Reviews of Beal Properties

I’ve lived in the 4034-4040 N Ashland apartments for a little over a year and a half. The apartment itself is honestly a very decent apartment! Granite counters, wood floors, big living room, etc. Is it worth the over $1700 I pay in rent? Absolutely not. There have been no internal improvements or renovations of my living space. The laundry room costs an otherworldly $2.99 per cycle which I think is a complete scam. They advertised to us that they were improving the laundry room machines and all they did was keep the same machines and add a more expensive credit card machine that you have to use an app to use. They also told us NOTHING about the app other than a piece of paper taped to the table in the laundry room. There also always seems to be a problem in the laundry room that causes it to be shut down for a couple days to a week at a time. One time, we had no laundry room access for over a week due to an issue with the laundry app not activating the machines. They told us nothing about when it would be fixed and I honestly do not know how other people made it because we were washing clothes out of our sink. Even today, 2/28/24 we had some sort of plumbing issue and the laundry room floor was covered in fecal matter and we are going to be without water for 1-2 days(they told us one day but knowing them this will probably take a while).

I have also had consistent issues with the building manager, Julia. I will say, the one safety issue I did have with another tenants dog attacking my dog and I, she and Beal were extremely quick on getting me their information so I could go to law enforcement about the situation. Other than that however, Julia is pretty much unreachable unless the issue is A: severe enough in her eyes or B: you bombard her with text messages. When I was touring apartments, my agent told me that we “would kind of have to be a karen” if we wanted to get an issue done quickly and she could have NOT understated that more. For example, my dishwasher had a part that broke right after Thanksgiving, it is maybe a $20 part at lowes or home depot but I told my boyfriend that I wanted to see how quickly they would take care of this issue. Over the course of about a month, I sent Julia multiple texts with no response, INCLUDING one time of getting ghosted by her because our schedules within the next 48 hours didn’t line up for them to come into the apartment. Two days later, my dishwasher was not draining and flooding my apartment. It took Julia ONE WEEK to get someone out just to look at it. The guy was literally in my apartment for two minutes and looked at it, told me ” you know you could’ve just turned the dishwasher on and off again and it would’ve drained?” It then took them another four days to come back with the part and get it fully fixed. So, for a $20 part that was needing to be replaced in late November, we got the dishwasher fully fixed the first week of February. That entire time we had to wash our dishes by hand. When the dishwasher started flooding, we couldn’t use our kitchen sink at all because it was draining into the dishwasher. We were given no apology or rental discount since an entire amenity of our apartment wasn’t working for 2 1/2 months. Overall, maybe I lucked out on an apartment but lord I feel that if Julia was not there, I would’ve had a much more pleasant experience. She seems inexperienced and if she is, I don’t know how she’s been employed this long.

I’ve rented a 1b/1ba at 947-57 W Cornelia for 1.5 years now, and it’s been mostly fine. Overpriced? Yes, but it’s a nice little space.

The unit was super clean at move-in. Kemal, the building “engineer” is alright, he can be annoying but just be assertive with him and you’ll get what you need.

No issues with bugs/roaches or rodents.

The toilet is sooo slow and quick to back up, but water pressure in the shower is great for an older building.

Baseboard heaters are a huge PITA. For such a small space, it’s impossible to keep the place adequately warm during the deep freezes, and my ComEd bill was ridiculous. Give me radiators any day.

I’ve never had an issue with neighbors, everyone is polite and respectful with noise, guests, etc.

Laundry an ungodly $2.99 per load, and there’s always at least one or two machines broken or don’t work well. The laundry room is in the basement and gnarly as hell

Bottom line, I’ve had a fine experience. I promise I’m not a Beal shill, I totally believe the complaints and negligence reported by other tenants, past and present, around the city. I think I just got really lucky. My last rental from Bil-Mar was literally full of felons, animal abusers, drug users/dealers, and cockroaches, so take that context for what you will.

For anyone like me that found this website before move-in but AFTER signing your lease, I would say don’t panic, can be fine and normal. If not, God bless ya.

I chose this place on a pinch when I had to move to Chicago. The studio is the size of a room, fine. But the studio had cockroaches, I found cockroach poops in the cupboards. They did come to spray and after that I still saw a few, they seem to be gone now. Another thing is the theft of mail. I get like 1 package a week stolen. I saw rats in the basement laundry room, though that also seems to have been addressed after I made a call to the city. The building has constant smell of poop or sewer, not exaggerating, in our lobby it smells almost as if a dog has pooped nearby. These are probably the most egregious things. I am happy to say that I will be moving out of here soon.

