Our City Realty 962 Broadway, Somerville, MA 02144

"Working with brokers in Boston/Cambridge is usually a nightmare, but Derek is gold. Refreshingly honest and willing to go to bat for his clients. Extremely responsive. Have worked with him twice (both as a tenant whose apt he was showing to people and as a client) and will happily do so in future."

"I think I had a similar experience as Nikki Pelonia a year ago. Fantastic apartment and great landlord but wish I didn't have to deal with this company to get the apartment. Maybe because it's either 'work with them' or 'lose the apartment' they don't feel as pressured to improve but reading the new reviews since last year it seems like others have had issues with Nate H. I worked starting with Derek but then was passed on to Nate, who was new at the time, because Derek went on vacation. Due to constant miscommunication from Nate and pressure to get checks to them throughout the process, it felt excessively stressful and inefficient, yes in addition to it being a "competitive market". The way Nate communicated with me made it seem like at any given moment someone could swoop in with the complete sign on application and grab the apartment right out from under us. Which may or may not be true and or standard but isn't part of having a realtor supposed to make the process less stressful and go more smoothly? After finally securing the apartment which required literally 5 trips to their office to drop off and rewrite checks, I asked Derek if the realtor fee could be waived or subsidized and he reponded in a pretty rude way (literally just said "No" and then moved on with no acknowledgment or apology) saying he needed and deserved a vacation (completely not my point, of course we all need vacation time which I had to reassure him that he deserved a vacation) and even went so far as to say it was people like me/situations like this that made him need vacations. This all happened over text. After receiving that text I of course stopped responding and he tried to backstep by calling me (which I ignored as I did not want to fight with a grown man whose company's services had already caused me great stress) and then texting me it had been a typo. How do you accidentally type that statement lol. Then I find out later that he gone to the landlord, who we had not even met yet, and had told him we asked the landlord to cover the fee. This was not what I had requested at all and I think Derek knew this as I gave no indication I wanted the landlord to cover it nor would I expect him to as it was only this company I was unhappy with. If you can avoid working with this company, I would. I tried to give Derek feedback on my experience with Nate and was only met with excuses and retorts, no apologies or acknowledgements of the inconveniences dealt to me. I will say besides arguing over text with Derek, he was far better to deal with than Nate and the process went more smoothly when he got back from vacation. Final key hand-off was a little awkward but friendly and professional and Derek worked a lot with the landlord to adjust the lease to include some of our asks like making the porch usable. Hence the second star. I just wish the process could have been a bit more streamlined but more importantly that my feedback had been responded to more appropriately."

"Nate Hilbert was incredibly disrespectful and unhelpful in my search for an apartment. During the showing he was on his phone the entire time, standoffish, rude, had no helpful answers to my questions. I felt very unwelcome and as if I was bothering him despite this being his job. Thankfully the tenants were there to answer my questions because Nate had no idea at all. Later on, I requested a second showing and his retort was also rude and unhelpful. I am exhausted of entitled brokers who do the minimum so they can get paid. Broker fees should be illegal because clearly, they do not contribute much to the apartment searching process. I would never recommend this company to anyone."

"Such a great experience! Noah was super helpful and quick to respond on all my inquiries on the apartment. The application process was smooth and thoroughly explained. Would definitely rent from Our City Reality again and probably buy my first house with them in the future. Highly recommend!"

"Got to work with Andy. Honestly, Andy is the only realtor I've ever worked with that I felt actually deserved compensation. He actually cared about my preferences and only showed me apartments that were actually what I was looking for, and was incredibly patient when some weren't quite the right fit. He even knew most of the landlords, which made me feel more comfortable with the places. 10/10 for Andy; in the future I'll only ever work with him and recommend him for all of my friends."