Gallagher Properties

I lived in the Gallagher Building on 54^th St. Mike, Shauna and their team were great during my 2 years in Ballard. If you are looking for a small family owned property in the Ballard area I would strongly recommend Gallagher Properties. They were always timely and responsive with any questions or concerns and are clearly interested in keeping good tenants over just filling sales quotas.
Thanks Gallagher Properties for such a great rental experience!

We’ve lived in a 1 bdr in the 1521 building for just over a year, and are only leaving because we are relocating to another city for work. Otherwise we would definitely stay here longer or maybe upgrade to a 2 bdr apartment within the same building.
I’m really not sure why there are bad reviews for this building, we had nothing but positive experiences here.
My top priorities when we were looking to move to Ballard was a nice kitchen with counter space, and natural light, and this apartment was perfect for that! It’s also pet-​friendly, so we ended up adopting a cat. There is an $ 500 deposit for any animal (half of it is refundable), and $ 25/​mo pet rent. I thought this was a bit excessive just for a cat, but it seems fairly standard, especially for newer buildings.
The apartment felt a little small when we first saw it, but once we moved in and got used to living here, the amount of space was perfect for us. There is a large storage closet in the unit, along with a smaller closet and the bedroom closet, and ample cupboard space in the kitchen. If you do have a lot of furniture or large stuff it might be a bit cramped, though. The bedroom is fairly large, and the balconies are awesome! We were lucky enough to face south, which meant plenty of sunlight and no fire truck sounds.
The location can’t be beat, so easy to walk to downtown Ballard, grocery stores, and bus stops. I saw another reviewer say that paying extra for the parking garage is a necessity, but that is not true at all. We never paid for the parking garage, and can always find a spot either in front of Wendy’s, or alongside the hospital on 17^th Ave just a block and a half away. This worked just fine for us, and I was glad we saved the money from parking. Car prowl is relatively low around here, but it does happen. If you don’t leave anything visible in your car, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about, which is best practice anyway.
The staff is great — Nicole has been the property manager the entire time we lived here. She is very friendly, was great when we were looking at the property and deciding on it, and always arranges a No Parking zone when you move in to make it convenient. We only ever needed them to fix something once, and they were very prompt and communicated well. There were a few things that needed fixing before we moved in, but they took care of it all gladly and it was all fixed by move-​in day. Absolutely no complaints there.
The few drawbacks we did have are minor: the dishwasher is pretty low-​end and we had to wash the dishes pretty thoroughly before putting them in or they would come out just as dirty. The noise from 15^th is surprisingly loud, even on the 5^th floor. It didn’t bother me much, but my boyfriend is a light sleeper and often wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with the window open. However, that’s part of living in the city in a central location.
The only other negative thing we can report is that the sounds barrier between floor and ceiling is not great. Wall-​to-​wall is great, we hardly ever heard our side-​to-​side neighbors. However the people below us would sometimes complain about us playing music (when it was at a fairly normal volume), and we would often be woken up by our upstairs neighbor… getting busy. That was definitely very frustrating at times, but more an issue of his unusually loud boxspring and inconsiderate timing. Aside from that we weren’t too bothered by with some footsteps at times or muffled video-​game sounds.
Overall its a great place to live and reasonable rent for this area! Would definitely recommend to anyone.

Note: We do NOT live in the building where this address is listed. We live in a different building operated by Gallagher Properties in Ballard.
They have been GREAT! Excellent at communicating with us. Anytime we put in a request to have something fixed — they respond within 1 hour and usually come by the next day! We have even had them come by within 2 hours of a simple request to have a drain snaked.
Nice, professional and prompt — what more could you want from a rental company.
Also — they gave us little chocolates at xmas time :)

