At Home Realty

I have worked with At Home Realty for years and have always received excellent service. I’ve worked with several of the agents and they are all hard working, kind and professional. In a world were excellent customer service is rare, At Home Realty is an oasis. I would recommend them to anyone.

*Review Update*
After some communication with the owner of AHR over the weekend, I have decided to reassess my initial rating of the company.
While I still found my experience this year both frustrating and disappointing, the owner did show some willingness to resolve the situation. As long as future clients are clear with their expectations — and discuss any issues with the owner himself — I am sure they will have a satisfactory experience. Therefore, while I will aim to avoid AHR in the future, I will not discourage anyone else from utilizing their services.

Yes, I did sign with Kate but I did not enjoy much of the process. Not very friendly or professional. Constantly complained about her co-​workers the entire time

**AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COST**
–you can get the same listings from somewhere more professional.
They are a poorly managed, unprofessional, waste of time. They wasted an entire day which could have been avoided with our original 2 minute phone conversation.
They BLAST the same spammed ad all over craigslist to get someone to bite, as I unfortunately did, and then it gets worse. So, I finally saw a great apartment online and I wanted to lock it up asap. I called, spoke with an agent, who couldn’t meet me that night and wanted me to come down the following day. Fine, no problem. I called him again about the place, and told him who I am, what I do, and I want to live close to the Fenway area (in this case Allston) so it’s close to where I work as a bartender at the same place for 8 years. I also tell the agent I’m coming from very far away and it did end up taking me an hour and a half to get there. He has me wait for a little bit… no problem. Then tells me someone is filling out an application for it now, but he doesn’t think it will work out… no problem. I know how it works, I just drove in through rain and traffic though and I just want to go see the place, fill out my own application on it if I like it as much as I believe I will, and let them sort it out after.
All of a sudden some guy starts screaming from his office (I later find out this is the owner) at a girl who runs out of the office as fast as she can (one of his employees). The screaming, yelling owner rushes out into the «waiting/​couch area», sees me there sitting down (so he knows there is/​are customers about), and continues yelling, hammering, and hollering. All I wanted to do was see the apartment I came to see, which is RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET! I spent almost an hour sitting in that office waiting to go see a place that’s, literally, a 4 minute walk away on Comm Ave. Instead, my agent decides to take me across town to see a hole in the wall «dorm-​type» place that I made clear I did not want to see because I had no interest in the area, style, or unit.
We get back to the office and I ask to speak to the big boss man himself just to explain my situation. I very warmly shook his hand, introduced myself, and just let him know, hey, everyone has a bad day, but I’ve spent 1.5 hrs traveling to the city, another hour in his office, and 25 mins looking at a place I hadn’t a care to. Can I please just look at this place and leave an application with him and whatever happens, happens. All he did was talk over me, not answer any of my questions and was down right rude especially when he heard I work for a restaurant. Then he basically just shut me down and the conversation was over.
If I owned his business, he would be the first person I would fire. All and all, At Home Realty wasted about 5 hours of my day +/​-​, probably more, I’m being very generous to them on my estimations. Also, I could have been working that day, but really wanted to get this deal done, or at least do all I personally could.
This is just a summary of things, it was just real amateur hour down there. No one knew what was going on. The office looked nice, I just wish they could fill it w/​people with a clue and consideration for their potential customers.
Also, for the guy who got walked in on in his apartment getting out of the shower. The one the DID take me to see that day, obviously did not get a 24 hour notice, the agent unlocked and opened the door, and walked in before ever knocking or calling out, and there WAS someone living there. HOW RUDE… yet again. And in this situation, it looked like a girl lives there, so it would have been even worse and more embarrassing for her if two strange men walked in.
There is so much more I could write about my experience, and none of it would be good.
*This place is a shame and a joke. Stay away. Especially if you work in a restaurant or are a student.*

