Liberty Real Estate Co.

My roommate and I had a good experience with Joe Cellucci. I found a posting for an apartment on Craigslist that lead me to him. He meet with my roommate and I and showed us a couple of apartments. We decided to go with the posting I had found online and he worked with us to get me a garage parking spot and met with us several times to get all the paperwork handled. Overall it was a pretty good experience as far as apartment renting experiences can go in Boston.

So I’m going to let you in on a little secret– there are databases with thousands of available properties in the Boston area. These «Brokers» simply smack their logo on a Craigslist ad, post the photos of the property, and put it up on the site. Simple as that. Right?
I inquired about an apartment back in January and was directed to Dave. Dave said it wasn’t available… then it was… then it wasn’t…then showed us a property that was absolutely filthy and overpriced. We still had our heart set on the property we inquired about and managed to see the place on a whim when another broker was there showing the property… at the end of the day the place was available and the landlord wanted to meet us… then didn’t…then did. At this point we were growing tired of the uncertainties and stressed beyond capacity. Because we are all young professionals, we had standards– laundry, parking, etc. We wanted a decent place. Well Dave told one of my roommates that she was picky and «born with a silver spoon in her mouth». First, you don’t say that to ANYONE you are trying to lease a property to. Extremely unprofessional.
Dave also thought he could call any time of day as well as text. I specifically said I wanted to communicate via email (to have a record) and could talk about 5:00 PM. I just started a job and my phone was constantly going off, when he simply could’ve emailed me.
So we moved forward with the process and needed our backgrounds checked, including a credit check. My other roommate didn’t have the hottest credit, so Dave took it upon himself to call her father (whom she put as the contact on her application) and lecture to him that he should teach his daughter about managing her finances. Yes. He went there. When her father backed out of co-​signing for her, Dave proceeded to call her mother, ask her personal financial questions (such as how much she makes a year), etc. Now he pissed off BOTH her parents. I called him and pretty much put him in his place (without threatening with a lawyer).
Long story short, her father eventually signed. Then we could move forward with the lease. Again, back and forth and finally we had enough. I told David we were out and fed up with the time it was taking to sign the lease, to the rude remarks he made to both my roommates (at this point I felt horrible because I inquired in the first place). The property manager eventually called me and asked me what the issue was. I spoke to her and we both agreed we would cut out the middle man (Dave) and execute the lease without him. Which we did.
Well we still had to pay the broker’s fee, and Dave did not forget at all and continuously pestered us to get to him. We were going to fight it and tried to by asking for a copy of the application to provide to a lawyer, which he never did send (even though we requested numerous times). At the end of the day we just agreed to forget it and put it behind us.
To this day, though, we still think that Dave did NOT deserve that chunk of change (1 month’s rent=broker’s fee) and would never recommend Liberty Real Estate to anyone. Two stars because he ensured one of my roommates that there was reliable transportation to downtown at the end of our street. He knows his public transportation. But I think we could’ve figured that out on our own.
When it comes to finding an apartment in Boston, don’t go with a Broker. Period. Find out who the owner is and contact them directly. Brokers are worse than landlords.

Probably the worst company I’ve ever dealt with in my six years in Boston.
Avoid them like the plague. Plain and simple.

Joe Celluci is the WORST. He is an aggressive salesperson and uses every and any tactic he can. He will start with something outrageous and then come down to make you think he gave you a deal but is not. He is like a hawk, ready to pounce at anything you say to use it to his advantage. He’ll try to squeeze every penny out of you for commission and it is exhausting arguing with him. All he wants to do is make as much money off of you as possible.

I saw an ad for a studio and e-​mailed the poster immediately. I heard back relatively quickly and Joe Cellucci seemed pretty nice in person. When he took me to the apartment, though, it was seriously a dump. There were major holes in the wall – gashes, not tiny pinpoint holes – and he couldn’t tell me if or when the walls might be fixed. I tried to ask if I moved in, could it get taken care of immediately, and he was very non-​committal, saying he really didn’t know. He told me this was the best I could find for my budget (I wanted to spend a maximum of 1450) and it would go really fast because it was a great studio. When I said I would think about it for a few days, he told me it would definitely be gone and then left me outside on the street, not even driving me back to his office. I was heartbroken at the thought of moving into such a trashy place, but that evening a different realtor, from a different company (Kunevich and Lau) showed me seven different apartments that all fell into my price range and were all lovely. Steer clear of Liberty Real Estate.

Ugh. This place was awful. When my roommates and I first signed our lease the man we dealt with at Liberty was decent, a little pushy, even for a realtor, but nothing terribly unexpected.
Fast forward to two years later when we decided not to renew and we had a very different experience. They realtors showing the apartment were rude when calling to inform us that they would be bring potential renters over and routinely didn’t give an appropriate amount of notice.
Things became even more difficult when it came to orchestrating the always-​dreaded September 1^st move. While we had worked something out with our landlords so that we could move the morning of the 1^st, the realtor we spoke with very rudely informed us that legally we needed to be out the day before and then flippantly complied with our request to stay until the following morning.
Moving is already stressful enough and, frankly, Liberty Real Estate just makes it worse.

I responded to an ad on craigslist, posted by one of their brokers, Joe Cellucci. He responded quickly, promptly set up a time convenient for us to look at the apartment, and even picked us up from school which saved us a good half hour of public transportation time. He mentioned one other apartment that he thought we might be interested in, but it wasn’t what we were looking for, and he didn’t try to pressure us to see it. We loveed the apartment and he was nice enough to hold off on showing it to other people who had called about it for the rest of the day while my friend and I seriously thought about it/​get the go-​ahead from our parents. He told us as much as he knew about the building and the management; it seems like he’s been doing business with them for a long time. Joe was very laid back, definitely not overaggressive in trying to make us sign right away, and was even flexible about how much money we had to pay upfront. Despite the fact that we’re still undergrads, he didn’t treat us poorly or try to take advantage of our minimal experience in renting. In fact he was probably even more helpful — he got the overall rent dropped down, pushed back the start of the lease by over two weeks (the apt was available immediately, he’s got us an April 15 start, even though we don’t really need it until May), and is giving us the keys early so that it’s possible for us to move-​in on a weekend.
I did find it a little odd that he didn’t have (or at least give) business cards and that Liberty Real Estate doesn’t seem to have a website. I was never actually at their office so can’t make any judgments on that or on the rest of the company. We only dealt with Joe, who was fantastically easy to deal with.

A truly skeezy place to go to find your real estate. I ran into the jackasses here through a sublet. I was renting from a man who was leaving a nice place in Brookline. Liberty Real Estate insisted on a credit report from me, even though the man from whom I was subletting would be the one paying the rent, and I paying him. On top of that they insisted on charging me a ridiculous price (three digits) for the check, which is probably a free service for them. On calling the office I ask if this was necessary and got a snotty, «well that is what my time is worth,» in reply. I’m glad the man moving out agreed to pay the fee because I wanted to punch the man in the nose.
When I went over there in person to sign the lease, the snot-​worker treated me like shit in general, and gave me a hard time because I was a student on loans, and was not having my mommy or da-​da co-​sign the lease.
The second star is there only because they do have a decent cleaning service to do the apartment halls, even though they use chemicals that make it impossible to breathe.
If looking for a realtor in that region, there are many skeeze places like this one, so watch out from whom you rent.