So a friend of mine once asked 'Why the heck would you spend money on a realtor - they don't do anything for that 5%' That friend never met Charles. Here's the deal. Charles is in it for the realty experience, not in it for the sale. Sure, he wants to get your place sold, or get you into your new home - but he wont do it just to get another transaction. As a buyer, when I suggested I might want to consider areas outside of Cambridge/Somerville (i.e. maybe Boston or Brookline), he respectfully told me that he would be happy to refer us to someone who knew those neighborhoods. He knows his area so well, and wanted us to have someone who knew other areas just as well as he did. That focus on Cambridge/Somerville showed even stronger as a seller's agent, where he was able give us all the necessary guidance to prepare, show, and sell our condo for a price we were very happy with - and in around 40 days. take in that last statement. Yes, we got a price we were happy with and a list-to-offer of 40 DAYS.... this year..... And while some of that has to do with the property, a lot of it was helped by Charles' input, suggestions, and diligence in getting the property staged, marketed, and represented - allowing me to actually experience a minimal impact of the whole process. this - plus everything that happened during negotiation, paperwork, and closing - is the reason that a realtor is essential. Scratch that - it's the reason that an awesome realtor is essential. Trust me, when you end up with someone subpar (and sadly I have several times), it is a whole different deal. Charles is that awesome realtor. If I were ever to buy or sell in his area again, there's no one else I would trust read more

Selling our Cambridge condo was not something I had planned to do. My husband had recently passed, and I was grieving. However, our tenants had to break their lease, and I was left with an empty condo during the holiday season. To sell or not to sell, that was the question. I had talked to other agents and was feeling pressured and lost. Then, I saw a review for Charles Cherney online. What a happy, happy find! Charles was very professional, reassuring and knowledgeable from day one. He took what seemed an overwhelming circumstance and made it into a very doable project. Each and every step along the way (and there were many) was anticipated, dealt with, taken care - and we were on to the next one. Charles' expertise and experience proved to be spot on. We had over two hundred people at the first open house! The condo was put on the market on a Thursday and by the following Wednesday (after three days of private showings and three public open houses), we had over a dozen bids, with most of them well over the listing price. I recommend Charles Cherney to anyone looking to sell or buy real estate in Cambridge or Somerville. He listens, advises, and takes care of both you and the process. He is more than an expert in his field - he is a kind, considerate, compassionate person, with a wonderful sense of humor. read more

I would definitely recommend using Charles Cherney if you are planning to buy or sell a home in the Cambridge/Somerville area. He recently helped us sell our condo in Somerville. He is extremely well organized, very professional and dedicated to providing the best possible experience for his clients. His attention to detail and quick response to questions makes communication very easy. We especially appreciated his insights into staging our property for sale. He also followed up with several open houses to maximize our exposure in the real estate market. We give Charles the highest possible recommendation! read more

As a first time buyer in the Boston / Cambridge area, I could not have had a better broker than Charles. He came highly recommended by a friend, and yet still he exceeded every expectation that I had. Despite my rather modest budget (I bought a small one bedroom for 345k), he worked with me for almost a year, patiently introduced me to the process and the area, and kept me updated on weekly offerings of interest. He never pressured me to buy--if anything, he encouraged me to be cautious and called my attention to the drawbacks of properties that had escaped me. He's attached to his Blackberry and quickly replies to every query. In short, Charles is knowledgeable, efficient, and an all around mensch. You couldn't do better. I recommended him with the greatest enthusiasm. read more

I highly recommend Charles Cherney. Working with Charles to sell our Somerville condo is the best decision we could have made. Charles immediately distinguished himself when we interviewed him. He was very well prepared and enthusiastic, and came ready to suggest a complete strategy for selling the condo. My wife and I had never sold a home before, and we needed a broker whose judgment we could trust. Charles consistently gave us excellent advice. Specifically, Charles suggested the timing of going on the market, the asking price, and even furniture layout. Once we actually went on the market, Charles expertly guided us through the process of evaluating offers, negotiating a purchase and sale agreement, and preparing for closing. Charles was a trusted adviser at every step of the process. He was always professional, enthusiastic, and almost instantly responsive to any question or concern. Most importantly, Charles helped us to achieve excellent results, even in a tough real estate market. Our condo went under agreement after only 16 days on the market, and sold for a price with which we were very satisfied. We could not have done it without Charles Cherney, and I enthusiastically recommend him to others. read more