When my friends and I graduated from college in 2008 (we all went to school in central/​upstate NY) we knew that we wanted an apartment in Allston/​Brighton because it’s cheap and let’s face it, it’s a great way to transition from college because living there is LIKE college with the bars and convenience.
Anyways, we graduated the second weekend in May and then went apartment hunting in Boston the following week. As mentioned, although 2 of us are from the area, we went to school 4 – 5 hours away and couldn’t apartment hunt earlier and were hoping to move into an apartment for June 1^st. We went to COUNTLESS realtors in the Allston area. Numerous times we were taken to apartments that were a. too far from where we said we wanted to live, b. more $ than we were willing to spend and c. in not-​so-​great condition. We finally stumbled into At Home and were met by the woman who sits at the first desk. She, although a little curt and sassy, got us set up with paperwork talking about what we were looking for and then had us talk to Jamie. Jamie is a GOD SEND. I’m fairly certain it was his first week on the job, but he was SO willing to find us what we wanted. We looked at 4 places, really liked 2 of them… and then low and behold the last one we looked at was UNDER what we wanted to pay, in the EXACT location we wanted, had been recently renovated and we could move in on June 1^st. (Side note: I have another post for RCG — they ended up as our landlords– depicting the harrowing saga of what happened after we moved in.)
After 15 months of living in that apartment (great apartment — horrible management) we decided we wanted to move to Coolidge Corner. We tried a bunch of different realtors closer to Brookline than Allston and were continually met with disappointment. We went back to our trusted Jamie and he showed up one apartment: again, exactly what we were looking for.
It may have just been dumb luck, but regardless I trust Jamie with my apartment hunt.

I figured I should write a review of this place from a different person’s perspective. My apartment is currently being shown by At Home Realty. From reading other people’s reviews — it would seem that they use up all their «nice» on potential renters, and all they have left for those of us who are living at the places that they are showing is rudeness and anger.
They don’t seem to get the whole calling ahead thing. They instead typically arrive, unlock the door, knock once, then walk in. No waiting. Nothing. They’ve caught me half dressed coming out of the shower *twice* now. I have yelled at them repeatedly about this — and now they seem to think giving an hour’s notice is enough. When I called them out on this most recently (it is generally accepted in Boston that 24 hours is the *minimum*) they yelled at me, told me if I didn’t allow them to show the place they’d harass me on the phone over and over until I agreed, called me a «motherfucker», and hung up.
I should mention that I’ve had to deal with two of their agents. One was fine, for the most part. He also didn’t seem to understand the whole «knocking» thing — but he actually seemed receptive to my complaints about that.
Avoid these sleazebags at all cost. I don’t know how a group this unprofessional has managed (so far) to survive the recession.

Even though I ended up renting with a different realtor (it’s a long story), At Home Realty was just as good. Kate showed us around a bunch of apartments, and was very nice and patient the whole time. Our third roommate was really late, but Kate was totally understanding. All the apartments she showed us were at the very least decent and nice, and two of them were gorgeous. All of them were within our price range. After deciding there were two that we absolutely loved, we notified Kate, who didn’t pressure us at all. She even called us a few times to give friendly reminders that they were going to be rented soon, but again did not seem pushy at all. And we could tell by the quality and price of the apartments that they would rent themselves.
Even when I called to tell her that we’d decided on an apartment from another realtor, she was extremely professional and nice. I highly recommend Kate and At Home!

The first time I walked into At Home Realty after another realty company stood me up. The agent I met with would not honor my price range. I had done considerable research in the several months before my lease was up to learn what was available for what price, so I know I identified a realistic price range for my neighborhood. The agent I met with at At Home said I would have to go up at least $ 100/​month before they could find anything that would suit me — and the offerings still seemed slim at that price range. When I went out with someone else, I found myself a fabulous apartment that was $ 45/​month LESS than I had told At Home I would pay.
The second time I used At Home Realty was a complete accident. My husband and I were interested in a particular building, and were looking at every unit as it came on the market with whoever had the listing. At Home happened to have the listing. The agent we met with wasn’t too sharp– he had never seen the apartment before we went with him, he did not know what floor it was on, and he didn’t know anything about the building. Then, when we submitted our application, he called back concerned because he thought my husband’s job title «sounded like it was part-​time» just because it had the word «assistant» in it. This really stressed us out, because we were concerned the agent would tank our application with his ignorance.
We ended up taking the apartment, and as part of the lease signing, us, the management company, and the agent had to go to a little interview with the management company’s office. The agent screwed up a few things just for this simple meeting, and ended up getting rebuked by the owner of the management company. I’m dreading the day we move and have to deal with At Home showing our apartment.

Me and my BF got our apartment from At-​Home. They were all very nice and not pushy at all. I hate went agents try to tell me that the views are spectacular when I’m staring at a brick wall or that the bright yellow walls will compliment my lifestyle. The one guy that took us didn’t show us any bad apartments at all. In fact, he was nice enough to let us see 2 apartments that we were trying to decide on.
We had to pay half of the rent for a fee which i think was totally worth all the help that we got.