3829 N Fremont- We had a water leak from one of the apartments above us. They gave us a dehumidifier and said good luck. weeks later, a mushroom sprouted from our ceiling and they removed it and patched the hole with no further inspection. They are unconcerned with potential mold growth in our ceilings, which is a health issue.

My apartment has been infested with rats and mosquitos and the building manager and management company refuse to call an exterminator. It’s insane to me the way they’ve dragged their feet on this issue. The building manager prefers to argue with the tenants over actually following state law.

I am moving in August (finally) after a slew of unresponsive requests, stolen packages, tenant neighbors with criminal activity, dirty laundry, and a a haphazard maintenance structure that means things are “fixed” but really just a temporarily. The offices don’t connect you through to talk to anyone, I feel like I’m always leaving messages, and my emails are often ignored, especially when dealing with repeated criminal activity in my building. I would avoid Beal Properties at all cost. Save yourself the stress and lack of security.

Living in this apartment (951 W Cornelia) was a sh!t show from start to finish. Let’s begin.

Looking For Apartments (August 2022)

– We found the apartment on apartments.com and sent a message through their portal. We were put in touch with a realtor who started trying to set up tours of the apartment. This realtor must have quit immediately after we showed interest, because we got a call from a different person the next day. We had lots of questions because half of the pictures on apartments.com looked really crummy and the other half looked nice. Obviously, we were only interested in the nice units, so we really needed to tour to confirm. But it should be noted that we were desperate to just get a roof over our heads and everyone in the city moves on August 1. What we heard from the realtor was that the current tenants were unwilling to show their apartment, and she had to go through Kamal (the building manager) to even communicate with them. She also told us that she already had people submitting applications for this place, so if we wanted it, we would need to apply ASAP. Like I said, we were desperate, so we applied and signed the lease in the same day, sight unseen, trusting this realtor that it was one of the nicer apartments in this building. Approximately 48 hours after signing the lease, miss realtor told us that she was able to set up a tour. So we showed up at the tour time, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to see what we had paid for. But she wasn’t able to get keys! Because the property manager wasn’t there, Beal obviously didn’t give her any, and the tenants either weren’t home or didn’t answer. So that sucked. After two weeks (TWO WEEKS AFTER SIGNING THE LEASE) we were able to tour. We walked in to a smoke filled room that was clearly one of the dingier apartments. Listen, I am not one to judge, but if I knew strangers were coming to see my apartment, I wouldn’t be hitting a bong with my friends at that moment.

Moving In

The actual moving in wasn’t bad- we showed up at the correct time, Kamal gave us our keys (saying a few might not work), and we moved in our stuff. Once we were settled, we sent a maintenance request through the Beal portal with a few things that weren’t working: the hall closet doors weren’t on hinges and our shower head was taped on. Weird that they weren’t fixed before we moved in, but whatever, right? The shower head was changed within 24 hours of that request, so we were like, damn! What a great management group! How long did it take for someone to put the doors on our closet? THREE MONTHS! LOL!

The Last Twelve Months

During our time here, any maintenance requests were ignored. The property manager was impossible to reach (by call and text). When we tried to go above him to Beal admin, the person who answered the main line was so kind: we’re sorry we missed your request, that sucks that the washing machine doesn’t work, ridiculous that your property manager isn’t texting you back, yada yada. Then they would tell me that the person who directly oversees my apartment in their office was on a lunch break and couldn’t talk to me, but would call me back. Plot twist: she didn’t. I tried calling at 10am, 1pm, 3pm, 4:45pm- always on a lunch break. The desk person gave me her email, but she never emailed me back. I genuinely think I reached out so much that they just started ignoring me because I was too annoying.

Every time I interacted with one of my neighbors, the whole conversation was about how much we hate living here and how we can’t wait to move. When we first moved in and were begging people to let us into our building, they would say “yeah you’ll regret living here.” We just got new neighbors upstairs and one of them came up behind me while I was trying to unlock our building door. I moved out of the way and said “oh, do your keys work?” and she said “nope! my husband is coming down to let me in”

Be F$cking For Real

– The property manager literally warned us, but our keys consistently didn’t work. My fiancé’s key could get into the laundry room, but not the door to our building. My key could get us into the building, but not the laundry room. Neither of our keys worked for the front gate. The back gate was constantly unlocked (which made me feel so secure living in a high traffic tourist area), so that’s how we got in. Unless we waited for someone to let us in the front gate/building. Evenetually an old woman told us the pin # for the front gate (which we didn’t even know existed), so we were able to start using that. We texted Kamal and emailed Beal asking for new keys, and they said “we didn’t change the locks so you can’t have new keys”

– In September, we started noticing the issues with the mail. We weren’t getting letters and our packages arrived way later than the “delivered” date (if we even got them at all). We talked to Kamal, and he said go to the post office. I go to the post office, they tell me to go to the USPS carrier annex (it’s like the main mail building).

