SouthGate Companies

Fantastic experience: I rented with them 10 years ago, they really nice .maintenance was always on time , very understandable . I remember on Covid when everyone couldn’t pay rent and myself after Covid I couldn’t find the job yet because I that time my kids were little and my boyfriend we separated I been comes a single mother they were very patient with me and the work me , GOD bless them and I miss them as my landlord thank you southgate for been there for me and my kids Georgette k wa mbaya Subayi

Negative experience: I wouldnt suggest renting from this company. They will keep your deposit for routine cleaning and maintenance that they are supposed to complete when someone moves out of a unit. They tell you not to paint anything before you move out then turn around and charge you 500.00 for painting fees and whatever else they can come up with.Today I went out to my car and there was a note on my car stating where my car was parked it needed to be moved or it would be towed. Well these damn people that live in this complex (KEOKUK STREET APARTMENTS) have 3-4 cars that dont even operate and just sit in the parking lot so theres nowhere to park at night when i come home from work. I refuse to park on the other end of the complex and walk to my damn apartment because they dont tell these people to move their cars or get a garage for their extra vehicles or the ones that been just sitting for months they dont get them towed. Called and talked to SUSAN and she hung up in my face. You tow my god damn car and youll pay to get it out. The apartment they leased to me I moved into on August 1st and the apartment was disgusting. They claim they had a "PROFESSIONAL CLEANING COMPANY" come in here prior to me moving in to clean and they definitely did NOT because this place was disgusting. The prior tenants were gross, the back patio was filthy like they just piled up their trash and left it there for months. The back porch and the front porch are infested with spiders. I can even sit on the patio without a spider dropping down on me. My patio furniture and grill are covered in spider webs. Cant have my windows open because the screens are damaged or do not properly fit in the windows so there are gaps in the window ledges and spiders come into my apartment. You think Southgate has done anything to fix this?? Hell no. Susan and Rebecca in the leasing office are very unprofessional and either hang up in your face or they just wont return your phone calls and will respond to your voicemail in a email. The homeless people are constantly on the property at night taring thru the dumpsters leaving huge messes outside the dumpster areas. My AC constantly is running because there is something wrong with it. They claim there is nothing wrong with it but yet I just got a 200.00 electric bill. the unit i was in before the one im in now my bill was NEVER that high. Luckily I have got them to agree to let me out of this lease as of September 30th, 2025 because Im sick of the issues with this company and their refusal to understand the issues in this complex. I would highly reccommend leasing elsewhere. Also note that they raise the rent every year.

Fantastic experience: Je suis très heureuse de faire partie des locataires de SGA

Fantastic experience: Great Job

Positive experience: Great community

Fantastic experience: great job

Fantastic experience: They where fast and friendly and just did a amazing job

Negative experience: They won't rent to me they were my last hope. I just want to disappear

Negative experience: Terrible experience renting from this company. I used to live at the keokuk apartments and the property manager we had really didn’t care about our quality of living. We had neighbors that called the cops on us multiple times and filed noise complaints with the property manager multiple times as well. These complaints were made many times when we were just watching tv at a reasonable volume. The cops would even show up and say our neighbors made it seem like we were throwing a “rager” and they didn’t know why they were called, seeing as we were actually watching animal planet. We voiced these concerns to our property manager knowing that they filed many complaints despite having our personal phone numbers to text if they felt like we were too loud (which we gave them on the first day), and the manager said that we could be more respectful towards our neighbors. At this time we had basically stopped having guests over and we wouldn’t have our speakers going at all, not even connected to the tv because we were afraid they made too much noise with the flooring.The manager would wait until they complained several times to let us know that we had several complaints against us. We also asked for times and dates in which the complaints were made so we could at least try to remember what we were doing to gauge how quiet we needed to be and they couldn’t give us times for most of the complaints so who knows if they were even during quiet hours. This was going on the whole time that we lived there unfortunately, and eventually we decided to renew our lease (purely because we didn’t want the hassle of moving). We let the property manager know by the deadline which was January 25th that we were renewing. They didn’t let us know until April when WE reached out about our lease that they weren’t letting us resign. We were beyond stressed about having to last minute look for a living situation. Good thing we reached out because who knows when they would’ve told us if we didn’t. Once it came time to get our security deposit back, we barely got anything back. They sent the itemized list of course on where our money went and they said they had to repaint for a little over $600. Which is insane seeing as we were the first ones living there after they remodeled it, never put any nails or anything in the walls, obviously didn’t paint, didn’t do any peel and sticks, and never smoked inside. We have lived in other apartments now for three years and haven’t had a single noise complaint, any property management issues, and certainly haven’t had to pay almost an entire security deposit on paint. I would highly recommend renting through Barker Apartments if you’re looking for a good company.

