Hecht Group

Absolutely completely fake ads with wildly low prices to lure you in before the bait and switch. I have proof. Extremely unethical. Avoid.

I worked with Lester and he seemed very helpful upon looking at an apartment. However, when the apartment he had told me about ended up not being available he made it difficult to get my deposit back.
Every time he would make arrangements to meet up to give me the refund he would always have something else going on at the last minute that prevents him from being able to get it to me. I finally said to mail it, which he said he did, but surprisingly we never got the refund back.

The worse experience with a business ever!
The listing that was forwarded by Asaf prompted me to make arrangements to have the apartment looked at. The size was wrong (900 vs less than 700) the gym and pool were NOT included in the rent, the gym and pool were actually not part of the building, the rent was wrong in the listing, the floor was wrong. I would never ever have looked at this place and wasted time of the listing was even close to being accurate. When confronted, the agent said there was a misunderstanding. Believe me there was no misunderstanding… it was plain and simple false advertising. Should be illegal… maybe it is.

This is a review for Milan Jovanovich, who actually deserves to be sainted for what he did for us. I’m seriously trying to look up the Vatican’s application process.
Moving to New York is a giant pain in the ass. Your wallet and your sanity will be repeatedly beat up until you cry. Anyone who chooses to make this process easier for you, when they totally hold enough power in the information asymmetry to screw you over, deserves the money that you are paying them.
After countless interactions with sleazy New York brokers who talk and act like they never passed 8^th grade English (seriously — who thought it would be a good idea to give some of these people real estate licenses? They look like they can barely do up their shoes, let alone type a grammatically correct email), I was honestly a little wary when my friend gave me a referral to Milan. Fortunately, I learned that you should not tar everyone in this industry with the same brush.
Milan listened to our constraints and showed us apartments for an entire day within our price range and requested neighbourhoods without trying to push irrelevant, over-​budget units on us like so many other brokers do. Brokers frequently do a bait-​and-​switch — they tell you that the unit you are interested is not available and then try to push a higher priced one on you — and we got none of this bullshit, for which I was very grateful.
After two of our roommates dropped out and we discovered that we had a credit problem, Milan patiently re-​did our entire search and looked for buildings that accept Insurent, again taking us around for an entire weekend. He answered all our questions about each place, was honest when he wasn’t sure about something and took the time to find out, and has many working relationships with leasing managers which make it much easier to get information and arrange showings.
By the time we had applied for an apartment I had gone back to Toronto, so I had to sign, notarize, and overnight Fedex the lease back to New York in time for my roommate to move in as her Airbnb was expiring. For some reason Fedex couldn’t get past building security to make the 10:30am delivery, and the leasing office gave us a «we don’t know what happened, this isn’t our fault» kind of attitude, so Milan personally went to the leasing office and caught the Fedex guy as he was leaving after his second delivery attempt at 1pm. If not for his doing this, my roommate would have had to find another place to stay over the weekend, since the leasing office was adamant about having the lease signed on Friday in time for Saturday move-​in. He even offered to find her a place to stay with one of his relatives in case the lease didn’t work out by Friday, which we really appreciated (though it wasn’t necessary in the end).
We are both super impressed that Milan went so above and beyond and genuinely took care of us during the entire process from start to finish. This is brokerage as it should be done, and it is simply sad that the rest of the industry has disintegrated into unprofessionalism and a lack of integrity.
Would definitely recommend to all my friends!

This is just from my experience with Adi Avron.
Totally a nice person, but I don’t really need nice, I just need some stability in the chaos that is moving in NYC. It’s frustrating that with packing, moving, buying, finding a place, etc, that brokers have to add frustration into the mix.
She told us that the place was not open to negotiations, and we come to find out we are paying $ 400 more a month for a smaller place than the people next door who just moved in, to a more renovated place. Great. They negotiated the lease down.
She said to choose this place over another place we saw, because we would save on electricity because there is a deal with the building, so it is subsidized. Spoke to them, they had no clue what we were talking about.
She told us that there was free membership to Equinox upon signing the lease, since the gym was under construction. THEY HAD NO CLUE WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT IN THE OFFICE. Even the management company had no clue. I called her about it and she referred me to her manager.
She told us about the gym and the lounge in the building. She failed to mention that membership is 1k a year.
So she was rather lying or did not do her research, either way, we paid for her mistakes. Both situations are unacceptable.

My roommate and I can’t say enough about Hecht Group’s Ibrahim Takane. He worked tirelessly to ensure we found an apartment of our liking and was personable, professional and efficient throughout the entire process. He listened to all of our requirements for our apartment-​to-​be and never failed to be transparent about the listing details upfront.
We will certainly be recommending him to friends/​colleagues in the future.
Jenna & D

My roommate and I recently worked with Jackie Monteiro (646 – 7 502 626), to help us upgrade our apartment. I have moved three times in Manhattan and she is the best broker I have worked with. She was extremely patient and upfront with us from the beginning. She genuinely listened to what we were looking for and didn’t waste our time if she thought we wouldn’t be interested in an apartment. Jackie is hardworking and down to earth and is true to her word. She followed up with us after our move to check in to see how things were going. She only works with good management companies that take care of their buildings. I would definitely reach out to her in the future and would recommend her to anyone.