Visit to the Annex #1-They asked if our names were on the inside of our mailbox. F!cking obviously, they already were. We asked if they had our mail, and they said “oh your delivery person is already out en route, so you should get it today” (we did not)

Visit to Annex #2 (October)- I asked where our mail was and the person told me that the carrier had reported that our mailbox didn’t work and told me to talk to our landlord. I said, well then do you have our mail, and she said, no it’s already en route. BFFR.

Visit to Annex #3 (November)- At this point, the mail carrier started leaving notes on our mailboxes that are like “this is a crime, fix the GD mailboxes.” by this time, I’ve submitted multiple maintenance requests, I’ve called and texted Kamal, I’ve called Beal, and I’ve thought about calling the City, because this is not okay. I get to the annex for the third time, right as they open, and the clerk is able to put three months of mail in my hands- wedding invitations, checks, health insurance information, two credit cards. Thank god.

Around the end of November/start of December, I see Kamal replacing our mailboxes. Great! We can get mail again! WRONG. We didn’t get keys to the new mailboxes until a week later. The method of delivery? Left loose outside of our unit doors: no label that it was a mail key, no email to let us know they were coming, nothing. But we put our names in the mailbox and started getting mail. Do we still only have a 50% success rate with having packages not getting stolen. Yes.

– We have five washers and five dryers in the laundry room. Three washers work consistently well, one is hit or miss, and one literally doesn’t work at all. Other tenants have left signs and notes, I’m certainly not the only one who texted Kamal and sent a maintenance request, but it did not get fixed. In a year. For the dryers, two of them work great, the rest you have to run your clothes through twice, even if it’s a tiny load. OH, not to mention that it costs $3 PER LOAD.

– Our unit has an intercom thing on the wall. Doesn’t work, we can’t buzz anyone in through the gate or our main door. On top of that, our name isn’t even in the directory in the call box by our gate. So we just give our friends the code that one random lady gave us to get them in.

– Twice we’ve had a leaky sink and one time a repair person did actually answer the maintenance request. But he didn’t even fix it. He said “it’s all good!” but it just kept leaking. So we figured out how to fix it for ourselves, because no way was he coming back.

– Honorable mentions: tenants not picking up their dogs shit, 0 cameras on site, making sure that someone is home for them to come and do checks/measurements and then not showing up, only two of our stove burners work without us using a lighter, the radiator in our bathroom doesn’t work, there is so much visible water damage in our kitchen, and items on shelves need to be perfectly balanced so that the shelves don’t collapse because they only have 3/4 of the pegs that hold them in.

My Fiancé Wanted Me to Share Good Things About Our Apartment

– no bugs or rats

– water worked (except for two days out of our year long lease)

– the heaters that work, work well

– great location

– I have a small back porch area I can smoke on (not that the light out there works, I have to take a flashlight, but it exists)

– the courtyard is quite nice (when people pick up their pets shit)

I’m exhausted from writing this. So just don’t move into a Beal apartment.

I have had a very negative experience dealing with this leasing company. Firstly, my unit was marked as ‘renovated’ when the only change made was the replacement of a sink, which led to an unjustified rent increase. When I attempted to discuss this issue with the renewal agent (Bree, whose contact info isn’t even listed on their site), they were evasive and did not provide direct answers.

In addition, outdated address information on Google and Apple maps has resulted in my packages being delivered to the wrong location on numerous occasions. There have been many incidents of package theft on the property.

In some sort of sick joke, the trees they have planted in the courtyard of my complex is the “Pyrus calleryana” which is known in Australia as the “cum tree” because of its incredibly pungent aroma. Now that they are blossoming in Spring, the trees are oppressive on warmer days. Also worth noting it is considered an invasive species.

One other issue is they are seemingly unaware about the requirement to have a smoke detector within 10ft of the entrance to my bedroom. They placed it in the middle of the unit thinking it would be fine yet my unit definitely requires 2 to reach everything.

There are chunks of wood missing out of the floor, the front door latch is deteriorating badly, and the seal around all the windows are so bad that I shiver sitting near them in the winter.

Several of the things they said they would do after I moved in they never got around to (such as painting the front door).

One thing I will say though is the engineer for my building is superb. I know a lot of people have had issues interacting with theirs but I can not say the same about Brandon.

