Guidance Realty Corp

I’m shocked to see some of the horrible reviews on here… My fiancé and I worked with Al from Guidance Realty and couldn’t have asked for a more pleasant experience. We stumbled upon a Street Easy ad Al posted on Wednesday morning and viewed an apartment we really liked the same day. We sent him an application that night. He advised that the building manager, Joe, would need to meet with us before we could sign a lease and offered to show us two other apartments that were slightly less rent on Friday morning in case we needed a back up. We met Joe on Friday and signed the lease on the original apartment on Friday night (although the back up options were actually legit options!). The process couldn’t have been easier! Highly, highly recommended. I’ve never felt loyal to a broker in NYC before, but if we are ever searching for an apartment again Al will be the first call I make.

tried giving these guys a shot… However it was probably the biggest waste of time and waste of money.
Gave them a deposit on an apartment which I found out was no longer available however they took my deposit and credit application fee.
They did not run my credit or anything 2 days later they told me the apartment is rented out. After spending 3 hours at the buildings 3 separate days trying to get it.
I would not recommend these guys to anyone.

Run, run away from this realtor as fast as you can! Here’s what I experienced during the one year tenancy at one of the buildings they managed on w 80^th street:
–They did not deliver what they promised. They only promised so to get you sign the contract.
— They managed the building poorly
— They lied to you.
Some example of issues I had with this company:
Mark, the building manager/​agent, promised they would hire professional cleaning person to clean the apartment prior to my move in date. On the move in day what awaited me was floor full of foot traces, and rusty bathroom cabinet, yellowish stained tile grouts (I washed them for two hours they turned white! from greasy yellow! Yikes!)
Second month into the lease my boyfriend and I slept in for the first time (I used my apartment as a home office where I would work in it during the day and go to my boyfriend’s for the night), he got bitten by bedbug. We freaked out and searched the whole house and saw two of them. Upon reporting it to Mark, he kept asking me to show him photos to prove, and he even had the guts to tell me maybe my boyfriend (who happens to live in a very well maintained building and we never had a sighting of a bug) brought it from his apartment and if they r to hire exterminator I have to share the cost with them. I got this issue controlled anyway, at my expense.
Due to the post trauma of seeing bed bug, I was scared to go home, to stay in it for a long time, to sleep on my newly bought bed, or to relax in my newly bought sofa watching favorite shows on my Sony TV. I spent less and less time in my apartment and I don’t cook so there’s no food smell in my apartment. Yet one day I saw a baby mouse coming out of the kitchen stove top!!! With greatest courage I looked into the stovetop for the first time since I moved in, I wished I never did.
I wrote a long email with all the issues I’ve been having to Mark and Rabi Sarhane, who is listed as my broker on the rental lease. Mark blamed all of the problems on me and my misuse of the street-​facing entrance, which «brought in things that aren’t supposed to be in the house».Rabi, on the other hand, did not reply until a week later after returning from vacation, only to apologize for what happened to me. NO ATTEMPT TO HELP WITH THE SITUATION WAS OFFERED BY ANY OF THESE TWO.
Now onto the building itself. The hallway is never fully lit up. It makes you feel like you are in some sort of B-​Movie from the 80s. Let’s call it nostalgic. Everyday there would be tiny bits of paint chips falling off the ceiling. These are the things you wouldn’t notice until actually living in the house.
It irritates me that this realtor took 15% of your yearly rent as service fee but not only did they have no control over the quality of the apartment they brokered, their lack of enthusiasm in resolving your issues towards the end of the lease is absurd.

Felt compelled to write a review after reading the reviews already posted on here.
My girlfriend and I were looking to move to the UWS from Brooklyn, and were dreading the process since we both have moved several times in NYC. We found an apartment we liked with Al. He was very communicative, thoughtful, and punctual. Unfortunately, even though we put a deposit for the place we saw, someone from the building asked to move in, and was given preference by the building owner.
Al felt awful and showed us an amazing apartment only 4 blocks away before anyone else got to see it. He also helped us negotiate down the rent to fit our budget! We signed the lease and can’t wait to move in.
There seems to be a lot of comments on his ‘rude’ demeanor… I can’t speak for anyone else’s experience, but my girlfriend and I found him honest, and to the point, like a true New Yorker. After spending several wasted hours with much more bubbly, but much less effective brokers, someone who wasn’t looking to waste our time or his was a breath of fresh air.
We will definitely work with Al again next time we are looking to move, but I don’t think that will be for a very long while (since we love our new place so much!)
Thanks!

