My son is taking a lease over this fall in Amherst. Holly has been super helpful to me throughout this process!!!

My experience with Kamins was a huge disappointment and completely showed me how businesses like this take advantage of college students, who need guarantees for their housing. My family needs a large house and there are 2 available in my town. We were denied and called liars because we were not aware of 2 marks on our housing court record from 18 years ago. I messaged the owner who happens to be close friends with my current landlord to whom he said No exceptions! I never heard back from him. This is a huge part of what's wrong with the world! People want to hold the past against you. Why? People change and thank God everyone isn't like this man otherwise no one would ever be given a chance!! I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone. read more

Terrible communication and unorganized. I requested information on a rental a month ago and filled out an application and did not hear anything back. After reaching out for three days they finally answered our call and said the rental was taken, which I understood. I had a different house which I found before it was listed (through the current tenants FB post) and we filled out everything we needed to (before it was listed) and were told we were approved, then we were told that another agent showed someone and our agent didn't know anything about it and I have not heard anything from them since. The current tenant was nice enough to reach out and let me know the person they showed it to after us had signed a lease. Extremely disappointed on how it was handled and will not be renting from them. read more

If you have the pleasure of working with Holly or Brad, you will be delighted. They are both pleasant, knowledgeable, and very helpful.

Absolutely rude, terrible and very upset at the way things are handled. They blame the resident/owner for everything and take NO reponsibility for any issue. They manage Green Leaves Condominium complex in Amherst and are unprofessional in all manners. Don't have correct information on who is responsible for what, no help if you lose keys and now they do not have replacement key fobs as the ones they have now are no longer being made and NO upgrades have been done so how is someone supposed to get into the building to get to their own home be it an owner or a renter? Rude people who don't seem to care about anyone except I will say Eddie who works for them is very nice but the rest need to go and a new company hired to manage this place. A very high turnover of people selling due to expensive costs, poory built and they have cut corners in the buildings that were constructed. Tried to scam someone of putting in an older HVAC unit that was not even up to code and ended up being ordered by the Attorney General's office Consumer Protection to fix this and put in the correct one. When they came to put it in they did NOT have a permit to install and that owner refused to let them put it in until they went and got one for their protection and safety. A poorly run management company, rude people except for maybe one who not sure if they still work there or not. Hopefully we are going to get a new company very soon. I would NOT suggest anyone purchasing a condo here as they are overpriced, not constructed well and again cut many corners that at least at the start weree NOT up to code. Water leaking into units from poor drainage, burst pipe in attic which makes one wonder if there is mold inside the walls. No matter how nice they may look from the outside I would NOT recommend buying here at all and many are leaving due to all these issues. read more

This real estate doesn't even deserve 1 star. In the middle of COVID-19 emergency, they work from home and never pickup office phone. They only care about the real estate fees and don't care about the ten dents. Every time I contact to them via email( since they are no picking up the office phone ) they never reply the email. Their agents work only with private number ( no caller ID) which is totally unprofessional. In the middle of pandemic, students moved out and tried to transfer lease, they still asking the termination fees, more than that we have to find our own way to get new people. read more

I would give them 0 stars if possible. When we moved in to our apartment, there was no shower. It had been ripped out and not replaced. Thankfully I was only moving in furniture over the summer and not living their full time, though it did take them about 3 weeks to install a shower. It took 6 weeks and 5 work-order requests to get a new bathroom fan (which was also broken when I moved in). Now there is mold everywhere and I am sure they will charge us upon move-out. They do the absolute bare minimum and try to catch you off guard with ridiculously expensive repair and maintenance bills. I can't think of one single thing they have done to help or making things easy in 2 years I have been involved with them. A total nightmare. They came in to our apartment over spring break and left multiple lights on for an entire week, and when we called it in they denied it. Hopefully the owner reads this and makes some changes. I believe that they assume college kids in Amherst are easily duped/ don't know what is going on, and they screw them. Unfortunately, they have somewhat of a geographic monopoly over the market. Can't wait to get out. Thanks for nothing, Kamins. read more