Dirtiest apartment building I have ever lived in. It doesn5 get better, just worst. Fix and leave a mess. Patch and paint instead of repairing. Plumbing ancient. Laundry is in the basement which is smelly, dark & filthy. Elevator is out again. Lobby smells like chemicals used in a business next door. One star is for nice neighbors.

I can put up with a lot of bad conditions for cheap rent and I have. I was not under the impression this was an exactly high standard of living when I moved in but I just needed a place to keep my stuff and sleep. Somehow, it did not even meet that basic expectation. There are bugs, and not the “I live in a city and near the lake and it happens sometimes” kind of bugs, no matter how clean I leave this place I will come home and there will be a roach in the kitchen area. Never mind I never cook or eat here because of it, so I’m definitely not leaving food out, they come anyway. Worse in the summer, where they also come from the no longer active radiator pipes. One of the windows in my bathroom doesn’t close, been like that since I moved in. Sometimes there’s no hot water in the kitchen sink. Then about halfway through my stay here they switched to card laundry that’s more expensive despite the machines still sucking, and then wanted to raise rent 100 bucks with two weeks to decide lease renewal. See ya. The good things I will say is that I had positive experiences with the building engineer and other tenants in the building

I have had several issues since moving into my unit in Wrigleyville. Every time my building engineer IGNORES my messages! I had a broken toilet that took over a month before someone responded to me. The only reason they did was because I went off on them on the phone for calling me about a late rent payment.

A large dog attacked my husband in our courtyard and we filed a police report. The building engineer did NOTHING to help, in fact said they have no documentation of a dog matching the description so they can’t help.

My unit’s floors are terrible and my bed is falling thru the floor boards. I can’t get someone to come check out an electrical issue. I had no idea when moving to chicago this would happen, and tried hard to do research, yet I’ve found myself in this predicament.

I should have known to run when they tried to say my husband and I needed another co-signer and that we needed to submit everything immediately or else we would lose the apartment. I pushed back and we got the apartment without another co-signer. They don’t care about health or safety of tenants. Hopefully I can get someone to look at this electrical issue before my building burns down.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TO MY ENEMY TO LIVE HERE. If there was negative 100 star I’d give it without hesitation.

1) my car got vandalized in their paid parking($200 a month) they don’t have cameras there and not responsible for ANYTHING. Since my car insurance didn’t cover vandalism I had to pay out of my pocket $900 and asked management if at least they could give me 1 month free parking. Of course answer is no, they love their money and being not responsible for anything and not even installing a single camera in parking lot.

2) couple times on my assigned parking spot someone illegally parked and they don’t let you call towing company to tow it away, only office can do it on weekdays 9am-5pm. And guess what, when you arrive at 2 am in your house you can’t sleep in your bed. You’ll have to sleep in the car since you don’t want your car towed away. So get some pillows and blankets in the car.

3) right now 2 months left till my lease ends and they bothering me and my family showing my apartment to possible new tenants TWICE A WEEK. This is the worst experience in my life, would never recommend anyone to live here.

I recently applied to rent out a unit here but was told that I needed a cosigner. However, my credit was not poor and my income met the requirements. They still insisted I needed another cosigner aside the one I had provided. Not to mention, my current rent was higher than their leasing apt. The place wasn’t even all that for me to look for another cosigner. Not sure if I was getting scammed, they were being discriminative, or they just took my application fee.

I’ve been living here for almost a year – my apartment was NOT clean when I moved in, my stove still doesn’t fully work, the resident below me I’ve called the police on multiple times for beating up his girlfriends and management won’t do anything, maintenance never comes when they say they will (or they come without telling you and enter without permission), showers don’t work properly, building is always dirty, heaters don’t work properly, windows aren’t sealed properly so cold air comes through.

Visually, our apartment looked great when signing the lease, but we quickly discovered many issues. The ceiling above our tub was leaking and although management said they would repair, they never did. We were woken up to no hot water in the winter due to frozen pipes in our kitchen. The building engineer had to RIP out the wall to unfreeze the pipes and never repainted. Our grand finale was the building fire that took place 2 floors above us. No fire alarms went off, no explanation of the fire and no cleaning done for weeks. The building smelled of smoke, the walls were damaged, water was running out of electricity sockets, and the burned unit was not boarded up – it remained open to the outside for over a week even though management said “We immediately boarded it up!” when I have photo evidence that it was not. We requested vent cleaning, management has been slow to respond and a month later we have had no proper cleaning of apartment ventilation or updates on the repairs. We even overheard an agent showing a damaged unit in the building that was directly under the fire saying not to mind the hallway as they were just “repainting the walls”. Please avoid this company at all costs so you don’t experience what we experienced. P.S Always check your fire alarms. Peace & Blessings

