West Seattle Blog…

Killing time before the conversion

July 29, 2007 at 2:29 pm | In Seen around town, West Seattle housing | 6 Comments

Guess you can’t just let those apartments lie idle while tenants flee before the deadline to buy in or get out. Spotted at West Ridge Park on Delridge this afternoon, balloon-festooned signs exhorting SHORT TERM LEASES! (photo below) and MONTH TO MONTH! (across the street), all within rock-throwing distance of the sign about the conversion to its new condo identity as “Gables” …

6 Comments

1. Condos at WestRidge? Thanks for the notice. Hadn’t heard of it.

   Comment by LyndaB — July 29, 07 4:02 pm #

2. I’m not surprised at their greed (having lived there recently). We lived in one of the last “courts” that were going to be converted, and we were told we could stay until the end of February 2008 at the latest, so that means at the longest we’re talking 7 month leases. And since those are the townhomes all the way in the back, that means that you get the “pleasure” of driving through and listening to all of that construction they’ll soon be doing up front. Fun, huh?
   I bet they’re trying to talk people into renting now because they can get a deal on buying it, if you’re willing to move in for up to 7 months, then relocate for 4 months during conversion, to them move back in again.
   To anyone thinking of buying there, I beg you to READ the inspection reports, and if you don’t understand what they say, consult with someone who does understand. I know no place is perfect, but these are very far from it in my opinion for the money they were asking, and there was no way I’d pay to buy one them, which is why we moved.

   Comment by Sue — July 29, 07 4:03 pm #

3. I also left recently. It was “buy or get out”. Evil. Pure and simple.

   Comment by Mike — July 29, 07 4:18 pm #

4. When I lived there, we had a 6 month lease. At lease-end we moved out. We were told we hadn’t given notice so we’d have to pay an extra 20 days’ rent. We brought in a copy of the law that showed that we could move at lease-end without the 20-days notice, and the response was “oops you caught us. Just don’t tell any other tenants. We make a LOT of money this way.”

   Comment by A — July 29, 07 8:03 pm #

5. Condo take-over order of events: Lease expires, no new lease. Raise rent. Changes ownership. Raise Rent. Send inspectors & appraisers without little or no notice. Take away free basic cable. Tell you to buy (around 350K) or get out. You leave.

   Comment by Mike — July 30, 07 12:21 pm #

6. Mike, mine was a little different, although yours was the norm from what I heard. My first year’s lease coincidentally ended the week the new management took over. We were told we could stay another 9 months total until conversion. Our choices: to go month-to-month for a $200/month rent increase plus a $50/month “convenience charge” for the right to go month-to-month (this would then be a 25% rent increase) or we could sign a 9 month lease. We chose the lease. However, they were sneaky when they wrote it up – they “raised” our rent $200, but then gave us a $200 concession, so the new 9 month lease was the same as the old rent. Made no sense until you realized that if you broke the lease you had to pay a month’s rent (the full $200+ rent) plus return the $200 concession for all the months you got them. They knew it was likely that in the last 9 months of a conversion that you’d want to break the lease, and they’d get all that money out of us, and then still go and rent it out short-term so they’d double-dip. We ended up finding something too good to pass up and had to pay them $1600 in fees to break that lease to get out. Good riddance to them. I hope that with all these shootings on Delridge that they end up with a complex full of $300k townhomes they can’t sell.

   Comment by Sue — July 30, 07 12:39 pm #

Sorry, after 3 weeks of commentlessness, comment time is over.