In summary, they are unprofessional and disrespectul, and will try to violate the very terms of the leases they created. They have no regards for clients. read more

Kamins, specifically Tom, was always quick to respond to any issues within the property I was renting. Additionally, the property was well maintained and cared for prior to my group moving in. Overall, I had a very positive experience with Kamins Real Estate and highly recommend doing business with them. read more

Kamins real estate is the worst apartment complex I have ever had to deal with. All the documentation they have is written on paper, they do not answer there office phones/ if you need maintenance be ready to wait several hours just for the phone to be answered, they offer laundry rooms which are very dirty and only contain one washer and drier which are also dirty. The trash piles up over the week and will leaving the dumpsters overflowing which leads to a massive mound of trash and bugs surrounding the garbage area , the doors are very old/ weak allowing easy access and noise into your living space, there are constantly cops/ent/fire in the complex along with this they say everyone MUST have a parking pass (1 per resident) or they will get towed even though the lot has plenty of spaces which leaves friends and family checking their cars. Along with this some one hit and run my car in the lot. Would HIGHLY recommend staying away from Kamins real estate. read more

This is the most disrespectful, scammy, disgusting company I have ever had to work with. Here is what went wrong with our house: -the house was disgusting when we moved in. Like others, kamins promised the House would be clean when we moved in. We had to vaccuum and sanitize the entire house and kitchen, which had GREEN SLUDGE in the cabinets. I still don't know what it was. there was also mice poop in our kitchen drawers. It was disgusting and we couldn't cook anything until WE cleaned the house. - a tree fell on our roof. kamins never repaired the roof, and instead opted to remove the entire garage that we paid for in our rent. We paid for a garage that we didn't have because of this. - extensive mold and dust. I had horrible contact dermatitis the entire time I lived in this house because of the mold. It was debilitating. maintenance came to bleach the basement, but the entire house was filled with mold, and 3/4 roommates had eczema while living here because of the health hazard. -mice and bugs. multiple times mice and rats ran across our kitchen while we were cooking. We are clean people, and when we told maintenance this, they sent a man to "look at" the perimeter of the house to seal it, and instead he just left a box of mice traps on our dining table and did nothing To seal the house. -our roof leaked in one of the bedrooms and was growing black mold and caused water damage. kamins didnt come to repair it until the day before we moved out. - the maintenance men they sent would raise their voices at us when we disagreed with their "methods", and got too close for comfort. Most of the time maintenance shows up unannounced and early in the morning. It was disrespectful, rude, and gross. -lastly, 2 months after having moved out, I am STILL trying to cash my security deposit. The check they sent me never hit my account, and I am now having to ask Kamins to reissue me a check Because the bank will not accept theirs, probably because they lied about when they sent it. we were supposed to receive the check 1 month after we moved out, and I received it 7 weeks after that point. the housing market is abysmal as is, and kamins is using their monopoly on the amherst housing market to cash-in on desperate college kids. This company should be shut down for the health and safety concerns they've caused so many people, and for lying about the dates on their checks. I am so disgusted with Kamins. Do not live in a home managed by them. read more

They keep all their records on paper ledgers (quaint, and useful in case of an EMP attack from Soviet Russia, but otherwise kinda annoying) and I've gotten into a few rent disputes with them. For possibly reasonable reasons (they usually rent to low income folks and college kids) they just assume that you can't pay your rent until you can prove otherwise. They are not all that great on repairs but usually responds within 48 hours; great for maybe a broken washing machine, but horrible for something like shit flooding into your apartment---that didn't happen to me but has happened to folks who lived in the same complex as me. The maintenance people, though, are very friendly and are overworked, so they shouldn't be blamed for problems and it's usually the management's fault. They are why I'm giving Kamin's 2 stars instead of 1 star. read more