We worked with Charles for nearly a year to find the perfect home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This was no easy task, and we were discriminating buyers. Charles was very patient during this process and had a keen eye for our likes and dislikes. As our relationship grew, we saw more-and-more homes that fit our tastes--this saved us a huge number of hours. When it came time to think seriously about a purchase, Charles gave us an incredibly thoughtful assessment of the property and price. These assessments were top-notch and reflected hours of research. It is obvious that Charles loves Cambridge, real estate, and his job. He is the total package! I recommend him fully, and without hesitation. He is patient, thoughtful, and incredibly knowledgeable. read more

My husband's colleagues highly recommended Charles to us and we began our house search in Cambridge/Somerville area with Charles last winter. It has been a long and overwhelming process as we had to travel from NJ to take home tours. The burden was greatly relieved thanks to Charles. He is very organized, hardworking, logical, careful in details and responding quickly: We usually heard back from him in less than an hour at any time of the day. (Is he at work 24/7? We appreciate as customers but we were actually worried that his family might complain.) He is impressively experienced and knowledgeable in real estates in the area and we highly valued his honest opinions throughout our search. For example, we had our offer accepted at one home but found out about an oil hazard issue with the home in the past, which could be no big deal to some people but it was grave enough that we started to rethink about the whole purchase. Charles was not trying to calm us down by trivializing the problem or to push us to go ahead with the deal. He was respectful of our concern, and when we eventually decided to exit, he helped us to safely retreat. It convinced us that his ultimate goal was not selling houses for the sake of money but finding perfect homes for his customers for their happiness. We teamed up with Charles to give another try, which took some time but eventually worked out beautifully. After all we settled on a property under renovation which Charles somehow had access to. This was a bold decision as a first-time home buyer, and we wouldn't do it without being fully confident of Charles. Indeed buying a home under renovation turned out to be rougher than we thought even with Charles' help. I wouldn't sugarcoat it - there were difficult times due to disagreement with the developer, delays in schedule etc, but I believe that Charles did his best to smoothen the process. Now everything is done and we are in love with our new place. Let me end by noting that he has superb personality! He is kind and has good humor too. My husband and I have become friends with Charles and will remain to be so. (Now he's referring us to great things in the neighborhood like a painter, an auto body shop, a locksmith, ...) I would like to recommend Charles to anyone who are looking for a real estate agent in Cambridge/Somerville area in highest terms without reservation. read more

2 words: HIRE CHARLES! We had an fantastic experience working with Charles Cherney to sell our condo in Cambridge. We were first time home sellers and he helped us step-by-step through the ups and downs of selling a home. He truly went above and beyond to negotiate the best price for our condo despite unique challenges along the way. Charles' knowledge of the Cambridge market, attention to detail, professionalism and positive attitude were simply amazing. We would absolutely hire Charles again for any real estate transaction in the Cambridge/Boston area!! read more

Charles did a great job on finding us a he knew what we wanted and kept us up to date on postings and things that were coming down the line. The best thing about our experience with Charles was how honest and knowledgeable he was on his opinions. He did not just want us to buy a home to get the deal done, he was truly concern about us getting the best home we could get that met our needs and budget. Without overpaying, and making sure we knew all the cons of all the properties. Thank you Charles for all your help. Laura read more

Charles helped us sell our house in Cambridge and did an absolutely fantastic job. We are very busy people and actually moved away from the Boston area while the house was on the market. Charles was consistently ON THE BALL with everything that needed to be done from start to finish. He took care of the stagers, painters, repair work, and running down tons of paperwork for closing, in addition to the obvious things like holding open houses and marketing the house. I think he must have his blackberry wired to his brain as he was consistently prompt and detailed when replying to emails. He is one of the most detail-oriented people I have ever worked with and very professional. Highly recommended. read more

