How Did You Find a Good Apartment in Santa Clara?
I'm looking for a 2 bedroom apartment rental in the Santa Clara area, and honestly I'm having a surprisingly hard time figuring out what's actually good.
The problem I'm running into is that a lot of these apartment communities look really nice on Zillow or Apartments.com. Good photos, decent amenities, nice descriptions, etc. But then the moment I look them up on Google Reviews or Yelp, I start seeing dozens of reviews complaining about property management, maintenance issues, pests, break-ins, hidden fees, noise, and people saying things like "DON'T LIVE HERE."
At this point I'm not even sure if this is just normal for apartment hunting around here, or if I'm going about this the wrong way. It feels like every place has horror stories once you dig a little deeper.
Would really appreciate any advice from people who already live in the area. Are there better ways to find good rentals besides Zillow/Apartments.com? Are reviews generally exaggerated, or should I treat them as major red flags? Any apartment communities or neighborhoods you'd personally recommend looking into?
Ideally looking for a safe area with grocery stores, gyms, restaurants, and other amenities within a reasonable driving distance.