Ballinger Commons

My wife and I have been residents at Ballinger Commons since January of 2014. It has been an overall good experience. The grounds are well maintained, plenty of parking, and friendly staff. The complex has its little issues but I would recommend it to anyone who has kids or pets.
Pros:
o maintained grounds
o pet friendly policy
o on-​campus playground at south end of complex
o access to 2 pools, gym, hottub, racquetball, tennis, and basketball courts
o leasing office available during weekends and some nights
o decent sized 2 bedroom apartments
o lots of «green space»
o covered parking included (one spot per apartment unit)
o freshly painted buildings as of August 2015
o poop bag stations all around complex to clean up after pets
o nature trail on campus and inter-​Urban bike trail on south end of complex
o storage units available in the building on a limited basis
o club house onsite to hold gatherings (next to the southern pool)
o ½ mile from Aurora Village bus station, Costco, Home Depot, Petco, Office Depot, UW Shoreline Urgent Care Clinic, and Shoreline Community Center/​Shoreline Stadium.
Cons
o coyotes in the area since July 2015
o floors and ceilings transfer sound (had upstairs neighbors with small children bouncing around from 2300 – 0200 at night
o trash dumpsters for some buildings overflow before pickup day
o carpet was not properly stretched before we moved in and there were no baseboards
o damp apartment due to single-​pane windows so items left against exterior walls for extended periods will get mildew
o small bathrooms in the unit
o vehicle parking policy not strictly enforced (reported a truck with camper that had been parked since July 2015 and had not moved as of September 2015)
o small (er) kitchen with dated appliances (Building R)
o rent increase of $ 72 for 12 month lease starting January 2015
o small porches for each unit

Horrible management don’t rent here save your money. The staff is friendly but the manager Christina passes your complaints onto others and doesn’t follow up to resolve issues. Huge lack of customer service with manager!

If you are thinking about moving into this place DON’T DO IT! We rented while living in California based on what we saw on the web site. True the grounds are very nice but that is where it ends. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon tired from our travels and looking forward to taking pocession of our new place. The leasing office had a sign saying «back in 30 minutes» so we waited and chatted to a current resident who was also waiting for the office to open. So, we asked her «how do you like living here?». Her response was; «huge utilities bills thanks to single pane windows, equipment that constantly breaks down and takes forever to get fixed, rude uncaring people in the office, constant extras being billed and poor quality overall» this was not what we wanted to hear so we figured there is always someone with an axe to grind and handed over our check and picked up our keys.
We were back in the office 10 minutes later asking for our check back. The apartment was just nasty. Missing ceiling light fixtures, filthy bath tub, dirty walls and floors, a tiny patio covered in left over crap and a depressing view of the car park.
We were told the $ 1300 deposit had already been put in the manager’s safe and that we could call the next day to speak to the manager. We left disappointed and checked into a motel to try and figure out what we were going to do next. We were very fortunate to find a beautiful 2 bed 2.5 bath townhouse in Everett for just $ 75 more than the hovel we were shown at Ballinger. Of course we lost not only the «$ 250 administration fee» but also the «$ 250 refundable» deposit. I had already called the bank to cancel the 1^st months rent check and even though we knew the admin fee was non returnable we felt totally ripped off on our deposit. I have read over and over on line how people get screwed when they leave this place for extras and cleaning. I would be willing to bet they did the same thing to the people who lived there before us but they clearly did nothing whatsoever to clean, repair or prepare the place for the next tenant.
Overall a disappointing and expensive experience. I would not recommend this place to anyone but if you decide to ignore the warning signs as we did… Be it in your own head

Yes, the grounds are pretty. However, this place is now managed by a greedy corporate entity known as Essex Property Trust, which is based in California. That says it all. I have been on a month-​to-​month lease for many months, and recently received an «invitation» to continue that arrangement, which works the best for me, at a whopping 34% increase, effective October 2015. Have I received a 34% salary increase this year? Ummm, no. Just wanted to let everyone reading this know about Essex’s money-​grubbing, repulsive rent procedures. They are clearly, gleefully milking the rental market, due to the obscene, cancerous growth of all areas in Western Washington.
Also, if you are desperate enough to move here, don’t expect the garbage bins to be emptied out on a regular basis. I will post a photo of what the bin most convenient to me routinely looks like – but they ALL look like this around the property – no wonder coyotes, crows, and rats, are flocking to this apartment complex!!!