I concur with the first reviewer-Charles is simply the best! He is an absolute professional--easy to work with, super-responsive, extremely organized, and absolutely spot on with all of his advice on every situation. When I called him about selling my house (I found him through recommendations on Yelp!) he was available immediately to come over (despite blizzard-like weather). I was impressed from the beginning--his advice and suggestions were clearly the product of long experience in the Cambridge market selling houses like mine. Charles' extreme responsiveness continued throughput the sales process. He was always available to talk, gave great advice on how to get the house ready for sale, and kept me apprised of deadlines at every step of the way. I followed his advice to the letter and was rewarded with a speedy sale (within 2 days of going on the market-no public open house) at a great price. On top of this, Charles is a great guy whom you will thoroughly enjoy interacting with. I have recommended him to all my friends who may be interested in buying or selling in Cambridge. In fact, although i had found him through Yelp, I later learned that good friends of mine had used him previously and had the same great experience that I did. Charles is a gem and for me, there would be no other choice in real estate agent in Cambridge. read more

We were first time home buyers when we were referred to Charles. We'd tried to work with several other realtors before and been really dissatisfied with the lack of guidance we were getting from them, so we were thrilled when we quickly discovered that Charles operated on a level (or two or three levels) above. From the minute we started with him, he listened carefully to our wants and needs and set to work on finding us exactly the place we would love living in, and for the right price, too. There were several times we wanted to settle on an imperfect property just to be done looking, but he restored our faith in the market and he pushed us to find more for our money. He was unbelievably responsive, attentive, and professional, and my husband and I are convinced he knows more about property, trends and value in Cambridge than anyone. We can't recommend him highly enough to people looking to buy or sell in this area. He is recognized as "a" top broker, but I'd be willing to bet that he is "the" top broker in Cambridge. We can't think of anything negative to say about our experience. We thought finding a home would be something we could do primarily on our own. After working with Charles on the buyer's end, we look forward to eventually working with him again on the seller's end. Home buying/selling is a difficult process and we would not feel comfortable going through the process again without him. We're very happy in our new place and look forward to having him over once we're better settled. Charles truly loves his job, and he is an expert at it. read more

Simply put, we would not own a Cambridge condo if not for Charles. After bumbling along with another realtor, I realized we needed help navigating such a super-competitive seller's market. I had admired Charles' professionalism as the seller's agent on a condo we lost to a higher bid and engaged him as our buyer's agent. He kept us well informed about properties, helped us bid competitively but not overbid, and handled a million details that few realtors would. His deep knowledge of the Cambridge market was invaluable. In fact, when we were also considering Boston, he told us to use another realtor there. He knows where he has expertise, and where he does not. With Charles, we had a true ally, one with the highest integrity. We trusted him completely. You won't find a better realtor. read more

We highly recommend Charles Cherney as a real estate broker! We were looking at a condo in Cambridge so we got in touch with Charles after finding some great reviews identifying him on Yelp for Hammond Real Estate in Cambridge. Charles is indeed very knowledgeable about real estate in the Cambridge area. We appreciated his honest advice and thoughts about properties that we visited. We were seriously considering one condo in particular but gave us his honest opinion and said that we should continue to look because he thinks we could do better. He also notified us of properties that were within our budget and did not pressure us to look at properties that exceeded our target, which was appreciated. Sure enough, we found the perfect condo for our needs in our price range and closed on our first place back in December. He is very attentive and will follow-up with emails along the way, even after closing. We had some issues with the heating system at first and he even contacted the sellers to ask for us and checked in with us to make sure everything was working well for the upcoming (brutal) Boston winter. Searching for a good home is difficult and stressful so we also appreciated his friendliness and good sense of humor. Charles also will respond to all our emails and return our phone calls as fast as he can. He's a hard worker and it shows. Sometimes I don't know if he sleeps! Initially, we also tried working with a couple of other real estate agents for the Brookline and Arlington areas but we found that they did not match the professional service and attention that we got from Charles. Finding a great home is difficult and finding a great real estate broker to help you along the way is also key to making it through the process. It's hard to find people who are competent at their jobs these days (I have very high standards!). Charles exceeded our expectations. He is a real estate broker who is interested in fostering relationships with his clients as well. We know we can count on Charles whenever we have real estate questions or concerns. We are grateful for Charles' real estate services and that is why we wrote a great review for him. Best of luck with your home search! read more

