Top Student housing centers in Moscow, United States

I love Republic on Main! The apartments themselves are well taken care of and the maintenance is right on it if something goes wrong. Paris and CJ are very helpful with any questions or needs. Will be living here next year!

Tl;dr: save yourself the trouble and stay away from this poorly managed, predatory scam.

Throughout the course of living here, it became painfully clear that the management of this property only cares about wringing as much money as possible out of the pockets of naive, young adults. Before you move in, they'll promise you the world, only to take it all back the second they've got you locked in a lease. While being here, I was threatened with an arbitrary $200 rent increase, I was towed and had stickers put on my car despite paying an absurd parking fee, I saw dozens of packages left out soaking in the snow, I was charged a "short-term" 6-month additional fee each month despite having told management numerous times I wanted a 12-month lease beforehand, and I was told that I was responsible for cleaning up after a roomate's unauthorized pet. Upon moving out, I was relieved that I'd never have to deal with this poor management team again, only for them to later send me an invoice of unjust move-out charges totaling up to over half a month's rent. It is impossible to overstate the greed and incompetence of CA and later horizon (who managed to be even worse). Quite frankly, the property managers are lucky they've never faced litigation. Under no circumstances would I recommend anyone sign a lease here.

I absolutely love my apartment. The location is unbeatable with only a short walk from campus. The apartment coming furnished was perfect! The management team, Darion and Abigail are great and incredibly responsive. The apartments are also pet friendly and adding my cat to my lease was super easy! Highly recommend!

TLDR; I lived here for 2 years and cannot in good faith recommend anybody else sign a lease here.

I signed three different leases beginning in 2020 when the complex was still known as Identity. My room in a 4 bedroom apartment was $460 a month, which was fairly reasonable. My final renewal offer after 2 years of living there was for over $560 a month. This was the breaking point for me. There are many other options around town that provide a better living experience at a lower cost.

The apartments themselves are just ok. The furniture just left me wanting to replace it after 3 months and the walls are paper thin, so you will hear just about everything your roommates do. Beyond that get ready to walk 3-4 blocks to get to your car. Parking passes are hard to get and expensive. I was on a waiting list for one for 18 months and when I finally got it it was $50 a month, oh and if you need a new sticker to put on say a new car, that will be an additional $50.

Finally, the management isn't too bad, but they are wildly inconsistent. The leasing office closes early all the time for seemingly no reason and the staff often doesn't answer the phones, even if you walk in a minute later and they aren't doing anything. And if you have any problems with your roommates good luck getting them to do anything about it. I had a dude living in my living room for 6 months that my roommates invited in and I let the leasing office know multiple times I wanted him gone and they did nothing about it beyond sending a grumpy email.

So if you want to overpay for a subpar experience go ahead and live at Republic on Main. If you want a nice experience I'd recommend literally anything that is locally owned and operated as they will treat you better and provide a better experience.

Truly the worst experience with apartment management, and several tenants who left this past leasing season would agree. The first management company was terrible, and things seemed to be looking up when Horizon took over. However upon move out, it was clear that this was not the case. Both my roommate and I had discussed with the assistant property manager and the property manager on separate occasions regarding items leftover from previous roommates, and we expressed our fear of being charged for the items not brought into the unit by any current roommates. We were assured that we would not pay for these items. We also moved into a unit that was filthy, and was not properly cleaned when the other roommate had left one month into our own lease. With this and including damages that we had acknowledged on our move in inspection, my roommates and I were still charged over $1,000 in damages not caused by us. They listed the charges as carpet replacement and trash removal, even though we were assured that we would not pay for the leftover items that didn’t belong to us. Management refused to work with me, aside from reducing the charge by $150 for one section of carpet included in our move in inspection, but not the others included in the inspection. Managements’ lack of communication and honesty is appalling, and something every current tenant needs to be aware of.
Regardless of management’s response to this review, I have the screenshots of emails recording their clear miscommunication that lead to us paying an absurd amount in damages.
This property is known in Moscow for being “crooks” and it is clear that nothing has changed with new management. This is the reason typically students who haven’t lived off campus live here their first year, then move out by the end of their lease.