My wife and I have lived at Gallagher Properties in Ballard for 18 months. We were at a time in our life when we moved back to Seattle in 2012 where we were hoping to live in a hip, urban part of town, as we knew once we started a family we’d want something more residential and quiet.
This apartment complex fit the bill perfectly. The walk score flat-​out cannot be beaten: two great grocery stores directly across the street (Safeway and Ballard Market), plus Trader Joe’s a half-​mile down the street. Arguably some of the best eats in Seattle can be found on Market and Ballard Ave, just 2 – 4 blocks away.
The apartment’s manager, Nicole, has been very kind and generous. For our move-​out, she helped us coordinate the «do not park here» street signs (with short notice, which we really appreciated) and unlocked the elevator to ease the transport of our friends as they went up and down (no need for a keycard).
Brian, the apartment’s maintenance extraordinaire is wonderful. He’s fast-​to-​respond, always polite and friendly, and gets things done. He helped us hang our shelves and heavier frames too when we moved in, which was awesome.
Another big plus for this property is the security of the building. You need a security card to get into the lobby or use the elevator, or a building key to get in the two ground floor stairway entries (which then require a security card to actually go upstairs to any of the unit levels). In such an urban location, this made us feel extra safe: we called our apartment our castle.
The apartment itself was, we felt, a great value for everything the unit and location comes with. I work from home, so having a second bedroom as an office was a must for us. We loved the open-​floor layout plan too in the main living area. On the fourth floor we had a great view too.
The only downside to this apartment (and any other in a 3 – 4 block radius) was the fire department across the street. You will hear sirens on any given day of the week, 4 – 5 times a day. I never thought I’d say this, but after a month or so of this, you start to tune it out and you don’t hear it any longer (sounds crazy, but it’s true). It isn’t too bad, as Gallagher Properties is BEHIND the fire department, not in front or next to it. This is actually critically important, because the fire engines leave out the front and blare their sirens over on the Walgreens side. Leva or Urbana residents suffer the brunt of this annoyance, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you won’t hear it at all.
Definitely pay the extra monthly fee for below-​apartment parking. You’ll get your own reserved space, and it’s not a luxury but a necessity. WIth 3 – 4 huge apartment complexes now in a 3 – 4 block radius, plus it being Ballard, parking is simply not available here unless you want to spend an inordinate amount of time (and frustration) driving in circles every day, multiple times. Almost all on-​street parking is 1 – 2 hour limit during the day hours too.
Bottom line: if you’re looking to be in Ballard, this is the best place to be. The building is family owned (not corporate) and honest. We’ve had a tremendously positive experience here, and I’d recommend Gallagher Properties to anyone (family, friends, anyone).

Let’s view this from a prospective renter’s point of view. The things you look for when renting a new apartment are: Location. Property Condition. Price. Owner/​Property Management. I am going to run through each of these for you.
Starting with location, any Gallagher property you find will be in the Ballard neighborhood. This is because at some point a greedy man purchased all the property he could afford and wound up being quite successful with it. He definitely did a good job predicting Ballard would be a Seattle hot spot for living. Can’t say as much for the rest of his judgment calls.
Let’s move on to property condition. Most of the rentals are old and either just slightly updated or actually built by this real estate goofball. Part of his brilliant plan was to build apartments in the area on existing land. Someone should have told him that skimping on construction costs will just cause problems later. His properties are not maintained to proper standards and certainly wouldn’t pass a particular person’s inspection. Not to mention, the maintenance crew does ‘quick fixes’ instead of really addressing problems with your unit. So prepare for large water bills (that means over $ 150/​mo) and shoddy craftmanship. Your heater will malfunction almost to the point of setting your residence ablaze and you are certain to have air leaks that will elevate your heating bill to being equally as painful as the WSG bill. I should also mention that on any given day — you will see the owner dumping his garbage in your dumpster.
Now let’s talk about price. If you want to live in a place that costs far more than it is worth just for the location — you should probably sign right up. But if you are cost conscious — you will take into consideration the property condition and everything else from which you will inevitably suffer before renting here. You will pay more than you should and you will end up in Regretville instead of happy in Ballard.
Finally, property management. Some may think that a family owned business and local owner is a good thing. I did too. Until I learned that the family was just greedy, shallow and most importantly only concerned with the bottom line, not the tenants. The original owner has now started handing down the business to his son. I’m not sure what is worse… a greedy old man or an incompetent dullard with a severe lack of business savvy. The only thing worse than handing over a business to an undeserving individual is to do it strictly because of nepotism and the fact that your son can’t hack it carving his own future. The ‘management’ of this property is lacking in everyway. From losing rent checks, to overcharging, to not showing you the full water bill, etc. You will be committed to dealing with dysfunctional administrative behaviors that go far beyond what you can imagine.
I stronly suggest you take a look at renting from an individual who truly cares about their property… or rent from the larger apartment complexes. I hear there is a really spectacular one being built in Ballard right now. I’d choose the large corporation time and time again to avoid the hassle of greedy dad and dolt son. It’s a dynamic one is not soon to forget.
Gallagher Properties is a sham of a business and only remains so because Ballard has turned into a hot spot. Rent somewhere you know you will be happy, your home is more important than the cost or the location.

I don’t live here but I recently cat-​sat for friends over the Christmas holidays so I thought I’d write a review. I never had a problem finding street parking within a block. I also learned that if I was running inside for less than an hour, I could sneak a spot in the Wendy’s lot without any fuss. I wouldn’t test their towing policy though.
The building was quiet and appeared quite secure. A key card is required to access the main lobby and the key card is mandatory for the elevator. Maybe it was because of the holidays but I didn’t care for the fact that parcels were simply left beside the mailboxes downstairs. Perhaps I’m paranoid but I wouldn’t like my packages unsecured where anyone could take them. I’d prefer going to the post office and retrieving them.
The apartments have no carpeting with wood flooring throughout. My friends have a corner balcony that wraps around with a lovely view of the surrounding neighbourhoods. I don’t know how much the rent is for one of these units but they were nicely appointed throughout. If we needed an apartment, I’d definitely look in this area because I like the closeness of my favourite places.