Charles was my buyer's agent for a first-time home purchase (condo) in Somerville. He was an excellent adviser, very adept at pointing out good and bad points for the various home we saw. His knowledge of the Somerville/North Cambridge area was also superb. He provided thoughtful advice that included raising flags about deficiencies, resale issues, and asking price about the homes we viewed, and I had a sense that he would not steer me towards a place he did not feel was a good fit and a good value. He also went above and beyond in terms of helping walk through the first time home purchase process, checking in with me frequently and being very responsive to all my questions and concerns. He is a dedicated, knowledgeable in his field, and a pleasure to work with, and I would highly recommend his services. read more

We were very lucky to work work with Charles as our buyer's realtor and cannot recommend him more highly. First, he is exceptionally smart and knowledgeable about the local market. He provided us carefully reasoned analysis of every unit we saw together. Second, he's extraordinarily hardworking. Through the multiple months we searched, he conducted regular research for us, checked in with us regularly, and immediately answered all of our questions. Third, he's extremely honest and we came to have full confidence in his advice. Early in the process we saw a unit we wanted to buy. He could have easily encouraged us to buy it or even just made no recommendation--we would have bought the place and he would have made his commission. Instead, he told us why he believed the unit was significantly overvalued and did not meet all our needs. He counseled patience instead. Later, thanks to Charles, were able to find a much better fit for us. We are not alone, incidentally, in being impressed by Charles. After one walk through, a seller's realtor told us that we had a fantastic realtor. We agree entirely. read more

I would give Charles more stars if I could. My husband and I started working with Charles when we unexpectedly decided to make an offer on a condo and had no broker. Charles was a pro through and through and provided us with guidance, thorough market analysis and a voice of reason in making our decision and offer and throughout the ENTIRE process. I can honestly say that I would not feel as confident about our decision as I do without having worked with Charles. I highly highly recommend him and believe he has to be the best broker in Cambridge. read more

I rarely take the time to really write something from my heart on YELP, but Charles Cherney is simply an extraordinary real estate broker for the Cambridge/Somerville area. If you want clear comprehensive guidance on the current conditions and expectations of the market in this area call Charles. I lived in Cambridge forty years ago, but am on the West Coast now, and needed someone with expertise to guide my son, a graduate student at Harvard, in buying a place walking distance to where he will be working for the next 6 years. I picked up the phone and blindly started dialing different real estate agencies. I placed 5 calls to local realtors and only got voicemail. I decided to make one more call and just wait for the others to call back. Charles answered immediately and was available to spent ample time orienting me to the current real estate conditions in the area. Charles then contacted my son and began working with him. In an extremely competitive market with very low inventory Charles was able to find my son a perfect starter home within a few weeks. Charles was on top of the market before anyone else, masterfully guiding my son through a bidding war on a place he loved, and was able to close the deal in my son's favor even with higher offers. Charles has done his homework for you. He is on top of the game, and can guide you with his extraordinary calm and professional manner. He does this with enormous honesty and integrity. I can think of no greater praise for a realtor, and would highly recommend him to anyone who wants to get the job done in the most expedient way. Cambridge was a highly competitive and difficult housing market when I lived there 40 years ago, and it appears that it has only gotten more so as time has passed. I feel blessed to have found Charles Cherney to have so masterfully guided my son. It is without reservation that I recommend him to help you. read more