Jack is an expert on the UWS so I highly recommend him if you are looking in that area. He is fair, honest, and not pushy, which I haven’t always found in NYC.

I would leave negative stars if i could. They are in charge of leasing the apts on west 76^th street and dealing with the management. They showed me an apt in the upper west side that I liked so I signed the lease in their office (never meeting the owner). My first issue was that I was in the apartment for over a month but had not received the keys to the mailbox. I tried reaching out to the owner via email (the only contact info I had) but i was told to reach out to guidance realty instead. When I tried that, I had to go to their office on two separate occasions before finally tracking them down to give me the key.
After that, any time there was an issue and I tried to contact the owner, I would either be asked to deal with guidance realty or someone named Reyes. When I finally vacated the apartment, I emailed the owner several times without response. After several weeks of asking, I finally received an email that my deposit was on its way. Two weeks later I still had not received it. I thereafter contacted guidance realty given that the emails from the supposed owner repeatedly referred me to them for all issues. Once again, i did not hear back from them.
Guidance realty were the only ones I dealt with during this whole ordeal and even left the keys of the apartment with them after vacating (as instructed by an email from the owner). I am not sure what the relationship is between them and the owner but I was hoping they would be more helpful given the owner’s reliance on them and repeated requests to go to them for everything.
Because of this, I left a bad review on Unilocal about them and then received an email that if I don’t take it down, they will reach out to lawyers. When I asked them for the name of the lawyer, they said that they will file a complaint with the agency that I hold a license with instead of hiring a lawyer. My experience was a terrible one with this agency and I was never sure whom I should contact for any issues. Instead of helping one of their customers, they were terrible throughout and then sent very aggressive emails trying to force me to take down my review when I complained.

Working with Guidance Realty Corporation was an overall pleasant experience. I worked with Marcela and Greg and both were more than accommodating with my schedule.
My roommate and I were looking to relocate within the Upper West Side and we found an apartment on Craigslist located less than 2 blocks away from where we currently live. We were introduced to Greg who met us at another apartment further south on 81^st to show first.
The apartment closer to our apartment was lovely and we were very interested in applying for a lease. Greg was more than willing to take all night to work through the process, as it was our first time applying independently for an apartment in New York. He took the time to explain each step necessary for applying for an apartment in New York and was more than willing to explain, in deep detail, how the NYC renting system works.
My experience at Guidance was nothing short of a positive one. Greg was more than willing to give excellent and helpful advice and do everything he could to help. He was straight-​forward and real, making sure we understood every step of the leasing process so that we weren’t going into anything blind.
The NYC apartment hunt is a nightmare. Applying for apartments in New York is invasive and seems to be as intense a process as joining the secret service. If you’re going to use a broker, I recommend Guidance, Greg and Marcela imparticular, because they’re going to be straight forward, accommodating, and honest.

Al is nothing but rude on emails. It’s no wonder they list such cheap apartments & have not moved into bigger deals.

This is for Greg Hudson who works for Mark Hassounya at Guidance.
I and my boyfriend recently relocated from DC and needed an apt asap. I wished I contacted Greg first. By the time I started working with him, I already worked with another broker who didn’t listen to us and we did most researches and just b/​c we didnt have the time to contact and organize the site visits, he arranged them. If I had time I would never used him (he was wiht Anchor though I dont write his name here.)
On the other hand, Greg listened to us and picked up the properties which are in line with our criteria; size, budget, preferences, etc. I really wished I worked with him from the beginning, then I didnt have that much frustration which I had with the other broker guy…
After all, we didn’t have time to take another week for our search and we decided to take an apt which we found but the anchor guy showed to us.
I highly recommend Greg for anyone who are moving to Manhattan area and dont have time or knowledge about the Manhattan market. He knows the neighborhoods and not only shows you the properties, but also tells you about the neighborhood; restaurants, grocery stores, cafes, etc.

The brokers from Guidance (specifically Graig) were very helpful to me in my apartment search. He went out of his way to find apartments that fit my criteria, and to show me those apartments at my convenience. I appreciate all of the effort that Graig put into helping me find a new home!

We had a bad few experiences.
They are not organized. They had our paper work and when they pulled out the folder, it was mixed up with others… They are supposed to trash/​shred your info if you do not get an apt… but they kept ours. One of their very nice (grunt worker) but ill informed broker showed us 2 apts in same building and mixed up the rents.
When we found an apt with citi habitats… the guidance guys walked in the main leasing office were so noisy, and listened in while we went over our contract/​lease. Talk about rude, inappropriate and unprofessional. Stay away.