There are a family of coyotes living on the property. This is as of July 2015. Bad place for cats or small children
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I signed a lease with Ballinger Commons and moved across the country site unseen. The leasing office was helpful from the very start. My initial apartment was what I was expecting but not my ideal. Instead of saying «sorry about your the luck» the leasing office (Sid specifically) allowed me to look at other rentals and I found my ideal apartment. He took the time and truly wanted me to be happy. This is something he didn’t have to do. I am very happy in my apartment. I feel safe and all my neighbors are very kind. The grounds are beautiful. For renting site unseen I truly feel blessed. Any other complex would never have been as accommodating as Ballinger Commons. I definitely will be renewing my lease here. Thanks again for all your help!

the commons is a good location for living in between seattle and Everett. Easily accessible to the highway, and decent living. if your looking for amenities like gym, pool, and other things. i suggest you look for another place. The interesting thing i noticed right away was the GIANT COKE Machine thats in the corner of the room. The office staff are friendly and willing to help as much as possible. The rent is a little too high for a place that lacks updated appliance and features. 1 bedrooms after the first year go up an extra 200!

I really have enjoyed my experience here. I have lived here for 1 year. when I first arrived, Sid was so helpful in getting me into my place right away, going out of his way to get keys made that night so I wouldn’t have to get a hotel for another night between houses. Since then the service has been wonderful and professional. The grounds are kept up and we love the pool, sauna and gym access along with the basketball court and trails. It is quiet and peaceful, yet I can walk to Starbucks. Perfectly perfect for my family right now as the prices are competative too.

Dont ever move here dont even waste your time looking. Horrible hospitality, over priced and very shady when it comes to money and the cost of living there. They will screw u over however they can

Avoid this place if you want to save money! This place is a sucking money machine apartment. I am happily giving Ballinger Commons 1star because of their management and security/​maintenance service. Don’t be fool by the location/​the amenities provided.
Oh and also, the people at the leasing office don’t know shit! They are like computer and they have no mercy on late fee whatsoever. They will also not tell you when you have a remaining balance from last months bill, until you’re paying for your next rent. Oh even better, they will charge you for late fee even when it’s their fault for not cashing in the check on time.
HIGHLY DISAPPOINTED.

I was very disappointed to realize that your application process costs $ 535.00 of non-​refundable money. In my opinion the application process should be a separate step ($ 35) from the «please hold this apartment for me ~ here is my deposit $$» part.
I decided that this wasn’t the best fit for me right now & am out $ 535.00 for nothing. I can understand you need to meet financial administrative needs, but this dollar amounrt is EXORBITANT.
Very unsatisfied that I won’t even get $ 250.00 back. Will never ever recommend this apartment to ANYBODY.
So… lesson here? If you think you MIGHT apply for an apt here. and think MAYBE there’s a small chance I won’t move in … then DON’T apply here. You will lose your $$ in a heartbeat & all for a few hrs work. What a crock.

If you have another option take it. This is not a horrible place to live, I feel safe here and haven’t had any crime at all. The management staff are useless except for the actual manager, the ground are well kept and the gym is nice, The walls are paper thin, all the neighbors in our building slam their doors, the rent is outrageous to begin with and will be raised the first chance they get, they tried to raise ours by almost 200.00 a month. People are moving out left and right and so are we. They nickel and dime the crap outta you. 500.00 of your deposit you will never see again for admin services. wtf is that. we are 7 months in and not resigning a new lease. You will be disappointed in the long run.