Update: the move in inspection was NOT across referenced because they did not reduce the charges by $150 until after we provided management with photos taken from said inspection :) even with those photos, the reduction only included part of the damage that was on the inspection, per their emailed response.

Not impressed at all. For the price of these cheaply made apartments you'd think that you'd have a parking spot but nope. No where to park for the tenant or the people that want to visit them, without an additional fee of course. Every chance they get to over charge, they do. My son has asked about his deposit but no response. They sent us a final bill but did not mention the $55 he had on his account before the lease expired. I guess they just kept whatever you have in there. Don't get locked out, that's a fee. BBB will be hearing from me on this place.....

Terrible. Safe place to live and good location but terrible. I had a bad experience right off the bat, and yes I acknowledge that it was under different management, but it continued to stay bad. One of my roommates moved out and we got another roommate with a dog! All my roommates put on their leasing form that we did not want pets in our apartment. I went down to complain right when we got the news. They told me that was just a “preference”. So we ended up having a roommate with an obnoxious dog who was not well behaved at all. She disclosed to us that the dog was an outdoor dog and had never been indoors before. I woke up every morning to it howling and scratching at the wall, there’s more but I won’t get into it. To say the least, it was a very frustrating experience.

Honestly, it has felt like scram from the very beginning. From, thinking I was going to be able to park in the parking lot to ridiculous charges. The most recent charge was for carpet cleaning. I know it was clean because I scrubbed it myself. They sent me a picture of a black mark on the carpet, and come to find my roommate had the exact same picture sent to her.

I feel like they do this to students because they know they can take advantage of us with limited housing options. I am glad I will not be living there this next semester.

My son has lived at the Grove for 2 years...the first year was not great. Since new owners/managers took over about 6 months ago, we have noticed a huge change! They have worked very hard to make changes for the better and I am so grateful to the staff working so hard for this! Kudos to the management for all their help today cleaning out my son's apartment after his roommates left it a complete bomb when they moved out and he has been gone for the summer!

When this complex was still owned by identity we had a lot fewer problems. The internet has always been bad but that might just be because of location, however it would go out for up to like 30 hours at a time. Since horizon got new internet we’ve had no problems.

We have a disabled person in our townhouse and they had been parking at our complex using the disabled parking. When horizon put the gates in they tried to charge my roommate to use the parking lot. You can’t charge someone to use disabled parking. It was a whole thing that just got really frustrating. That issue was never resolved and my roommate couldn’t park there unless the gates were up. They ended up paying $50 dollars a month to use the parking lot.I understand that you have to pay to park in private lots but you never have to pay to park in disabled parking, it was just really frustrating and i hope that doesn’t happen to anyone else.

We also were told by multiple people that the townhouse buildings would have elevators and they just don’t. We ended up having to move everything up two flights, which would have been fine if that’s what they had told us.

The main office is usually closed before their hours are up, which is really hard for people that have jobs. Many times I’ve been there to pick up a package at least an hour before they close but they aren’t there.

We had put in 4 maintenance requests the month we moved in, when it was still an identity complex and nobody ever came to fix them so now we’re super worried horizon is going to charge us for existing damages.

The staff is wonderful and I really liked the people that worked in the main office, they were always polite, helpful, and one time someone carried a giant package up two flights of stairs for me.

It’s student housing and they obviously treat their tenants like students and not super like adults.

They just aren’t clearly communicative and sometimes that’s frustrating.

I literally went through the whole process and signed my lease and about a day after I signed the lease, I got a voicemail saying there are no more available rooms. How insane.

And although they're incapable of returning a phone call, apparently they're capable of replying to reviews...

I’ve lived in a hill rental apartment for two years now. Whoever my maintenance man was today deserves a raise. Not only did he fix the problem but then added things (going to the hardware store to get parts) to fix it correctly so that problem doesn’t arise again! He was polite and kind and overall a very pleasant experience!

