Where to start my review for Austin Ranch. It used to be a nice place, heck if you would have asked me 2 years ago I would have given you a great review (5 year resident). Then something happened back in 2009, the halls started getting dirtier, the staff started being slower and then in 2010 there was a guy that was stabbed and killed at Cafe Geko.
Really -
Here's the Article
Now, when you show up to Austin Ranch you'll be greeted by one of the women they hire. Actually, the more I think about it, there's not one man that works on the sales staff that i've seen (other than the man that writes the checks of course). But the women are conservative enough that a female would rent here, but just good looking enough to make you want them if your a guy. During my time here there's been a lot of turnover so my guess is that there's probably better opportunities out there.
Anyways don't be fooled. The staff at Austin Ranch really don't care, they're just puppets as billingsley makes money and makes the real decisions. If you have a Real Problem with your apartment, you can expect it to be fixed as slow as possible, and while the maintenance men who come to your door are good people, the people who push the paper to get them where they need to go are lazy, don't care, and don't even know where a lot of the units are. Also - If you have a problem with your apartment and your quality of life is impacted don't even think about asking for any compensation. They'll just act nice and tell you that the powers that be (who will never actually reveal themselfs) can't do anything for you and that they're the middle person.
So in closing Austin Ranch used to be a good place to live but don't believe the hype, a lot of their reviews including the ones at citysearch are posted by employees or obviously bought. You're probably better off either spending a little more money and living at legacy or addison or finding an apartment in uptown. If you need to be in Plano you can also apartments over on spring creek and preston as there's mi cocina and similar businesses in the shopping center.
Here's some more links to real Austin Ranch reviews
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1256201.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1226943.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1224866.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1214196.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1211570.html
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/TX-The-Colony-Austin-Ranch-1116495.html (really good one)