate my lease, not answering my questions via email in a timely manner (weeks later), sending me important emails regarding that termination across two email addresses and never in the same chain so it made it difficult to keep track of what was going on. It almost felt intentional, like she knew she wasn't doing a good job and was making it more difficult for me to keep track of her correspondence so....what???..... her management wouldn't notice she was being a bad employee or that I wouldn't keep every single email she sent me to cover my own tail in this situation? Then they tried to tell me I was still on the lease AND that I needed to give notice that I was leaving even though I had notified Victoria via email almost 2 months prior AND paid the $250 roommate exchange fee. There was no communication internally on their part. We didn't even get new lease documents. I signed a lease from 2020!! It still has the girls from 3 years ago listed as tenants. They just wrote my name and when I was starting as a tenant on the top of the page in pen. THREE YEARS!! You're telling me they can't update the lease documents? It's super shady and every time I called to get answers no one would pick up or give me a call back. THEY WILL NOT FOLLOW UP WITH YOU. They do not care about their tenants. It's not worth the money. I kept all the emails and had to call them a few days ago to have them close down my AppFolio account so I could access my new apartments info as I now live in a different state. I haven't lived at that apartment in 3 months!!! I'll add a picture of the mold when I find it. Per Pete's response - a major part of this being a much more difficult experience was the lack of follow up, professionalism, and communication put forth by the employees. 0/10 in that regard. read more

Owners and Tenants RUN!! This management company is ill hearted. They penny pinch you even after you're gone. Faking as if you left the place trashed when it was professionally cleaned- don't worry we have receipts and will deal with so that it hopefully won't happen to anyone else. Ask them what their employee turnover rate is before you use them to rent your property out. That's how high the rate of turnover will be on people renting your property, if not higher. We went through so many different people who were our "point of contact" that when we put in our 30 days notice the girl who did it simply wrote it on our account instead of submitting it in writing and they still forced us to continue renting. They knew she wrote it on our account. But because she didn't do her job this basically screwed us as far as money for our new place goes. The patio was unusable for a quarter of the time we lived there and we had so many issues with their online billing program messing up. In short, f*** this company. We'll see you in small claims. Tenants have rights and laws that protect them from companies like Response back to company 2/13/2020: multiple employees of your company said that the woman who didn't do her job simply noted it on our account. So you're either not privy to the situation or are really good at lying. Also, you noted that there was carpet that needed replacement. I would LOVE to see those pictures so please email them to me ASAP. If you were at all a good company your employee turnover rate wouldn't be as high as it is and your ratings ALL OVER the web wouldn't be crap. Instead of making excuses maybe you should do better business. My original review stands, I'll be waiting for that email. read more

Thee worst! It would be 0 stars if I was able to. My owner decided to sell our unit which they have no control over. However, they did not make having to move out within 30 days especially when we had no intentions on moving. Melissa was my point of contact she has a tone that makes you feel bothered she always has an oh well attitude and has argued with me, well over me I should say because she did not allow me to every really speak. When I went to take the keys Carmella who is in the front greeted me I let her know I was looking for Melissa to return the keys she was getting upset because she couldn't find the property in their system (because they are not going to be managing it any longer). She got upset when I let her know I just needed to see Melissa because she deals with my property she gets up comes around the desk in a very intimidating way and says I'm going outside because I'm getting pissed off! How do you say that to a customer. How unprofessional!!! I have also reached out to Andrew who they say is the owner SEVERAL times and have left SEVERAL messages in regards to his employees mannerism, or lack of. read more

Please read all the way through...I hope anyone who plans to rent from Utopia reads this before signing anything. Hopefully, I was just an anomaly and if you do choose to rent from them, they treat you better. We've had some "frustrating" issues in our first 3 months (front door locks non-functional, multiple last minute move-in date changes, waking up to the maintenence guy in the attic with no forewarning whatsoever, I could go on..) but all that is not why I'm writing this review.. The issues began when they blatantly stole my money. The lease specifically states that our utilities will be included in the price of rent, (we have email confirmation and screenshots of this before we moved in). On the move in date we brought our required down payment of first month's rent+handling fees. She said that it wasnt enough, we needed $50 more every month to cover utilities and we cannot move in until we pay it online (which of course had a $10 fee for using card). Having no choice if we wanted a place to live, we payed. Later, we contested this showing them the lease and they admitted that yes, utilities are included in the rent in our lease like we thought. However it's a "cookie cutter lease" and that part didn't apply to all their homes, ours being one of them. (Never showed me any of this in writing) We have been charged for utilities every month by them. Except for this last month where they automatically pulled our rent, utilities, and then an extra $445 from both me, and my roommates accounts. In other words, instead of pulling the $1500/mo that was originally stated for the duplex, they pulled $2440. Obviously we went and confronted them to which they told us they don't know why it happened but unfortunately it's non-refundable and we'd have to wait until the next month to get it back in credit. In what world is that acceptable? And in case Utopia would like to reply to this review, yes, we have proof of all of this. During that month our duplex has transferred to a different company who thankfully has credited our money and has charged us the proper amount. Looking forward to this new management. Goodbye Dystopia. read more