I’m giving it 2 stars for location and maintenance only. They are great, quick, and polite.
I just signed my second year lease as this place is convenient for me. And that’s the only reason. For anyone interested my increase was $ 80.
There’s quite few problems with this place. The security here is awful. I’ve called them twice. Both times they either never showed up or showed up hours later (after I stopped looking for them). My neighbors were having a party at 11pm in which their kids were screaming and throwing things at my window and wall and they never showed.
My second problem is the Friday morning gardening. EVERY Friday from like 9:00 — 1:30 they will garden right outside your window. Lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, and leaf blowers. No problem if you work 9 – 5. But when you work irregular full time hours and go to school full time. And that is in your 4 hours of daily sleep it is very frustrating.
Walking around this place is scary at night. I often am going either to or from the transit center at 10 at night as well as 4−5am. And there are not enough lamps here. There are parts that are nearly pitch black at night surrounded by trees and woods. Very scary.
Bills here suck! I have no idea how their electric lines are built here but I get charged twice as much here as I did at my old apartment for half the energy. I lived with a roommate who constantly used the heater and always had all the light on just 1 mile down the street and out normal monthly bill was 40 normally and 80 – 100 in the winter (for two people). Now I live alone rarely use the heater and keep all unnecessary light off and pay 50 a month normally and 150 in the winter. Crazy.
The water bill is also way too high. $ 70 – 80. They combine everyone’s water use (including that giant fountain in the front) and then split it. So a single person is paying the same as a family of 5 in this complex.
The people who work in the leasing office are all textbook but don’t actually know their information. When I moved in I was told that because of the type of pet I had there was no pet deposit and no pet rent. 7 months later they found out their information was wrong and told me I had to pay $ 1200 within 3 days or be immediately evicted as though it was totally my fault THEY screwed up. I was completely upfront about everything before I signed anything. And at the time they gave me an a-​ok. The woman at the head office and Stephanie at the leasing office were both pretty much“when can you move? You got 3 days.” Whereas most landlords will try to work something out. Eventually I guess (they just kind of sent me a knew bill) they finally admitted their wrong and asked for 400 instead. Which I still didn’t want to pay as I’m very tight on cash and it was unexpected. They will charge you for everything.
Garbage bins here get full the day after the trucks empty it. So often times you don’t have a choice but to put it on the floor. They will charge you 50 for it. Then tell you to walk to another one (which could be .25 of a mile depending on how many are full. And when you get there it’s probably gonna be full as well. As there are 27 building in this place and less than 1 dumpster per building. I checked 7 bins around my apartment on my way to the transit center and they were all overflowing.
For both of these things I talked to Stephanie. And let me tell you she does not care about you AT ALL. It’s pay up or quit with her. With the pet problem it was basically «how soon can you move?» Not even fake sympathy. My experience with the other two are pretty much limited to getting packages. So I can’t say much.

Oh Ballinger, how you’ve disappointed me.
I was a faithful resident of yours for two years, and you end up telling me after our long relationship that you have no legal obligation to explain to me why you charged me the amounts you did upon move out.
If you decide to rent with Ballinger, do tell them that you want to put money into a deposit account, you know like every normal apartment complex out there. Trust me, in the end and after you move out, it will come in handy. They will charge you whatever percentage of carpet cleaning and painting they «feel» is necessary and begin to demonize you — although you’ve done nothing but contribute positively to the community.
Ballinger began for me as a great place to live, since it is convenient to a major transit center and has beautiful landscaped grounds. Although I felt I was being overcharged on such a shoddy apartment — I fixed it up and kept it relatively clean, as much as I could with reasonable wear and tear expected.
Now I’m being forced to pay $ 800 — with no explanation whatsoever. They simply cite to their Lease that is vague about normal wear and tear. I understand the law, especially the Landlord-​Tenant Act, and while there is no clear explanation of what normal wear and tear means, Ballinger will refuse to take into consideration your efforts over the years to maintain an otherwise sub-​standard apartment. It is what it is. Pay it, we don’t care about you anymore — pay it.
Really?! After all I’ve done to improve your community, you throw at me more money I have to pay? Horrible, absolutely horrible. In the 10 years I’ve rented from various complexes, I’ve never had this happen to me.
I DO NOT recommend this place to people that have integrity or a strong moral character and respect for the things that they work hard to pay for. Find another place in Shoreline that won’t attempt to collect outrageous fees from you — and then give you no explanation.
Shame on you Ballinger Commons.

We didn’t rent here. What we did do was think the ad and website looked super nice, drove all the way down there today to be massively disappointed. I feel so deceived. The only reason we are even looking in Shoreline is to find a decent place for an affordable price, and this place was… egh. We saw the basic 600-​something sq ft one bedroom, which goes for $ 1100 a month, and it was tiny and depressing. It’s your standard 1990’s apartment. Old fixtures, ancient appliances, cheap flooring, flickering fluorescent lights in the kitchen (felt like I was in 7 – 11) even wear and tear on the mirrors. It looks sexy in the ad and on the website, but no. Just. No. Not for $ 1100 a month. They need to step it up a notch for that kind of money.
On the plus side, the grounds, pool, fitness center and spa were nice.

