TLDR: Absolutely unprofessional, unprepared bullies who care only about getting your money as quickly as possible and will call you "rude", "crazy", and "demanding" for asking for simple things like a copy of your signed lease before you move in. My advice? Get a realtor who'll at least pretend like they care about you and actually knows what they're talking about. Avoid Apartment Rental Experts all together.
My partner and I are young professionals who were looking for a 1 bedroom or studio somewhere on the red line. We contacted Ryan from Apartment Rental Experts through a listing we found on Craigslist for a studio apartment in Porter. Ryan replied to my email after a day or two, and we called him later on to tell him what we were looking for. Our criteria, I admit, was tough: we wanted a 1600-1650 studio or 1 br with some sort of street/off street parking, a separate closed off bedroom, and we did not want any garden or basement level units.
The warning signs came when Ryan took us to see our first apartment near Porter. It was tiny, but had everything we asked for... except it was 1800- well out of our budget. Making it very clear that we couldn't afford this place, we went off the next couple units that were actually close to our budget.
Next red flag: one of the units we saw was a basement unit, exactly what we asked not to see. To top it off, it was in terrible condition. Pieces of the ceiling and wall were falling off and many things were broken. The lights didn't even work!!!
After we finished seeing units and left for the night, Ryan sent us an apartment on Cogswell Ave. that just opened: right in between Porter Sq and Davis. We were in LOVE. I left my hourly job during lunch the next day to rush in, see the place, and apply. Ryan knew this would be rushed process as I had made him very aware of the time constraints, and when we arrived at the apartment, he informed me of a 50 dollar increase to monthly rent because two people would be renting one unit. That took rent from 1675 to 1725 (now well out of our budget, which he was well aware of before showing me the unit). We went back to the office, I put down one month's rent, signed an application, and asked Ryan what the next steps would be. Here's where the real nightmare starts.
Ryan informed me that the property manager would look over the application, verbally approve it, and then come in sometime soon to sign the lease and then we would get copies. Simple, right? We agreed to the process, and my partner came in later that day to sign the lease/application himself. Two days later, we get a text from Ryan saying the property manager has approved the application, and will be coming in to sign the lease after which we'll get our copy (I still have copies of that text message). Then, later in the day, I get a call from Ryan saying we wouldn't be getting a copy of our lease, he made a mistake with protocol, and that everything is now set in stone. He then proceeded to ask me when I could come in to pay the broker's fee. This is when I started to feel really weird about the process. No lease? After I'd been told we would get one? I've never met the property manager before not to mention this was our first time using Apartment Rental Experts. How could we trust an agreement had been made without a copy of the lease, that the property manager hadn't made any amendments?
I told Ryan that we were ready to pay the broker's fee, but didn't feel comfortable paying until we could also walk out with our copy of the lease. He forwarded me to his manager, Al, who has to be the worst human being I've met yet.
Al proceeded to disrespect and berate me on the phone for the next 15 minutes, jumping to defend his "10 years of experience" in the industry, and not hesitating to call me "rude" and "demanding" for asking for a copy of the lease before we moved in. He acted like I was expecting a lease the day of, when I had very calmly explained we wanted one as soon as they were able to provide one before the move in date. In order for Al to call the property manager, I would have to call him back next week to remind him because "he was going to forget".
After my partner called and had the same awful experience, we decided to pull out. We received a full refund of one month's rent (which we were entitled to- no signed tangible lease means no tenancy agreement). I also had a chance to look up reviews of our future managers (their "best property managers") First Cambridge Realty Corporation. Before you rent any surprisingly under priced units on the red line managed by FCRC, check out their reviews first and you'll be as thankful as we are that we escaped this nonsense. We're disgusted we were treated this way and by ARE's inability to own Ryan's mistake. read more