I previously reviewed about the Grove not getting back in contact after emails. Well I finally got a hold of them so I took it down. However about half way through our conversation Barak stated he would call me back. Well they never called back so I attempted to call them several times and again was not answered, their phone system also stated I would be called back in the order in which the calls were recieved. This also never happened. Once again I finally managed to get through and they said please hold then hung up immediately. This place is highly unprofessional please avoid at all costs.

My interactions with the supervisor were overall pleasant. The staff under was not... The lady who handles the applications would not give me any form of direct answer when asking about availability. She was very unprofessional, passive aggressive, and snarky every time I called. I applied to this place and another, I chose the other rental company because of the lack of professionalism here. The last phone call interaction I had was this morning and she made a snotty remark because I chose the other place and hung up right afterwards without saying a word. I understand there may be a lot of people who apply and may be stressful. However, acting in this matter drove me off and the staff should be held to a higher standard.

Pool is disgusting.
Contractors have left the heat and hot water off for several days in the middle of February🥶. Employees have a clear preference for being reactive rather than productive. Water heaters are prone to regular failures, as well as the HVAC for the apartments. Broken sprinklers all over the place are staining the brick walls with hard water, not to mention it shows how wasteful and overall neglectful management is. Shutters fall off the building and are simply left there with all the other trash. Security gates are decorative (non-functioning).
The Grove is shifting the cost of being unable to manage people/property right back onto consumers.
With housing prices finally dropping, rent is still going up? Shareholders clearly have no idea what a mess this property is or they simply don't care.
Just another corporation happy to take your money and not protect their own investment.

Where to begin... Apartment was not move in ready, no cleaning had been done since previous tenet. Front counter staff are friendly enough but incapable of solving any real problem. Manager is very difficult and does everything she can to take advantage. Do not be fooled by the nice clubhouse and demo room, this is a terrible place to live.

I would not recommend the grove to my worst enemy. I’ve lived here for two years and has hands down been the most toxic and isolating experience. If you have an animal who struggles with anxiety or socializing with other animals please don’t move here. My dog had severe anxiety and cannot share a space with other animals and I’ve made that aware to the property multiple times. Yet this year the two random roommates we’ve had in my apartment both have animals after I was promised they would not. Creating an extremely unhealthy environment for everyone. I’ve tried to reach out to them multiple times about potentially leaving or moving units for the sake of my own well-being and have been ignored, hung up on or just plain lied to of “we’ll get right back to you”. They also recently pretended to not know my dog even existed and approached me like I had been hiding him from them. Which is ironic since they do inspections where they walk in whenever they feel like it and maintenance have all seen and heard him multiple times. Ontop of management the fellow residents are unkind and inconsiderate. I have an upstairs neighbor who throws glass down the stairs right in front of my door and has injured my dog because of it. This place is a trap and watch out for that “cleaning fee” and all the other fees they hit you with. When I moved in my roommate didn’t even have a door, the furniture was destroyed and they hadn’t cleaned a thing in the apartment. It’s presented as a nice clean place to live but that’s just the show room.

This is for Brian. He is the best and most helpful leasing agent I have ever worked with. He knows his stuff and when he doesn't he is quick to get help and assist however he can. He helped me get my lease taken over when I needed to move out early because of graduation, even amidst a management change.
The Grove itself is pretty nice, great amenities, and affordable.
Back to Brian. He's wonderful. Thanks for everything!!