Fantastic experience: Always get prompt replies when maintenance requests are put in and the building is always well tended to. I've not had any issues in my several years living in my apartment that were not handled quite well.

Fantastic experience: SouthGate Property Management has consistently taken care of many of our requests in a fairly timely fashion. We are so pleased.

Fantastic experience: I am living in Hickory Hill townhouse. I couldn’t be happier with Southgate. Shout out to Megan, the maintenance, the quick service. I have been living for 4 years and I felt this is my warm home. Thank you Southgate for everything. I forgot to mention that It took me 3 minutes to Hyvee, 10 minutes to the University of Iowa. The location is amazing, and the neighborhood is very nice and friendly.if you are a student, you will find many Hawkeyes in the area. If you are a family member, don’t worry about school, just 5 minutes by car.

Fantastic experience: People are friendly and ready to help.

Positive experience: Fear for my life in winter. Terrible cleaning driveways. Update...management contacted me and wanted to fix the problem....very impressed ....the company that they hired improved., greatly....great job..

Fantastic experience: This a great company to lease with great professional staff. I leased with SouthGate at Westwinds complex for about 4 years and two different apartments in that time. The property manager Chris Villhauer is of the best I've interacted with in my time leasing and they have a great selection of properties. If you have questions or concerns they always try to work with you to find a solution. Make sure to check them out first before anyone else in the Iowa City area!

Positive experience: It's a rental company

Negative experience: Consistently refused to put things in writing and tried to only do business talking over the phone and then they would claim when we moved out “that’s not how we normally do this type and if you don’t have it in writing we can’t do anything about it.” Whenever I asked for an email or for something in writing so I could have a record they refused because we didn’t need documentation and they would remember. Never showed up when discussed issues that needed repair on the property. The contact for my property consistently was leaving the office early even when she would set appointments for me to call. The worst rental experience of any I had.

Positive experience: I rented with SouthGate for about 3.5 years when I lived in Iowa City area. Apartment living certainly has its own issues that you will find at any place, and SouthGate was doing a good job to make my stay as enjoyable as possible. They have many newly constructed rental properties with great amenities. The price is in my opinion very reasonable for what you will get.

Negative experience: Extremely disappointed. I have been renting with them since last August and it has been nothing but problems. Anything from the washing machine in the hall breaking and the water coming to our apartment and them not coming to inspect or fix it for four days, to simply posting up signs of showings a couple hours ahead of time and then lying that they put them up a day ago (which is against the law). They let the pest control guy have the keys to the apartments and he enters without ANY notice and they’ve ignored my voicemails about the problem. Most landlords in the area are complete scammers since they assume that all the college students are dumb, but this company rents to mainly young adults and families but my hope that they’d be any better sadly ended being just that. I was debating writing anything, out of fear that they might try to pull something, but I can’t stay quiet about it any longer. My only advice would be to not rent from them because the last thing on their mind is the tenant.

Negative experience: Terrible place to live at trust me they have no respect for your privacy and the apartment hall ways are very dirty. I’ve been living here at the complex for about 1 year of a lease. And they never fix stuff that’s broke or takes 1 month to come fix it. Instead of being a direct company they choose to leave notes on your door for some reason. That’s very stupid instead of having a professional relationship with your tenants like most company’s. I recommend not to choose South Gate as home. I rather be homeless then to live there again. And one thing that was discussing to me was that they will go into your apartment when your not home and move your and touch your personal iteams. I come home one day to find my clothes on the floor and my cabinets left open as if one of the maintenance man was hungry or something. Please don’t live here!! Now I understand why they have a lot of Africans here I feel bad for them and they belongings.

Positive experience: Apartments themselves are very nice, especially the Keokuk Street location, with two bathrooms. I didn’t feel like my privacy was respected, however. Once we said we wouldn’t be renewing our lease they showed our apartment MULTIPLE times. From April-July our apartment was probably shown around 12 times, which was stressful for me as I like my own space and do not like random people coming through my apartment, I also left notes asking them to please take off their shoes while showing our apartment and they did not. I scrubbed our carpet for 6 hours by hand and then random people walked all over it with their muddy shoes. I also worked night shift and was constantly being woken up by them showing our apartment/pest control. I asked management multiple times to stop showing our apartment and they tried to tell me that “we were the only people who didn’t renew our lease in that building and people wanted to see that building and the specific apt they would be moving into”, when I know for a fact we weren’t the only ones not renewing in that building, and all the rooms are designed basically the same. We also had a TERRIBLE cockroach problem when we first moved in, once noticed of the problem SouthGate told me I had to wait 4 days for pest control to come. They didn’t offer me a discounted rent or anything and I wasn’t able to move my stuff in for 4 days because of this problem, honestly it didn’t seem as if the cockroach problem really mattered to them. I probably killed 50 roaches the first few days in the apartment.

