Mercia Residential, chapel-hill-nc

My friends and I just moved into our house under Mark and we appreciate him so much. He responds to emails almost immediately even in the evenings and was quick to address any maintenance issues we had during move in. He may come off as rude in his emails, but I think he is genuinely just being funny and not many understand that. He has been remodeling/fixing everything by himself recently and that is definitely impressive given how many properties he has to manage.

TLDR: Mark does not communicate or fix anything in addition to being condescending and having crazy move-out requirements. When we reached out to Mark to get our keys to move in, the apartment was suddenly “not ready” and we could not move in until 3 days later. This was on the 5th of the month, yet he did not prorate the rent. Upon living at this apartment for about a month, Mark asked us to resign or he would increase our monthly rate by over $100 dollars. Throughout the course of the next 2 years he would respond with “youtube it” when we had issues, refused to get us a recycling bin when we asked, stopped providing air filters for the second year we lived there, saying it was “our responsibility”. During the second winter, our heat stopped working and the bill was nearly $150 a month, and in March he finally came out to “fix it”, but I’m honestly not sure he ever did. Also, the rental website listed my apartment as “1000 square feet”. During COVID boredom, I measured the place and it could not have been more than 700 square feet, generously. After reading reviews saying that Mark would not give the security deposit back, I began to email continuously to ask about any damages or charges and he did not give a straight answer no matter how many direct questions I asked. He requires that you clean the apartment to look as if no one was ever there, including professional carpet cleaning, replacing the stove drip pans, and other extensive requirements. In the end, he did give the deposit back, but all to my roommate and did not split it between us or even ask if he should. All in all the apartment itself was mostly nice, the kitchen was updated and it served its purpose well. However, rent includes no amenities (like, not even a yard where I lived) and no utilities which makes the value of it questionable at best. There is no maintenance team, just Mark himself, which would be fine if he actually cared about issues that needed fixing. If you’re okay with fixing things yourself and want a functional apartment with no frills this is the place for you.

I had no problems with Mark — he was a responsive landlord and fixed our problems quickly. Place was nice and clean. The one thing to be aware of is the ridiculous amount of cleaning required upon moving out — I just paid for a professional cleaner and received my entire security deposit.

Mark does his best but clearly isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. As other people have mentioned, he doesn’t repair anything and will steal your security deposit. Stay away UPDATE: I would suggest you learn proper grammar, Mark. I will not be deleting my review as it is the truth. Anyone who has spent five minutes looking into Chapel Hill estate knows your reputation. Congrats on grad school.

Mark is a good landlord. He has always been responsive in the two years I lived at the property and he makes his expectations clear. Make sure to read the entirety of the lease as you will be held responsible for it.