Pontar Realty Management Company

These people are really unethical. If I were a renter, I would stay away from them, and, as a property owner using a property management company for my residences out of state, I can say with certainty that the liability they’re haphazardly exposing their property owners to is really outrageous.
Not only did they fraudulently and grossly misrepresent the square footage of the rental apartment in the listing, but they did not clean the unit before I moved in, they never fixed issues like the windows not closing or sealing, dead bees getting into the apartment (zombees? Wtf?), and a whole laundry list of other things (seriously, the apartment building is littered with signs informing residents of things that Pontar is ‘working on fixing,’ that have been up for months).
Of course Merri and Jon refuse to do anything to right the situation. At least I have cause to take them to small claims court for fraud and report them to the BBB. I feel badly for the owners of the building, though, because now I also have cause to go to the rent board with a reduction in services petition that will permanently reduce my monthly rent.
Bottom line, these people are sleazy. Renters and owners alike should avoid them at all costs.

Working with Pontar was one my worst living experiences ever! Rather than write an entire dissertation on my horrific experience, I’ll just give you the highlights in bullets to hopefully save you from the amount of stress I had living there.
— Listed the apartment on Craigslist for $ 1000 deposit, when I arrived the demanded $ 2000. They did eventually honor the posted price.
— I viewed the apt before moving in. However, upon getting the keys I found that they had left the place open since my viewing. I had to spend my first day cleaning a filthy apartment that was fully of leaves and dirty from the windows being open for a couple of weeks. There was also old food left in the stove which made me feel like someone was swatting there prior to my arrive. I reported all of this, they did nothing.
— Upon moving in I was supposed to have a walk through with the Super. He was sick that day so he just buzzed me in and told me to get the keys inside the apt as he left the door open (see point #1).
— I had major plumbing issues while I was there. Toilet would stop flushing frequently, kitchen sink pipe burst and caused leaks, none of the drains would ever drain properly. For months I couldn’t use my bathroom sink because the water was beyond scalding hot! I was told this was they way it was in RIcco’s apartment too and that he knew about it but couldn’t do anything.
— I had visible water damage in the ceiling and was constantly worried the ceiling would cave as they could never find the problem. I was told numerous times not to worry about it and that there wasn’t a problem. Then one day the ceiling did finally crack and leak while i was out of town. I came home to caked mud all over my bathroom.
BUT HERE IS THE WORST! I was out of apartment for couple of weeks. When I came back my place had been infested with bugs. Come to find out that they knew about it and never bothered to notify the residents. So by the time I returned home the infestation was out of control. I cannot even begin to estimate what that took in my time and money and dermatologist visits to fix.
There are plenty of other options in the price range in the city.

I will start out by saying the despite the really weird experience I had with them, Stephanie was pleasant and professional every time we interacted.
Pontar listed a marina studio apartment on Craigslist (and their site) for $ 1200/​month — what a steal. They explained it was priced where it was due to 4+ flights of outdoor stairs to reach it, and the fact that it was a very small space.
On the day of the showing I attended (middle of the day on a workday) they had about 35 people who made the effort to attend, and many applied and paid the application fee. Stephanie also mentioned that they’d received 72 phone calls about this unit, so it was competitive.
After a few days of back and forth, credit checks, and them assuring me they were narrowing down the field, they called on Friday to explain that a mix-​up had happened, and the owners returned from vacation to decide they had ACTUALLY wanted the apartment to be rented for $ 1500. Um… ok. Pretty sure that in order to list an apartment with a realty management company, some sort of agreement on rent, dates available, etc has to be settled before they can go advertise and have people miss work to attend viewings, pay application fees, etc. Sounds like the owners returned, realized how many applications they got and said «woo, let’s hike up the rent $ 3600/​year since it was so popular!» Totally unprofessional, and incredibly frustrating to me (and others, I’m sure).
The whole thing was such a shady situation of misrepresentation, so I asked them to mail me a check for the application fee (which they did). I have to wonder how many other people even thought to ask for their fee back, or if Pontar profited on this little «mistake».
Since then I’ve found another (bigger, nicer) apartment and have seen this one languishing on Craigslist with its new, high price, so oh well. ;)

this pace is terrible, they turn off the water without warning and it stays off for hours! this happens regularly also just last month they did it twice
they dont fix anything till you bug them 100 times and even then if it gets fixed your lucky.
the elevator breaks a lot also takes them 2 weeks to get it fixed just hope u don’t have a lot of groceries! .
the location is bad crackheads yelling all night long!
save your money u can get better for the same price

Ignoring the fact that, as an anarchist, I consider rent to be akin to theft…
I can’t afford a house in San Francisco so I am still forced to rent. And Pontar Real Estate did me right. I lived at 285 Turk St in the Tenderloin for just one year, and the place was kept up well. I only had maybe one or two problems that needed attention upon move-​in, and they were fixed immediately. The building managers were very nice and helpful. I also got my entire security deposit back within the three-​week window.
My main complaint about the building is that it didn’t have recycling. But they are currently building a room to be able to handle this.