I am a Highland Park native and thought I could move back into the area without issue. Not with Beal though! They do not screen and weed out criminals, so I am stuck with druggies destroying this rich neighborhood. Drug trafficking is common here through out of state degenerate tenants. Beal values money, while they are destroying safe communities with the degenerates they rent to. I never encountered junkies until I moved here. The police and city sent them out. Now, slumlords welcome them in to destroy rich areas, while taxpayers suffer as a result. I cannot believe one managing company can destroy so many safe towns over money, but that’s what’s happening here. I will be contacting my attorney to break the lease since there’s no resolution to this situation except leaving. I am bitterly disappointed that Highland Park allows this slumlord to keep operating within their city.

One unit in my building is disgusting and should be condemned. They constantly leave loose, open trash piled up outside their door, and I’ve gotten roaches in my unit recently that are probably coming from that one. I’ve complained about their trash many times (at least 8 from my email history).

Laundry is too expensive ($2/wash & $2/dry), and they raised rent during the pandemic (so I’m now paying over $1000/month for this sh*thole). I’ve been trying to get out of my lease since it renewed in April, and now it’s almost October. I found out in April (first month of my current 1 year lease) that I’m supposed to be leaving Chicago and they wouldn’t work with me at all to try to shorten or let me out of my lease even though it had just started, so I have to pay them $2000 to break my lease or find some other poor soul to take it instead. I hate this place so much.

The only positives are the proximity to the train and the large size of a studio apartment. I should’ve done more research before signing.

I lived in the 4851 N Damen location from 2018-2020. During this time, I had issues with cockroaches, internet access, my refrigerator freezing my food, a hole in the bathroom ceiling that leaked when my neighbors flushed, the building engineer keying into my apartment at 9pm with no warning, and he sent threatening texts to my boyfriend. None of this was handled by the company. We had to break our lease at the end because we felt so unsafe—both physically and health wise.

I moved in on 09/04/2021 with no lock. My wall as are cracked and painted over not sealed. The tenant below me is smoking up a storm and I was told this was a non-smoking building. All appliances failed within the first week, ruining my groceries. An unauthorized repairman came into my home while I wasn’t there and pissed all over my bathroom floor and toilet. There was black mold in my fan that they got in my bathtub, sink, and toilet and they didn’t test it. They ruined my bath and kitchen Matt and now my fridge smells like coolant. THIS HAS BEEN WEEK 2. RUN AWAY.

I have lived at 1050 W George St. for almost a year now, and my lease cannot end soon enough. Upon moving in, my unit reeked of gas which is an obvious safety concern; I reached out to my building engineer immediately, and his response was that he had a long day and was too tired to look at it that night. Due to concern of a gas leak, I had to take the matter into my own hands and contact the apartment building’s gas company late at night so they could address the issue. Low and behold, there was a gas leak in my kitchen which the professionals deemed as being a potentially severe hazard. Luckily the gas company took the matter seriously and expressed equal concern over my apartment’s lack of urgency to address the issue. Furthermore, living here in the winter was absolutely dreadful, specifically if you are a dog owner. You are forced to take your dogs in and out of the back door which is at the end of a filthy alley that is covered in ice during much of the winter. Even though physically getting to the door during the winter months was a threat to anyone’s safety, Beal Properties failed to effectively remove the ice the entire season, so I was unable to enter the building without fear of injuring myself. Additionally, there were no “Caution” signs in the winter, despite the floors in the building constantly being wet and slippery from the snow, up until I got physically injured from slipping backwards on the stairs inside the building’s front door. I sustained a mild concussion and major scrapes and bruises, and the incident was addressed minimally at best by management. Only after this and my pointing out their obvious negligence due to their lack of signage were Caution signs placed throughout the building. Lastly, the summer months are equally miserable for their own reasons. Of course there is no central AC and Beal Properties does not provide any kind of air whatsoever, despite the inside getting as warm as 88 degrees. Although I have my own window AC unit (which they charge to install and uninstall), a large window fan, a powerful tower fan, and my ceiling fan running at all times, my unit is averaging at 85 degrees during hot summer months making it almost unbearable to sleep, let alone live somewhat comfortably in my home. My property manager Dominique is great at avoiding e-mails and doing the bare minimum when it comes to addressing tenant concerns. All in all, this is by far the worst rental experience I have ever had and I am going to do everything in my power to avoid living somewhere managed by Beal Properties again.