There are very few choices when it comes to renting an apartment in Amherst. Here are some pointers when renting from Kamins. Take pictures of everything. Walls, windows, doors, ceilings, inside of the refrigerator and the oven, cabnets inside and out, (anything you can think of that they could charge you to fix unless you can prove it was that way when you moved in). Be prepared to be charged for something when you leave out of you security deposit. For example; cracks in glass which in old homes happens, oven not clean enough, missing refrigerator parts that were never there etc. Check the furnace make sure it works properly. When there is an issue, be prepared to wait. Good luck. read more

We got an eviction notice and were very confused because we had all been paying our rent. We had to go into the office and ask for records of our payments which then made them realize they had been applying all of our checks to a completely different property, not even in our complex. We had many issues with them, like promised bathroom renovations that were delayed for months, and the above was just one of them. read more

They are the absolute worst business I have ever dealt with. EVER! I have been dealing with them for two years with renting the same house from them, and believe me, if this house was not the most perfect house (which has NOTHING to do with them btw! If anything, the only bad things about this house were caused by KAMINS!). Anyway, I have way to many sob stories about them to go into detail, but just want to warn everyone- do NOT expect to every be treated fairly there and do not expect the people there to have any courtesy or business sense. Make SURE that you get a receipt for everything you give to them- even if it means going in every month with a rent check, bill, etc. They will try and screw you out of every last penny and they have no regard for the contracts/leases that you signed. Just one example so I can get it off my chest: I have had a lease for this house for the past two years, both separate leases. I won't even go into what we had to go through last year. Anyway my lease is up at the end of this month and then I'm done with the house since I have graduated and moved on from the area. I paid first months rent, last months rent, and security deposit when I moved in. I just got a call from my past roommate who is staying on in the house (with a completely different group of people and a COMPLETELY NEW LEASE) informing me that we have not paid our rent for this month (... in other words, my last months rent, which I paid for a year ago). I called Kamins and was informed by the *very rude word* who worked there that I was responsible for contacting the new people living there and getting their last months rent for this new lease and then sending Kamins that for MY last months rent (which I already paid). In other words, the last months rent that I paid a year ago will now be going to this new tenant who I have no idea who he is or how to get in contact with him, to be put towards his last months rent. I do NOT understand how this makes any sense since as of the end of this month, my contract with them is over. Oh, AND it is my responsibility to get my security deposit back from this other tenant who I don't know because my current one that Kamins has will now be counted as his security deposit. WHAT'!!' As far as I'm concerned, it his not my job to do this- it is Kamins job and the job of this new tenant. ANYWAY! In conclusion, DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT deal with Kamins Real Estate in Amherst, MA if you have any option not to!!!! Read more: http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/MA-Amherst-Kamins-Real-Estate-964506.html#ixzz0NoVtsYNn read more

Rented me a fucked up apartment and then took my security deposit when I left for it being fucked up like I got it. Criminal.

