Toll & Isenberg Realty

My experiences with Toll and Isenberg have been really positive, for experiences with a realty firm. My impression of the real estate firms in Boston hovers just around barely contained disgust, and T&I have regularly surpassed my expectations. I’ve found two pretty quality apartments through them, both with no fee.
Here are some of the common Boston realtor mistakes that my agents from T&I did NOT make:
— forgetting keys to the apartments they were supposed to show us
— not knowing a damn thing about the apartments they were showing us
— not knowing WHERE the apartments were, and driving around really confused for 20 minutes
— propositioning me or my roommate (s)
— double-​booking me with another client, and asking if we minded going out together to look at places
— lying
— not being licensed
Finding a firm that DIDN’T do those things was pretty awesome. Granted, that’s not exactly super-​high standards, but it was still hard to find a firm that met them.
T&I is a solid place if you’re looking for a no-​fee apartment in the Allston/​Brighton and maybe Brookline areas. They don’t have apartments everywhere, and the units they either manage directly or get from landlords do look standard for the neighborhood — you aren’t going to find too many luxury pads from them.

Over all, I had a good experience with Toll & Isenberg Realty. They took time out to take my aunts around to look at apartments, even after I had already been around once. They also found me a beautiful apartment that I absolutely love. However, once the lease was signed and the fee was paid, I felt a little thrown aside. My realtor did not meet me to give me the keys, which would have been ok, but it was night time, I was alone, and he left them at some grocery store in an envelope for me to pick up. I didn’t think that was very professional or safe. He may know the grocers, but I don’t. I had just gotten off a plane with all my luggage, and had to trek to some store to get my keys, when he should have been there. I had informed him of the day and time I would be arriving as soon as I had booked the tickets. Also, I was not given adequate or enough information when I moved into my building. I had asked if I needed a permit to park a moving truck by my building when I moved in and I was told no, however when my movers came to Boston, that was not the case. When I called and confronted them about this mistake, they said that they didn’t know that I would have a moving van. How do you move across country into a two bedroom apartment without stuff? Second mistake was that I was not given any information about the building, as to who to call when there was a problem. My landlady did not know much about the apartment that she owned, as she had never lived there, and so I had no phone numbers or names of the management company for the building. I thought that was a little unprofessional and even though this is a wonderful apartment, I still got the feeling that I was being treated as a student (which I am not) who can be taken for a ride and deposited once I had paid my money. The people at Toll and Isenberg are very nice and I am sure do their job well, I just think that this lack of organization could be improved on.