Ballinger Commons was my boyfriend and my first apartment together. I have to say that I really enjoyed our time there (2010 – 2011). We did only live there a year and I would have enjoyed staying longer but the rent increase was a bit much. To get the negatives out of the way, the rent increase was about $ 75 if I remember correctly. Also, when we moved in, in order to get the appliances upgraded (stove/​W/​D, fixtures) we had to pay an extra $ 15 a month for this. This was something we did choose to add on, so I can’t really blame this on them.
Aside from the money aspects, I was extremely happy. I really enjoyed their amenities. We used to bring our dog to the basketball court (which i don’t know if we were technically allowed to) BUT the staff always waved. The manager, who originally toured us, always said hello by name. Considering the property is so large I was always very impressed. The trails around the property were really nice too.
We did have a couple of maintenance requests while we were there, but I was very pleased with how quickly they arrived both times. One of them was after hours on a Sunday. Our freezer had gone out and we didn’t want the food to get ruined. He was there within 30 – 45 min. He was very quick and nice and asked if there was anything else he could do.
Our neighbors were incredibly friendly. We lived on the bottom floor and above us was a guy with a kid. Within the first week he introduced himself and let us know that if his boy ever gets too routing and we can hear him that we can just come and knock. It never got to that point but i was blown away! Again this doesn’t really relate to the apartment community itself. but it made our experience even better.
No one ever writes on these sites when they have positive experiences so I wanted to share our experience. This was the perfect first home for us and our pup. I would considering moving back here if we decide to move to Shoreline area again and I would recommend it to other.

My wife and I had an appointment to visit, which they scheduled an internal meeting on top of, and postponed our meeting. While we were there, we met another potential resident who evidently also was not as important as that meeting.
The pool is maybe 20 feet long, with no lifeguard stand and no ladder. There are no sidewalks in the complex, so it looks like it would be dangerous to walk to Costco or other businesses: I guess the assumption in that you would drive everywhere, even to visit neighbors.

This is a piss poor apartment complex. Way overpriced for being the ancient, moldy craphole it is. Ridiculous fees. We had a horrible experience here. Within 2 weeks of moving in, about 5 different things broke around the apartment and we were unfairly charged for them. Screen window, light fixtures, etc. Black mold everywhere. Washing machine was even hooked up backwards and my husband had to fix it because they wouldn’t. Ballinger Commons has also continued to try to collect almost a THOUSAND DOLLARS in fees after moving out for normal wear and tear on the carpet, which is what the pet deposit was for. They also do an ABSURD amount of landscaping way too early in the morning, and it’s unbelievably loud. If you work nights and need to sleep in past 7:30am this is NOT the place for you.

We had terrible experiences living here, but it had nothing to do with the maintenance staff (we actually had good experiences with the maintenance, however the apartments were so shoddy I feel like we had more maintenance encounters than we should have had to begin with) or the office staff. We lived here during the time they were making changes to their website for billing. We got hit with a lot of late fees because of this, despite our honest attempts to pay on time. When we went to the office to contest this, they said they understood but that it was out of their control. We got hit on our credit reports because of this. We were also hit with exorbitant cleaning costs, which we paid, AND they charged us an extra two weeks rent, which we are still fighting them on.
The apartments are very cheaply constructed on top of everything. The grounds & trails surrounding the buildings were nice which is the only plus. BRE Properties is over it’s head taking on property that they can’t manage effectively.
I had spectacular credit before moving in here, always pay my bills on time and have NEVER had so much trouble with an apartment.
STAY AWAY.

I lived at this apartment complex for about a year and a half (2009 – 2011). What drew me to this place was the location — it’s close to the freeway, Seattle, my work, shopping, etc. I liked the amenities such as the fitness center. I also liked how the buildings were spaced far apart so it didn’t seem like there were 27 buildings in the complex (I didn’t have to look in on my neighbors or the parking lot!), and for how big the complex is there certainly is ample parking. There is high turnover so don’t expect to get to know your neighbors.
The apartments are on the older side but many (all?) are recently renovated. My apartment still had older appliances (my dishwasher was powder blue inside!). These apartments are pretty well maintained but things will break, that’s just how it works. Their maintenance is excellent here and they responded to all of my complaints within 24 hours.
The management company is really impersonal and they treat you like another number. Practically everything is done through the website. If you go to ask a question at the office the people are friendly but it’s like they’re reading from a script, and sometimes the answer to your question will be to submit a form on the website. Not really what I like in apartment managers, but not a dealbreaker either.
Overall, my experience here was ok since I knew I wasn’t ever going to live at this complex for a long time. I can’t see someone living here long term as they can and will raise your rent every time your lease is up.