This is by far the most unprofessional set of professionals I have ever had to deal with in my entire life. First of all, their properties are rediculously overpriced. My rent is $1,300/ month and when I moved in I probably had about 50 things that were wrong with the place. I didn't even have room on the slip of paper where you write the broken things for their records for when they decide whether or not you get your deposit back. When I moved in in June, there were multiple things wrong with the kitchen, but was told it would be renevated in July so I didn't even bother putting in maintenance requests for that stuff. When July passed and nothing was done, I starting calling once a month asking when the renovation would be done. They kept giving me bullshit exuses and the renovation wasn't complete until the first week of December. When they called me a week before the renovation was about to take place, they didn't inform us that everything in the kitchen drawers and cabinets needed to be cleared out when maintenance was set to come. Also, they had been telling us for months that the renovation would take place shortly and it took them six months, so obviously I didn't believe them when they said it would be happening in a week. When maintenance showed up the next Monday morning at 7 am, we had to hurridly throw all of our kitchen belongings in the living room. The two things that needed to be fixed/replaced in the kitchen were the stove/oven and the fridge; they were the only two things not fixed/replaced. I have called multiple times about the stove being broken and they fix it so it works for about a week and it breaks again. They own an absurd amount of properties in Amherst and the surrounding communities, and have hundreds, if not thousands, of clients. Yet their hours are 9-4:30 Monday-Friday. They "do things old-fashion" which really means they refuse to enter the 20th century. Not the 21st century; I mean the 20th century. Any sort of business that needs to be done with the company requires you to show up at the office and literally the most inconvient time for the majority of the American population. People work 9-5 and UMass students have classes 9-5. If you're going to be open 9-4:30 Monday-Friday, you need to offer better solutions to your problems that don't involve showing up at the office. You can only pay via cash or check, and if you aren't in the Amherst area you have to mail that money in. $1,300 is a lot of money to just be willy-nilly sending it through the mail. With the amount of clients they have, the amount of profit they make, you would think they would offer some sort of electronic form of payment, but they don't. I was just recently informed that I needed to resign my lease even though I have already been living there a year. They never informed me of this, and found out through a roommate that was the only 1 of 3 of us that was contacted about this. On the 24th of June, I had learned that I needed to get this lease signed by the end of the month, but I work a 9-5 job like just about the rest of everyone else. When am I going to have the time to show my face and sign this contract? They refuse to fax anything or let my cosigner sign instead. Their properties are dump and their appliances are out dated. They will let tens of years pass before they do any sort of updates to their properties and when they do it is always the biggest inconvience. Just like just about every other landlord in the Amherst area, they know their clients are young sudents, so they assume they don't need to do much upkeep to their properties. All of Amherst excluding the resident (non-Student) neighborhoods look like a dump and drive down real estate. They know they can get away with charging an arm and a leg for their properties because there is no other options. This is the worst, most unprofessional company I have ever come across in my entire life, and I wish I never had to deal with this sorry excuse of a business. I wish I could give negative stars. Not so sincerely, Stephanie Gendron read more

Let me start by saying if I could rate this agency -100 stars I would. Absolutely unprofessional to a tea. What an absolute disaster my time over the years has been with them. But I think this last year was enough for me. The agent we were assigned was nothing short of condescending and rude to us as we are literally paying her close to $2k a month as college students. The place was a legit disaster when we got there, and no one ever came to fix it for months. Management was beyond belittling and refused to answer us for days and weeks at a time. Getting our lease terminated was quite a process, and they would simply just not answer people interested in our apartment. Pandemic or not, they had all units fully rented and manage half or most of Amherst. So I don't feel bad. Shame this is how they take care of college students keeping them in business. Building was so outdated and the walls were so thin we literally had a $350 electric bill one month when we were not even present. Might as well have slept on the street. Not to mention half of the locks in the windows and house didn't work, so there's that. And don't even get me started with how I had to explain to a person at the front desk what first and lasts months rent was, and how our lasts month rent should be in an escrow account rather than sending us a further bill and eviction when we had literally moved out. Save your time and money! read more

Their policy that you have to have a co-signer from inside MA is absolutely ridiculous. I'm a fully independent college student and they refused to rent to me because I make less than $52k a year, and informed me I had to have a cosigner to even keep looking at properties. I a) don't know anyone who makes that much money and b) even if I did, they wouldn't be from MA because I'm from out of state. I even offered to pay my entire lease upfront (a landlord's dream!) and then was told "So, technically this isn't a six month lease...it's a 15 month lease with an option to get out early so you'd need to pay all 15 months upfront" ...mind you this had been listed as a SIX MONTH LEASE. Was listed as such on their website AND the Craigslist ad. These guys are sneaky, have terrible hours, AND have a captive market because there's not too many properties but a ton of demand from all the college kids...some of whom are fortunate enough to have rich parents. The only reason people are able to rent from them is because they have someone who is able to co-sign or are able to front thousands and thousands of dollars for their 15 month leases upfront. Pretty classist and biased against working class students, independent students, and working class adults. Save your energy and go elsewhere. I ended up getting a place with Eagle Crest- not a ton better but more upfront and let me pay an entire lease upfront. read more

