We lived in [La Cima] Newport Condos for about a year. It's the first time in a long time since we've lived in an apartment. Previously we've lived in condos, townhouses or rental homes. Although some of the condo/townhouse complexes looked and felt more like apartment complexes, for some reason they claim the distinction of condos. Just to be clear, in my opinion, Newport Condos are apartments. I don't care how many palm-type trees they have within the property or how resort-like they think the pool is. These are just apartments.
We were leaving another property with condo in the name: The Tuscany Condos of Dallas. They were a little more condo-ish but I'll let you read my review on that property...when I write it up.
We were looking for a place within sixty days and wanted to stay in the general area where we already were. We did look at a couple of other properties before The Newport Condos. The Newport seemed 'respectable' and we were able to schedule a visit around mid to late April. We actually got to enter and check out the exact apartment we would be renting. It was really weird because the current tenants were still fully living there AND they were actually there, sitting on their living room couch, while we walked through the apartment. I felt like we were invading their space a bit but went with the flow. We did get to ask the current tenant how they liked the place and they said they enjoyed living there. I don't mean to sound judgy but the place did have marijuana paraphernalia in various places as well as a slight marijuana aroma so I would assume they would/could enjoy just about any halfway decent place. Don't get me wrong. They seemed like a nice couple.
Anyway, the place 'seemed' good enough for us and our options were limited due to timing, price and location. If we could move in right then or at least shortly after the current tenant vacates around end of May, our monthly rent would have been $300 cheaper than when we actually plan to move in around July. It was totally foreign to us that the renting market had become like the housing market in the sense that prices were higher depending on the "hot months" of moving/renting. Unfortunately, our landlords at Tuscany were dicks and wanted to maximize their money by having us stay until the end of our lease and not have any "empty" days. I get it but they were still dicks!
Move-in day finally arrived. It went well enough. Things seemed good. The wife initially liked the new place. We never felt like "Wow, this place is so nice and wonderful." It felt a little bigger than the Tuscany and rent was cheaper although not as cheap as it could have been.
Around late October or early November 2019, they had a hot water issue. Specifically, the lack of consistent or any hot water running to most if not all of the apartments. Newport is on a boiler system. Good when it's working but not good when it's not. They kept trying to find the issue but could not for almost a month and a half. They said they had four different plumbers try to fix it but I'm not sure if those were "real" plumbers or just people the management knows who happen to know a little about plumbing. I say this because one way the workers tried to remedy the issue was to come into each apartment and turn the cold water valve at each faucet (showers and sinks) down so less cold water was piped through to mix with the hot water. This obviously did not work like they thought and wouldn't have solved the issue in the first place. Even I knew it wouldn't! After weeks and weeks, I think they finally got a real 'expert' plumber to come in and they found that it was something like a faulty valve right off/outside the boiler. DUH! I tried to explain that if all or the majority of the units weren't getting hot water, it has nothing to do with the inside of the unit(s). That should have been obvious and common sense.
Anyway, a few months more around mid-April 2020 we got a really bad mold problem. It was all along the windows in the dining room and the sliding glass door in the living room. Around mid-May 2020 after I cleaned the moldy areas, we had mold back again in the same place but it had spread from the dining room windows to the kitchen pantry and to the living room floors and our furniture. It was in the cracks and seams of the Spanish tile flooring as well as running up the sheet rock from the floor to about eighteen inches above the base board. They thought it was cracks in the walls on the outside or even the cable guy not closing the cable junction box right outside our place. They 'patched' the cracks and slapped the hand of the cable guys and everything seemed to be okay. They tried to say it was moisture coming from underneath the apartment but every time they checked, it was dry. They then tried to say it was because our air conditioner is too efficient for our apartment, like it's for say 1,500 square feet but the apartment is only 1,000 square feet. I said that could make sense if I was running my air conditioner. This was like mid/late April 2020 I guess and the weather was not hot enough for the A/C. I would just open windows and use fans. The mold was in all the windows, sliding doors and base boards. It event got up inside the pantry. It was freaking weird.
They refused to move us. They refused to let us out of our lease a month early. They wanted us to trust them to find the issue and fix it. Like they did with the previous mold issue AND the hot water? Come on, man! Who would trust them with fixing anything?
And just to fan more of the 'this place sucks' flames, the walls were terribly insulated. I could hear every time our neighbors upstairs would walk in their apartment. I could hear the next door neighbor watch TV or play his video games. I guess I'm saying that in this place you could hear just about everything everywhere.
So that's our experience. If you read the reviews on Yelp, you'll find that mold is a recurring theme as well as 'trumped up' fees to deduct from your deposit. We cleaned our apartment pretty well, end to end. When we received our deposit refund, it was something like $85 less due to "housekeeping". I was glad to be out of there and didn't feel like questioning the charges but I guess that's how they get to keep these 'bogus' fees — they know people don't want to take the time to fight over them. I should have but it was just during a time that I preferred not to. Anyway, you'll also find that the management basically sucks and it all ties back to the manager, Evelina. There is an assistant named Maria who is fairly nice but she essentially is just the front woman. She shows the apartments, does the paperwork and chats with the potential residents. Anything else is above her pay grade and position. She's always saying, "I'll have to check with Evelina" when the 'hard' questions are asked. Just like a few other Yelpers, our attempts to find and/or contact the owner/business above Evelina were unanswered and futile.
Pictures of mold in mid-April.
Pictures of mold in mid-May.
This is a stock photo from the Newport website (I think) of one of the many sitting areas within the complex. It's a novel idea but in truth, the areas are dark, dank and dusty. I can't recall anyone ever using them. I tried once but when I sat on the cushion a bunch of dust poofed into the air. Also, a few of them have trash cans where people put in the doggy poop bags. Glad they are picking up the poo but placing it in these semi-closed in areas makes them not so inviting for hanging out.
FINAL VERDICT: I would avoid this place like the plague. It may have some appeal and the cost can be fairly low but what you have to deal with isn't worth the trade-off. We were fairly low maintenance, no complaint tenants and they still treated us like we were just temporary because they had a long [imaginary] line of prospective tenants waiting to have our place. Maybe a young, college student and roommate would be okay with the place but I would definitely not recommend for a family or elderly. Knowing what I know now, I would pay a little extra to avoid the idiots running the Newport Condos!