Fantastic experience: Real estate services office

Negative experience: The Property managers don't seem to care about their tenants, we filed multiple complaints against neighbors who would throw trash off their balcony and party all night. which makes it hard to sleep or study if you are a student. Having said that the way they manage things sucks, they have some decent apartments. I would stay away from the broadway st ones though, very trashy and ghetto. But another pro is that these places are usually cheap, you get what you pay for.

Fantastic experience: Rockstars. Helpful and friendly.

Fantastic experience: For over two years, my wife and I have been renting a SouthGate townhouse in Iowa City. Our unit was new when we moved in, and, not surprisingly, had a few start-up glitches. The SouthGate office personnel we dealt with, for this and all other matters, have been extremely friendly and helpful. The workmen were also knowledgeable and courteous. Our questions and problems have all been addressed to our satisfaction. We have also been pleasantly surprised by the promptness of snow and ice removal in the winter. Sometimes the parking lot and driveways have been cleared even before the city streets. A small negative has been an occasional lack of dumpster etiquette on the part of a few residents. Otherwise, we have been extremely pleased with our experience here. We are particularly impressed by the fact that the employees of a large operation like Southgate can still manage to deal with us renters in such a warm and friendly manner.

Fantastic experience: The staff at SouthGate has been great during our time with them. Very easy to work with and quick responses when you have questions. Can't think of a better management company in town.

Fantastic experience: SouthGate has been great to rent from. My wife and I needed to move into our apartment a week early because of the different dates between leases. SouthGate contacted the person moving out of the apartment for us. That person was moving out early so they let us move in. We signed the paperwork to forego cleaning since that's what you normally have to do but they cleaned the apartment for us anyway. At one point, the washer in the building broke and leaked oil onto our laundry. It wasn't an old washer, that just happens sometimes. They had a new one installed in a couple of days. They asked for an estimate of the cost of clothes ruined in the washer. I said around $60 and they let us pay $100 less on the next month's rent to compensate. We were looking to move to a bigger apartment but wanted to be sure to stay with SouthGate. We had one in mind and the guy from SouthGate pointed out there is an identical apartment a few blocks away that they also manage that is $50 per month cheaper. It was great of him to help get us the best price. After signing the lease, that new apartment changed management or else we would still be with SouthGate. They're really fast with repairs and I have never had a problem. They don't screw you over with charges after moving out like some other management companies in Iowa City. They are always really friendly and easy to work with. My younger brother is moving to town for medical school and I recommend SouthGate because we had such a good experience with them. He will be in the first apartment that we rented with SouthGate.

Fantastic experience: I was with Southgate for four years and never once had a bad experience! If there was a maintenance issue, Southgate was at my apartment very promptly. They also have an extremely welcoming and kind staff! They did not disappoint.

Fantastic experience: Renting from Southgate Companies is like being on a never-ending vacation. During every interaction I have had with the entire staff I’ve felt ease and comfort. Throughout my entire renting experience I have been constantly impressed with the poise and communicative nature of the leasing agents. Every time I walk into the Southgate office the employees radiate with excitement and passion to help myself and the other customer’s needs. They insist on going above and beyond to maintain my satisfaction. The agent doing my showing was knowledgeable and charming and I knew instantly I wanted to rent from this company. As a result of the pristine nature of my apartment I have never had to personally make a call about any sort of maintenance issue. However when I see a maintenance worker or cleaner around the building they always give me a hearty thumbs up, which reassures me, everything around the building is being taken care of in a professional and decisive manner. The upkeep and cleanliness of the entire building can be defined as nothing less than immaculate. Very few experiences in my adult life have been as satisfying as renting from Southgate Companies. I don’t consider myself a tenant at Southgate I consider myself a member of the family. I commend the entire staff for the diligent and dedicated service they provide on a daily basis.

Fantastic experience: Southgate property management helped place me into a very nice condo apartment in a very difficult time in my life. My old apartments were being shut down and I had to find place quick. Southgate was there for me. I love my new apartment and it comes with lots of great perks. Could ask for a better company to rent from!

