Hello,

I'm trying to reach out to other residents of NPDF (Neighborhood Preservation and Development Fund http://altmanco.com/pdfs/575.pdf) properties.

NPDF is a partnership involving Penn, USP, and apparently Fannie Mae, though Penn seems to be the primary entity behind it. The concept is to preserve moderate-rent units around West Philly. The buildings along the south side of the 4800 block of Pine are theirs, for example, and almost a year ago they acquired Sherman's West Philly properties. NPDF properties are managed by Altman property management.

Our building is poorly maintained, and we've had an extremely difficult time with getting very basic things repaired - like the elevator, chronic problems with the building's front doors. In general the building is in shabby shape, and they haven't really done much to change that (paint, carpets in hallways still look like crap). I have a friend in another NPDF building who has had his own battles on similar chronic repair/maintenance problems, and the only way we've gotten any attention from Altman has been going through Penn's real estate office, although even with that extra leverage progress has been extremely slow.

Please feel free to chime in with your own experiences with NPDF, and if you're interested in networking with us about getting chronic maintenance problems in your NPDF building resolved, please PM me.

Thanks,
Billy

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Phillyherping.blogspot.com

Last year, my partner and I were renting in a building that was purchased by NPDF towards the end of our lease. It was a terrible experience.

We were never informed that the building was for sale, let alone that it had been sold. We found out when they put up flyers telling us we had to send our rent to a new address.

Maintenance was non-existant. Calls to their maintenence hotline were turfed through multiple people before we were able to have our problems addressed.

We decided within a few weeks that we would be moving out. Several trips to their office were made in an attempt to speak with someone--the receptionist informed us the woman we needed to speak with was not there EVERY time (on at least one of those occasions, we actually HEARD her tell the receptionist to tell us she wasn't there.) After we moved, we had to threaten them in order to get our security deposit back.

I've heard other people with similar stories. Does anyone have anything good to say about them?

I also live in a house/building that was acquired by NPDF from Sherman. Maintenance off the bat was much better than with Sherman, but it seems now they have become very complacent.

I have an issue in my apartment which I reported to them 2 months ago, and I've been contacting them every other day and receiving empty promises.

Can I withhold rent?

I will be attending Drexel this fall as a graduate student and I am looking for a decent management company to rent an apartment from. I will be looking at 2 properties that NPDF oversees and Altman Co. manages, the first is 4600 Spruce St. bldg. and the second one is 4511-4517 Pine St. I did see a negative posting about NPDF so I just would really appreciate any advice about whether it is a smart decision on my part to consider renting in one of these buildings. I am leaning towards renting a 1 bedroom apt. at 4511-4517 Pine St due to the central a/c and personal w/d. I will figure out if the apts. are suitable when I check them out. Also, I'd like to know if these areas are safe for a grad. student and if police patrol this area often. Any advice/info. would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to send me responses at: lexis518@hotmail.com. Thanks.

I will be attending Drexel this fall as a graduate student and I am looking for a decent management company to rent an apartment from. I will be looking at 2 properties that NPDF oversees and Altman Co. manages, the first is 4600 Spruce St. bldg. and the second one is 4511-4517 Pine St. I did see a negative posting about NPDF so I just would really appreciate any advice about whether it is a smart decision on my part to consider renting in one of these buildings. I am leaning towards renting a 1 bedroom apt. at 4511-4517 Pine St due to the central a/c and personal w/d. I will figure out if the apts. are suitable when I check them out. Also, I'd like to know if these areas are safe for a grad. student and if police patrol this area often. Any advice/info. would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to send me responses at: lexis518@hotmail.com. Thanks.

After a 3 year stay, my boyfriend and I will be moving out of an NPDF building in September.

Where as I really like my apartment, the management and maintenance problems are bad enough for us to throw in the towel.

Our elevator hasn't worked in over a year, the washer and dryer in the building eats clothes, and homeless people sleep in our hallway because of substandard locks.

It took forming a tenets association and writing letters to Penn for these problems to be addressed. Building management and the office here were completely unresponsive.

I'd say avoid them too. They're finally addressing some of the chronic repair problems in our building, but it's taken months of nagging and working through Penn's Real Estate Office to get them to do anything. We really don't like moving, and we plan on buying something in the mid-future (and so don't want to have to move twice in a year or year and a half), so we haven't moved out, but I'd advise against moving into an NPDF building.

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Phillyherping.blogspot.com

I am the other half of rutibegga's experience with NPDF. They were positively awful. I heard the same from an aquaintance shortly after we found out they'd bought our building--she'd been renting from them for several years and couldn't stand them.

My issue was that NPDF bought 20+ properties (including our building) from Sherman Properties and seemed totally unprepared to manage them. The excuse I heard time and time again was that they had just bought all these properties and were so busy, and so sorry they weren't getting to my request in a timely fashion. Well, perhaps they shouldn't have bitten off more than they could chew, or should have hired additional staff to deal with the influx of tenants. It took me probably 5+ phone calls and 4 trips to their office to get a few very basic questions answered. I felt sorry for the receptionist who had to deal with so many frustrated tenants.

In response to the recent post concerning residences managed by Neighborhood Preservation and Development Fund:

In light of the high volume of issues reported with these apartments, committee people are requesting that you also inform them when you have issues with NDPF apartments so that they can relay this information to Counselwoman Blackwell. You can reach the committee people at committeeperson@aol.com. If you have already reported an issue, please forward that corespondence to this email address as well.

Thank you for your participation.

West Philadelphia Committee People

Hi all,

I am a former resident of NPDF. Chronic, major maintenance issues led us to leave our apartment. The final straw was when the building was condemned, and portions of our apartment were deemed unsafe by the city.

To say our experience was awful is an understatement. We are currently in the process of gathering information to bring suit against them in small claims court. We are soliciting letters of support to show that their behavior is a systemic chronic problem and not isolated to our case.

If you have question about how to bring your own case against them (for your security deposits, moving expenses, etc) please let me know. I'm not a lawyer, but have been doing quite a bit of research in to this. Additionally if you would like to add a brief note about your experiences to our complaint, we would appreciate it. Please reply here.

Thanks!