PSA to anyone who wants to know about Kamins Real Estate: They are the absolute worst. Count on them to be; unprofessional/rude in customer service and dealing with renters, totally corrupt in billing (charged us $365 for a new hollow wooden door when the original was completely undamaged to begin with- they replaced it when no tenants were home so we couldn't stop this. The corrupt billing list goes on with a $140 fee to "clean stovetop and refrigerator" when both were in good condition, okay you get the point.) They lost checks frequently and would not cash them for weeks at a time. We rented from this company for two years and was hands down our worst experience we've ever had with our time in the Amherst area. I usually wouldn't write this but it is worth it if it stops even one person from going through this company if it is avoidable. Down with Kamins. read more

Rudest staff members ever. The ladies that work at the desk are extremely condescending, impatient, and overall terrible at their jobs. They fail to inform me 24 hours in advance when they are showing my apartment for renters for the next year. I never received a phone call and they just walked in on me. Unacceptable. I moved into the new presidential apartments and they said they'd have the new laundry building completed "within a couple months" when I moved in last September. It is now the END OF MARCH of 2016 and the building hasn't even been started in construction. Deceptive, liars, misinformed, whatever you call it - they don't treat the tenants with respect. read more

I'm surprised by all the terrible reviews. Just like anyone else I'm not a fan of expensive electric bills or yearly rent increases, but from what I've seen most places do raise the rent yearly, and your electric bill is between you and the electric company, not Kamins. My apartment certainly isn't perfect, but you get what you pay for. For the size and location of my apartment, especially being in a college town, I feel I got a pretty good deal. I do agree with another reviewer that they should upgrade/update the laundry facilities, they are very old, don't work great, and they're somewhat dirty, for something you have to pay to use. Better laundry alone would probably have bumped this up to a 4 star review. On the plus side, whenever I have interacted with Kamins they have been very friendly and helpful. read more

Cooperative and helpful. The Kamins staff is extremely helpful when it comes to any issues in my apartment and I know that they'll respond quickly and helpfully at any request. They're prices low for the quality of their apartments. I would recommend them to anyone I know. read more

Horrible experience. Fought with them for months to get a rotted cabinet removed, and any other repairs we needed took forever and multiple phone calls or emails. The location of the apartment was the only good part about it. Will never rent from them ever again, and will do my best to make sure everyone I know will not rent from them either. read more

One of the worst leasing offices in Amherst. They never communicate with themselves, so each person ends up telling you completely different things. They all think of convenient excuses just so that they don't have to do more work. Rent somewhere else if you can. I have had so many regrets and stressful situations during my renting process and I would never want to repeat it. read more

Kamins is literally the worst real estate agency I've ever dealt with. They do not care about your well being and all they want to do is ripping you off on rent and heat. I live in one of the apartments they manage. Aside from all the other things that made me mad, (disgusting laundry which they told us was free then we found out that we had to pay 3 dollars each time) the worse was when I came back from home after Christmas break, MY BATHROOM WAS TAKEN OUT. So apparently they started doing the renovation that was supposed to happen in October WITHOUT INFORMING ME. So I called them to ask if there's any alternative for me using the bathroom for you know, very important stuff everyone does daily, and the guy who answered the phone was being a total *******(you know what) and said "oh don't you have any friend that you could use their bathroom? Or get hotel room. There's nothing we can do for you." I got very upset and told them it was their responsibility to let me know when this was happening so I could have adjusted my plans. Then the guy just HUNG UP ON ME. yes he rudely hung up on me. Then the maintenance crew came two days later and finished up my bathroom in two days. (btw the maintenance people were really nice and sincere, they are the only part I like about Kamins) so for the five days with no bathroom, I had to take a bus to use a bathroom every time. It was a total nightmare which could've been easily prevented by them simply calling. And trying to get away from their responsibility was definitely not helping. read more