Although the amenities are nice (fully furnished, a pool, and community events) I had several issues with the grove in the year and three months I lived there. I started out by leasing for the fall 2020-2021, but I needed to move in earlier as I needed a place to stay for summer 2020, so I subleased through the grove. When I moved in the place was dirty to the point the counter tops were sticky and there was an old full size freezer in the entryway that smelled. Okay, to be expected as I was moving into a previously occupied apartment what was not to be expected was that I would have to pay for the cleaning fees. It took a month plus to get these charges removed from my account when they should never have been on there in the first place.
Then I moved into my fall lease, where my toilet did not work. I put in a maintenance order and one of the team members came in, and said I couldn’t use my toilet until a new part would come in because it would spray water everywhere. After several days of not having a working toilet I called, and they said they would fix it as soon as possible. After two weeks the guarantor on my account called and asked to speak to manager as not having a working toilet for two weeks is a landlord violation. Funnily enough maintenance was at my door that morning fixing my toilet. Next up my roommates bathroom flooded while she was away and the only reason she was notified was because luckily my other roommate was home. A week before moving out from this lease my roommate was notified that we would not need to pay carpet cleaning fees as the carpet in our apartment would be removed, yet they still charged us carpet cleaning fees. Luckily the staff member in charge of fixing these mistakes was very kind, and quick to respond and she removed these fees from our accounts. The staff members at the grove are great, but the team overall lacks communication. The maintenance team is completely overrun at the start of turnover, because everyone moves in at the same time. We received several emails saying that maintenance is done in a first come first serve order (who puts in the order first), but changing a lightbulb during turnover is not the same as not having a working toilet. Once again nothing against the staff as this is not their responsibility, but there needs to be a better system put in place so that it does not create frustrating scenarios for the resident. Needless to say I will not be leasing here again.

Renting through a new agency is always scary. I did a lease takeover, so I took on a risk of being responsible for any damage the prior tenant may have done. The apartments were old, but homey and so affordable. Any time I needed something fixed or addressed, I was shocked at how quick they were to respond. The maintenance guy (never caught his name) was absolutely awesome. He was so kind and thanked me for being available for HIM to fix something in my apartment! I would rent from hill rental again anyday and recommend them to anyone who is looking for a place to live.

We lived there for 4 years and we had a pleasant stay. Friendly staff. Always had Quick response on maintenance services except the less priority ones. I left the apartment clean and in good shape - Got my full security deposit back. Highly recommend.

Rented with Hill for 2+ years. By far the best property management company in town. There is zero competition for the price. Staff are all very friendly and responsive, they keep their promises, and maintenance was done promptly 95% of the time (non-critical stuff had to wait sometimes, which is very reasonable.) No problems with the security deposit. Apartments are all clean and in good condition (I stayed in more than 1 place) and the price is about 5-10% cheaper than most other comparable places.

We feel relieved we're renting with them again starting this summer, can't wait to move back.

I have lived in a hill rentals apartment for 2 years. Their staff is friendly and they are very easy to communicate with. The couple of maintenance requests I sent in were dealt with abruptly and professionally. I would definitely recommend leasing through them.

I rented an apartment on S Hawthorne for two years and never had any problems. The staff was always very friendly and helpful. Maintenance requests were completed very quickly! The apartments are not super luxury apartments, but are fairly priced and well-maintained. I kept my apartment clean and got my entire security deposit back. Based on the terrible reviews of the other agencies in town, I am lucky to have gotten an apartment with Hill and would definitely recommend them!

I lived in the apartments at S. Hawthorne for 2 years. I loved the location, as it was easy to bike and walk to downtown and the university. If called about a problem (and I did have to call them several times about various plumbing issues), the maintenance team was there quickly, they were friendly, professional, and got the problem solved, even when that meant replacing a decrepit 25-year old water heater. The buildings are old, but have obviously been maintained as well as possible. The coin-op laundry is a pain (and at night you have to go up and down very poorly lit stairs) but at least it is on site and there were few instances of vying for a machine. The new internet installed in 2014 is amazingly fast. During summer, every other tenant in my building bought a window A/C unit. I just opened all my windows at night, and closed the windows and blinds when the sun came up--this kept the temperature just fine 99.9% of the time. I kept my apartment in good shape, thoroughly cleaned it on move out, and received my whole security deposit back. The people in the office were all friendly, and despite the drawbacks of the old building and coin op laundry, Hill is awesome to rent from, has reasonably-priced rent, and excellent maintenance service. I wish all rental companies were so fair and honest! Based on what I heard from friends about the other multi-property rental companies in Moscow, Hill is your best bet in the area unless you have pets...they are staunchly anti-pet.