I was recently looking to upgrade to a new apartment and was lucky to find a knowledgable and ethical broker. I worked with Alex Dimitrov at the Hecht Group Realty. This guy is smart, professional and non pushey. He knew most of the city and took me to about 11 buildings. They all met most of my requirements and I thank Alex for not showing me crap or wasting my time.
I’m writing this positive review because even though I didn’t chose an apt (it was too much money for what I needed) Alex was patient and understanding not to push me to take anything. I’ll definitely refer my friends an family members to him.
I you can find this Realtor then ask him to help you find your new place

DO NOT USE!!! Jacques started as a decent broker, despite showing me apartments that didn’t fill my «required» list of amenities. I was willing to look past that. Then, once I submitted documents to sublet in a co-​op and my move-​in date came and went, Jacques handed me off to deal with the seller’s broker and stopped answering texts/​responding to emails. Two weeks went by and I now had about 5 days to figure out if I had a place to live before my current lease ended. Again, no response from Jacques until I called him from a number he didn’t recognize. He didn’t acknowledge the added fees I’d have to pay because he didn’t do his job to move the process along, he didn’t apologize for not responding, he didn’t apologize for making me take things into my own hands (I finally called the new management company myself and found the apartment owner in Colorado and spoke with her myself — she scheduled my interview for me, not the brokers). When the interview got scheduled (no thanks to him), Jacques then had the nerve to say «you should be happy» and email the seller’s broker «I was thrilled, but she was not».
And all this AFTER I handed him the easiest client ever. I went to look at an apartment with Jacques and asked my boyfriend to come along to help me. Instead, my boyfriend walked away with an apartment 30 minutes later. Jacques didn’t even have to schedule a separate viewing for him. STILL, Jacques treated me poorly. I will NEVER, EVER USE HECHT GROUP again. I am completely disgusted with the way I was treated.

My roommates and I had a really poor experience dealing with Hecht several months ago, and particularly with Darlene. We moved into a new building in the LES and had our moving date changed on us multiple times, so we ended up moving into our apartment 6 weeks after the date we had originally been told. That means that for those 6 weeks we had to find other places to live since all of us had already had to vacate our previous apartments.
To be fair this wasn’t all Hecht’s fault (we place a lot of blame on the building owners), but we were very disappointed with the way that Hecht handled it – mostly their lack of transparency and failure to provide us with information or updates. We had to beg for any updates on the status of our move-​in date. At one point Hecht declined to provide any info via email or phone, and forced us to come into their office on a Saturday, only to tell us that our move-​in was delayed even further. Ultimately we went through a lot of trouble to try to get any information ourselves by trying to circumvent Hecht. It was an extremely frustrating, stressful and lengthy (not to mention expensive) ordeal, and we wouldn’t work with them again.

My roommate and I worked with Paulo who really tries to help you. It was my first apartment so it took a while to finish all the documents, a bit stressful, but that can’t be helped. We didn’t have to pay a fee and found a place in our favorite are, the East Village. As I was not in the city it was a little bit harder to do the deal, but everything worked out great! If you’re looking for a place in Manhattan and you’re a first timer I recommend Paulo!

Tara M. McMahon sounds great at first until she decides not to follow through with a pre scheduled appointment last minute. I had to chase her down to get her to confirm a meeting place. No explanation. No sorry. Simply rude and a waste of my time. Tara is why people hate brokers.
Thankfully my old broker from Caliber set up viewings in 12 hrs so we didn’t lose a weekend searching. He’s professional and respects my time.

The broker didn’t show up.

First time looking in NYC– Called a couple brokers. Pounded the pavement, Begged, Pleaded, Credit Checked, etc.
We originally only intended to look at no-​fee apartments and made that abundantly clear in our emails.
… And then we got real.
We worked with Arthur, who mentioned that he could get us in Manhattan, but there would probably be a fee. With a lot of back and forth, he lowered the fee and part of our rent. He worked with us to get the paperworked signed and ready for move in within a couple days– They got us in the perfect neighborhood with a lot of the perks we were looking for.
It was a little intense, a little tough, but overall, good people who want to make you happy and close a sale.
Overall, a great experience– Nothing more, nothing less. If you’re looking for a solid broker who won’t make ridiculous promises they can’t fulfill, go to Hecht.

Let me clarify first that I am new in new york city and don’t really know how to deal with brokers. So I might have gone wrong by saying «I will discuss all details when I meet you» to the broker from Hecht Group.
On this the only reply I got from the broker is «I am not the one to waste anyone’s time. I will not going to meet with you». Well this guy actually refused to help me just because I said I wanted to discuss everything face to face.
Well, I guess I didn’t make myself clear enough Or they have too many clients, so they don’t care if they kick one of them out. So here I go (and with me 6 more friends of mine ;)) away from hecht group forever.
But people, don’t lose hope. Keep trying to get help from these «wonderful» people. If you are lucky, you will hit the jackpot. And remember they will not «waste your time» if they think you are not even worth meeting.
Thank you !

Liars and thieves. Don’t believe a word they say. Even if the published ad says «One free month» you will not get that free month. I had to sue, and was physically threatened.

Apartment searching in NYC sucks, there’s really no way around it. But if you’re looking for an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen I can’t recommend anyone better than Ian.
We had a rough situation with a short time frame and searching from another city, but Ian was incredibly helpful and always communicative, even when the apartment of our dreams fell through (due to the landlord, not him).
He absolutely knows the neighborhood, to the point where I mentioned that I had been in a friend’s building with a great roofdeck and he knew exactly which one it was.
We would recommend Ian to anyone, and would definitely use his services again. He is a total class act in a business filled with greedy people.