This company is basically a scam. They advertised apartments on Craigslist that they did not show us on our tour. The apartments were vastly overpriced and dirty and falling apart. An absolute waste of time, stay far away from this business. read more

Kamins is a terrible company to rent for and I warn you all not to do it! My house was beautiful when I first chose to rent it, so I was super excited about it and disregarded all red flags. Then, recently, I was trying to move out because I had problems with my roommates and they made my life a living hell. They told my roommates something entirely different than they were telling me, namely what we both wanted to hear, resulting in me being screwed over and almost not able to move out. On top of that, they threatened to fine me 800 dollars for trying to move!! They are rude, unprofessional, and never stick to the terms of their lease, which should be LEGALLY binding. On top of that, they make you pay for every little bill, including trash which is ridiculously expensive. Never rent from them if you can help it. TRUST ME ON THIS read more

DO NOT RENT THROUGH KAMINS. They don't care about tenants at all from my experience living in one of their properties. Had some issues with a broken oven and snow not being removed from the parking lot. They also cashed my September rent check and then only gave me half of my security deposit back saying that I still owed September rent. Now I am going through all this trouble to send them check images of the paid September rent even though this is THEIR mistake. read more

Stay clear of these thieves. I have dealt with four realty offices for my sons and while the conditions are sub standard and the amount they charge is a little overboard they all treated me fairly. This company should be ashamed of the way they do business. The house was full of mold and they charged for furniture that was left by previous tenants. Do yourself a favor and find another company to deal with. I placed a call with the Board of Health to look in to the mold situation. read more

Incompetent only begins to describe Kamins Real Estate. They will charge you ridiculous prices for poorly kept apartments infested with black mold. Their maintenance team is understaffed and they will not be able to accommodate you for your broken appliances. Worst of all, they will give you a false summary of the lease you sign and trick you into agreeing to stay longer and pay more than you intend. If you have the misfortune of signing a lease with Kamins, make sure to read EVERY DETAIL of the lease. Then read it AGAIN. read more

Crooked ass rental company. They charged us for things that were false, such as flea treatment when we didn't have fleas. They charged us nearly 200 dollars for repairing the blinds, which were broken when we moved in. They took our money that was meant to go to utilities, put it towards rent, told us we were "over in rent and under in utilities" and instead of moving that money to cover the utilities, they took more money out of our security deposit. They charged us for having to change the locks when we returned all of our keys. They charged us around 200 dollars for a water bill (when we typically payed 85). They told us it was our water usage, when that is literally impossible. No one is allowed to talk to Mr. Kamins ( you have to write a cover letter in order to even get a meeting with him, but he still won't respond to the letter). And then when it comes down to it, they told us that we can't dispute the water bill and that we will be forced to pay it even though it was more than twice as expensive as it normally is. FUCK KAMINS THEY ARE THE WORST PEOPLE TO RENT FROM IN AMHERST STAY AWAY read more

Kamin's takes advantage of college kids who don't realize what a real, real estate company should act like. They only care about getting as much $ out of you as possible. We actually had Kamin's try and evict us for our neighbors having a party. Despite no proof of us having a party which we didn't have we were put on 2 weeks notice. It wasn't until we ratted out our neighbors (who we liked) that we were allowed to stay. They also forced a Monopoly on the cable market only allowing you to get comcast which happens to be the most expensive cable in the area. When we left we had damages to 5 doors. They charged us over $1,500 for these doors. They were the cheapest ones you could buy at home depot. Also, when we moved in the house was not cleaned and was full of dust, dirt, and spider webs. Overall, avoid Kamins if possible. They are a terrible company and UMass needs to run they out of town because they make a living off of exploiting the UMass students. read more