Fantastic experience: SouthGate Companies has always been responsive and attentive to my needs as a tenant. They have very friendly staff that are easy to work with. I would highly recommend this company.

Fantastic experience: This is my first time renting from Southgate and it has been a really pleasant experience! The staff actually listen to what you're looking for in a place to live and have great options for housing. The property management take care of any issues very quickly and efficiently! I have already renewed my lease with Southgate for next year, and if I stay in Iowa City, I will definitely continue renting from them.

Fantastic experience: I've rented through Southgate for several years and have never had an issue. Maintenance is always quick to respond and are willing to fix even the tiniest of things to fulfill tenant satisfaction. I plan to stay with Southgate the duration of my time in Iowa City and would recommend to all my friends!

Negative experience: Do not rent from these people! They are a horrible rental company. The first incident that occurred that was red flag number one was that they double booked and apartment that my roommate and myself had signed and put a deposit down for. They told us 2 weeks before we were supposed to move in that they had double booked the apartment we had paid for but supposedly the other renters signed the least before we did so we were forced to find another location. They gave us the option of getting our deposit back or going to one of their other locations. Being a uiowa student at the time with school about to start we choose to just go with one of their other locations. Big mistake! The location they had open had ROACHES! We were so horrified and disgusted! They we're very slow about getting pest control to our location and many of our emails went unanswered. Eventually the neighbors, from which the roaches were coming from, moved and we kept spraying ourselves to get rid of the rest. After the bug incident was over things were ok until it can time to move. My roommate and I are pretty clean people and kept the unit in good shape. When it was time to get our deposit back we received $75 back from a deposit of $630! We cleaned the unit from top to bottom and they billed us for 200+ for 10 hrs of cleaning plus another $200+ for carpet cleaning! Mind you the unit is only a 2 bedroom to 2 bath and they are saying it took 10+ hrs of cleaning which it's utterly ridiculous! The only reason I did not take them to court was because I stupidly did not take pictures of the unit after we left to prove the good condition we left it in. All in all I recommend that you do not rent from these people! I am not one to write reviews of companies but what this company is doing is a crime so please do not be their next victim.

Fantastic experience: Of all the places I've rented from so far in Iowa City, I couldn't ask for better landlords. They're very considerate and take needs into great consideration. I haven't had a problem with rent since they let us keep the amount when we resigned our lease in the tume frame we needed. I actually recommend them to everyone I talk to when they mention needing to find a place. Their rent is very reasonable plus you don't ha e to typically pay parking fees since it's included with your monthly rent. I've been very impressed with them since starting to rent from them!

Positive experience: I love living here. The apartments on Broadway St. are affordable yet nice. They aren't huge, but for our three person family, it's perfect. Going to the office for any reason is always pleasant. The employees there are always smiling and very patient with any questions that you might need answered. Whenever we request maintenance, they come that day or the next day. My only complaint is that many of the workers will only knock once on the door before entering the apartment. I have had a few awkward situations already because I am breastfeeding. However, they are always very courteous when they realize that I am not prepared for them to come in.

Negative experience: A company I work for rented space from SouthGate. They seemed unresponsive and to barely care about fixing issues with our building. We are so happy to be gone. Other businesses and I have caught them exaggerating to make it sound like we would be foolish not to lease from them. I doubt I would rent from them again.

Negative experience: They're refusing to give me back my half of the deposit because my ex decided to renew the lease [mind you, I never signed the renewal, and any party wishing to continue residing is the only people who can be placed on the new lease]. They've been an issue since before I even first moved in, switching our apartment after we had already signed a lease for a different unit, and paid. After we moved in, a cleaning crew had never actually come and one had to be called, nor did they ever replace the necessary items, i.e. greasy, filthy vents on the microwave. Such an unpleasant experience, through and through.

Positive experience: All the reviews here are OLD! I have been a tenant for a year and a half and I have nothing bad to say...here's why: (1) Deposite return policy is generous and just even if I had some wear and tear from my roommate; (2) Responsive to repairs - returned from vacation with flooded toilet and they responded within 24 hours with brand new toilet and vanity; (3) Customer Service - when I have noisy neighbors, the property manager aka "landlord" was able to meet without an appointment and addressed the issue. (4) Property is maintained - regular preventive maintenance like painting, vacuming, up keep of grounds and parking area; (5) RENT is cheap ($800 2br - free heat and water).. YUP... I only pay electric and internet. QUIET POLICY ENFORCED 24-7...PARTY ANIMALS STAY AWAY!!! (6) LOCATION - clost to UIHC, Farmer's market, bus route, bike trail, running route, etc.