Hightree Townhomes

"I'd like to drop a good review for Hightree. Me and my girlfriend lived here for a year (2018-2019) and it was good. No major issues and great service. Tia in the front office and Russ doing maintenance are both great people and super helpful. Keep in mind, what you see is what you get. The units are dated along with the appliances but it is still the cheapest place to live in Allendale for a student. Snow plowing lacked sometimes but it never felt like some huge deal. I'd rather go shovel out my car than the plow guy risk peeling my bumper off. This is more traditional style apartment living so don't expect to be spoon fed everything like college apartments do."

"I lived in Sutter's Mill for one year and it was great! Large bedrooms, bathrooms, walk in closets and a garage. Russ the maintenance guy was phenomenal. BUT the ladies in the office are so unorganized it is seriously painful. They will lose your checks, claim you never paid your rent and attack you for random charges that you "owed" months ago. Once all of the roommates show proof of payment - they suddenly have "figured out" the issue. My roommates and I moved out 6 months ago and we are still being contacted about "missing payments" when we all have proof of payment. KEEP ALL RECEIPTS if you live here. Again - a nice apartment but beware of the cluster you are entering into."

"Pros: -Close to Allendale Campus so you can walk on nice days. -Rapid bus stop located by the front office. Cons: -Some of the complexes have oddly shaped rooms. Somebody may be stuck with a room that is the size of a closet. -The sidewalks are never shoveled and often icy or impassable. -The parking lot is not plowed until 3-4 days after a snowfall. Many cars got stuck and people were forced to take sick days because the management was cutting corners. I regularly had to help people escape our parking lot and my friends would not come over during the winter for fear of being stuck in our lot. -The trash service is not regular enough so the dumpsters frequently overflow and tenants are forced to leave trash in the parking lot next to the dumpsters. This inevitably leads to trash blowing around the parking lot. -Our leases were changed after we signed them to shorten the grace period for late payments. If you think your lease is a legally binding contract with these landlords then you are sorely mistaken. They also tried to raise some peoples rent. -They put in employee parking and guest parking, and left a trailer in resident parking reducing the number of spots available near the office to park if you live in the units by the office. They also tow people who park in those reserved spots even if it is over the weekend when the office is not in use. They also called a cop to prevent interference when towing because the management is so oppressive that they fear an uprising from the angry tenants. -They do not enforce resident parking so anyone can park here. Since I lived near the office, this led to me being forced to park far away from my apartment because between the neighbors and their boyfriends, they took up 7 spots (1 unit took 7 spots when all were there). Combined with the guest parking and employee parking it was the perfect storm. -If you file a maintenance request do not expect to get a reply so you will have no idea if they received your request. It will probably take over a week for your request to get fixed. If you try to enter another request, you will get an angry e-mail from the landlords about spamming their website. They sent a college student with a flat billed hat to assess our dryer (and he gave a completely wrong assessment of the problem) and when we complained that he was a chump, they sent a professional who diagnosed the problem and fixed it immediately. -If you go into their office and talk reasonably with them or send them a friendly e-mail with issues you are having, they often kick you out of the office or tell you to stop sending e-mails citing that you are using a rude tone. My roommate went in the office to tell them about the abuse of resident parking and they immediately threw him out telling him that they did not like his tone. -The landlords will periodically send you threatening e-mails about trivial matters such as posting a note on their door, putting furniture in the dumpster, spamming their maintenance website, late payments, snow plow service, etc. Their favorite tactic is to threaten you with legal ramifications if you do not comply. Overall, I cannot wait until my lease is up and I will be moving elsewhere. The rent is going up next year so it is no longer competitive and the High Tree management including owner Andrew Studebaker and his staff are tyrannical. If you want to live in an authoritarian environment, by all means, live here and enjoy being pushed around."

"STAY AWAY FROM S&M. When I first signed my lease for Hightree, I signed with the most wonderful landlords. They were kindhearted and genuinely good people that understood the struggles we faced as college students. The couple was personable and friendly and were in the business to honestly help us. HOWEVER.... new landlords took over that could absolutely care less about their tenants. To them, Hightree (and their other communities) are just money bags. Never before have I been talked down to and belittled until Andrew Studebaker. S&M changed policies on our leases, did not uphold their word about timeliness of repairs & snow removal, and consistently made it clear that they didn't care about their tenants. I honestly cannot wait to leave this place and get away from S&M."

"STAY AWAY! The old owners were great! The new ones, however, are terrible. I signed a 9 month lease and they tried making me pay for 10 months. They refuse to shovel our walkways, even though the old owners did this for free. And when one of the tenants wrote notes on everyone's doors to write an email to the new owners requesting them to shovel our walk ways, the new owner's sent out emails to everyone saying that the notes on people's doors were graffiti and if they caught anyone putting notes on people's doors again, they would be charged. When the new owners got there, they put money in and re-did their whole office, but still do not shovel our walks. Our summer months use to be free with the old owners, which was great! But the new owners took this away. It is now 520 dollars a month for a nine month lease (mind you, you can go to 48 West and pay less than this and receive a bigger room, fitness room free, commons room, and many other amenities). If you're getting a three person apartment, one of the three rooms is a little bigger than the size of my closet at home (I am not joking). So, one person will be shafted on the room choices. I signed my lease thinking this was the cheapest, best option for me close to campus. I now wish I would've paid a little more and gone elsewhere. I am VERY dissatisfied."