First of all this company also has reviews on another Unilocal page so I am going to leave comments on both, here is the link for the other one
I worked with Mark and Mike overall everything went well and I have been living in my apt for about 5 months now
thanks for the help guys!

Worst experience in my 10 years living in NYC and I’ve moved 4 times. Unprofessional and dishonest. They withheld certain legal information about our apartment and played games throughout the entire lease signing. Thanks to them, I am now living in a property so poorly managed it took me over a month to find out who to contact for the super. Never received a copy of our signed lease and in speaking with other tenants in the building they rented apartments to, turns out they told lies to them as well. I am not typically one to write reviews but please do yourself a favor and stick with more mainstream reputable realtors. This place is beyond unprofessional and is a sad example of a «realty» corporation.

Rabi and Mark from Guidance were great and helped us find a beautiful place in the Upper West Side. We put in an offer that was $ 100 less than asking price and it was accepted, as they had thought, immediately. I will update this review as soon as we move in, but for right now, I am extremely pleased with Guidance!

My wife and I relocated this month from Atlanta, and we had dealt with two other brokerages with absolutely horrific experiences. Without going into details, we were frustrated, lost and had wasted five days and considerable $$ apartment hunting. With no results.
Enter Al and Mark with Guidance NYC. We ran into Al through a craigslist ad and he was immediately different from every other broker. He wasn’t pushing us to take apartments that weren’t right for us. He wasn’t making excuses. He was on time. He called back. He was eveything the other brokers were not.
At the point where my wife and I had to return to Atlanta, we still had no apartment but had just three weeks before we had to be here. So when Al called two days later and said he had found a place for us, it was a tremendous leap of faith. We rented our apartment SIGHT UNSEEN. Why would we do that?!?
We did it because Al had clearly shown he knew what we wanted, what we didn’t want, and was dedicated to finding the right place for us, not just «any place.» We threw challenges at him, from pets to qualification issues. He and his partner worked hard and worked outside the box to make it work.
End result? We’re in our apartment and we love it. And even though Al and Mark had their commission check and could have been done, they had the professionalism and caring to BOTH call us the night we moved in to make sure my wife and I «loved the place» as they had promised we would. That showed us they cared about the deal and us, and not just the cash.
Great guys. I cannot recommend them highly enough, and rest assured when anyone asks me to recommend an agent to help them find an apartment in New York City, I’ll be whipping out their card. Thanks, guys.

We also had a terrible experience with «Al.» He was untruthful throughout the process along with his business partner «Mark.» We have looked for apartments several times and this was one of the shadiest groups I have encountered.
They lied about the entire application process to continue to up-​sale the unit. I would advise that you forego any apartment listed with this unethical establishment.

I found a craigslist posting for an UWS studio which included pictures. The pictures were of a gorgeous, sun-​drenched studio recently renovated. I went from downtown all the way to 85^th street and arrived eight minutes late. I called the individual who said he had left already, that the appointment was at 5pm. He eventually realized the lack of rationale and told me he’d be there in a few minutes. Eight minutes lateness does not warrant the kind of impatience and lack of courtesy I received. I must’ve missed the sign that says, ‘amateur real estate broker at work,’ on my way there.
I was met by a man who called himself ‘Al’ (his card read something else, somewhat close to that) who not prone to small-​talk led me up the stairs to a fifth floor walkup. Once we entered, I was inside a gloomy, crummy studio at the back of the building. Still recuperating from the vertiginous climb (which I had anticipated) I marveled at how quickly the beautiful craigslist ad had morphed into something that had nothing to do with my expectations. I told our friend ‘Al,’ this is nothing like the pictures. His response was, ‘those pictures are the standard ones for all our listings.’ Am I supposed to be impressed by this dodging of my inquiry? Does it make me naïve to expect the same apartment as I had seen online? Not at all. I am aware of the practice of brokers to put up one set of same pictures for different listings but all these listings must come from the same portfolio: the renovations have to have been done similarly, the layouts are similar, etc. In this case, I saw the poor man’s Xanadu online and what I got was Motel 6 manager’s quarters.
I didn’t need anything else. And apparently, Al was in a hurry to get rid of me, as he said, ‘run to your next appointment,’ after I declined seeing any of his other properties. Something tells me we’re not going to meet again.